Passing for German

Just keep your mouth shut. They'll never know you're not German, you don' t belong. The facial features, the haircut, the nondescript, dark-colored clothing don't really give you away. There really isn't much need to speak to anyone anyway. You park your bike, walk past the kneeling beggar, ease through the side portal, grab a red hymnal and slip into a pew. There are no greeters, there's no one to shake your hand or give you a worship book. If there is a folded program it may be generic and therefore you still may need to refer to one of the wall displays to see which page numbers are assigned on that Sunday. It's easy enough to moderate your singing voice to the degree that people around you will never actually notice your pronunciation is a bit off. You can fudge it. As for liturgy, just modulate or moderate which ever suits your fancy. The tricky part is the unread, the rote part which you don't actually know yet and may have to search for in the worship book. It took a while to figure out that the "Lord's Prayer" and the Apostolic Creed are right inside the back cover of the book. But having to follow along on the printed page doesn't necessarily pinpoint you as a non-German. You could be a child for example who isn't brought to church very often or an adult who appears at worship once every ten years and has lost touch with some of the ritual. And don't worry, no one is going to ask you to turn to your neighbor in the pew and "pass the peace". That simply is not done at the Apostelkirche. But the money-changers have entered the church and set up their wares on a table in the back. You can buy fair-trade goods and in particular you can buy red wine from other parts of the globe. What would the folks back home say to that?! There is one tricky moment when you pass by to shake the preacher's hand and say: "Auf wiedersehen", they may realize you are not German. You may lose your cover. But I have never actually had anyone say any more than that to me at church. So I figure I may have "passed" for German. Au contraire: on the other side of town there is a place where there is not a chance in hell I could pass for German. Everyone in the building knows who I am even if I don't have a clue who they are. Just the other day at school I found myself accosted by a lovely little grade seven girl, a girl I don't recall ever having spoken to previously, who wanted to know why I had been sent out of the classroom. Had I gone out voluntarily? Class was just beginning and it just didn't seem right to her. She was eagerly awaiting her Latin teacher and knew that I was the one teaching French in the grade 7 classroom next door. I gently explained to her that the pupils were planning a surprise for Mme Stout and therefore they had asked me to exit for a few precious minutes. But what amazed me most was as we continued our little chat and I ended up admitting I was looking forward to reuniting soon with my cats she said to me, "They are called Love and Light, aren't they?" Wow, how the word does get around and stay around! At some point during the year I had probably had that girl during "class coverage" and told her class a bit about my life in America and apparently, it had stuck. Over the course of the year I had visited various classes speaking on requested topics such as immigration, ethnic diversity in California, and taking part in study abroad programs. So, taken together with the multiple class coverage experiences, there must be a lot of kids who know me that I don't know at all. So at Paulinum it would be hard to be invisible. There is that one brief moment in the Teachers' Room though when a new face walks in and before I open my mouth, they might think I am German.