Sit down, pour yourself a cup of tea, get yourself comfortable and read on as I tell you a story set in a distant land of snow capped mountains.
Let me begin ... There once was a young couple living in the Austrian Tyrol. They might have been in their early 20's. Possibly poor, but getting by in their little village. He was named Karl, she was Augusta. He might have been a farm labourer, maybe she was a maid. Who knows? They were expecting a child. Let's imagine they were excited and a little fearful. It was possibly their first.
When the time came for the baby to be born the wife happened to be travelling on a train to Vienna. It was January, one of the coldest months of the year.Why she was travelling to Vienna is not known, whether this was an early delivery or right on time is not recorded, but somewhere along that journey the baby arrived, pushing out of her swollen belly and into the world.
What a start to life! Not a private hidden delivery in the comfort of home or a hospital, but a very exposed birth, surrounded by strangers who probably gathered round to help in whatever ways they could. Possibly a kind elderly lady who had born many children herself took the mothers hand and talked her through the birthing process. A little boy travelling with his grandfather may have watched in fear and trembling from his seat, scared of the hustle and noise going on right beside him. The train carriage might be crowded, warm and steamy causing the windows to condense over. Maybe the little boy wrote his name on the window with his finger trying to distract himself from the drama unfolding in the train carriage.
A young lady may have ran over with her coat and created a curtain to give the mother some privacy. The husband may have been wiping his wife's sweaty brow or he might have fainted and collapsed in the corner freaked out by the blood and the obvious pain his wife was going through. I expect he probably would have retreated and let the females take over. Maybe he wasn't even on the train, she might have been taking the journey alone, or with a friend. Who knows? But it started on a train on the way to Vienna. The baby was born, a little girl. They named her Maria.
I expect her delivery became the talk of the family. It would have been retold again and again amongst friends and family. " Did you hear about Frau Kutschera, she gave birth on a train!" The baby would be cooed over and loved. 'The train baby,' famous in her little circle of friends.
But then tragically when Maria was only ten years old she became an orphan. Again, who knows what happened to her parents. Were they killed by disease? Did they have a terrible accident involving an avalanche or a raging bull!? Just joking.
Who raised the little girl? An aunt, a neighbour. Or was she sent to an orphanage? Without the details we can make so many assumptions and create our own story for the abandoned child. But whatever the truth, this very dramatic beginning seemed to set Maria up with a heart for the lost, the lonely, the hurting and broken hearted.
When she was 18 years old Maria graduated from Vienna's State Teachers College. She was qualified and ready for a sparkling career in teaching. But then a tug on her heart caused her to stop and make a decision to follow her first love. The one she had known as a frightened child. The one who comforted her and calmed her and gave her the love she needed as a young girl.
Maria decided to exchange her teaching for training as a Nun in Salzburg. She chose to enrol herself at the Benedictine Monastery, Nonnberg Abbey, set on a hillside overlooking Salzburg with an intimidating fortress looming overhead.
(Above, my photo of the Fort that resides over the Abbey.)
I went to Salzburg a couple of weeks ago and of course, the first thing I wanted to see was the Abbey where Maria trained.
It is still there, a small building chiselled into the side of a mountain. I took this photo of the current Nuns from a photo pinned to the noticeboard in the gateway.
Matthew & I sat down and ate a picnic lunch outside the front gate. This is the view from the wall outside the front entrance to Nonnberg Abbey. I can see why Maria would be drawn to the mountains. She looked out over to them every day.
"I will lift up my eyes to the hills - From whence shall my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth." Psalm 121
Since Maria had begun her career in Vienna training to be a teacher, it was a natural step to allocate her the job of teaching the eldest child from a large family of 7 children who had lost their mother to scarlet fever. Not only was Maria a good teacher, but she would understand the pain of bereavement. As the other siblings grew in age, she took on each one as a pupil. Their father, a widowed naval commander was 25 years older than Maria. Seeing his children's love for their teacher and her love for them, he asked her to marry him. Freaked out Maria retreated to the Abbey and asked for advice. Forget what 'The Sound of Music' movie portrayed as a budding romance ... the reality was that Maria didn't love the man and he was 25 years older, now that is a huge age difference!
Maria later wrote in her autobiography that on her wedding day she was blazing mad, both at God and at her husband, because what she really wanted was to be a nun: " I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children. I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after."
Learning to love is very different to falling in love. I think God sets us into families and communities to teach us this lesson. He puts us in relationships which we can decide to commit to or walk out on. The freedom is always there. The choice to work on Love or to slowly let the selfish gene work corruption into our relationships is a continuing choice we make every day. I like the fact that Maria chose to love this man. I like the fact she chose to submit to the advice of her superior. It is a poignant challenge to the sickly romantic notion of falling in love.
I find this very true in my own life. You don't fall in and out of love. The most painful relationships are the most rewarding but they also require us to learn to love more than we ever have loved before.
Maria's life was no fairytale. Her husband faced bankruptcy and unable to pay the bills the family retreated into a few rooms of their house, renting out the free rooms to bring in some money. It was during this period that the family learnt to sing together under the tutelage of one of their tenants. Meanwhile anti- semitism was growing in Austria and Maria watched in dismay as the Jewish families around her were persecuted. Later on the family fled to America. Somewhere in the middle there was a visit to Munich and an encounter with Hitler in a restaurant. And for a season Maria and 3 of her children served as missionaries in Papua New Guinea.
The reality is far more interesting and painful than the Hollywood movie and is richer as a result.
I arrived in Salzburg on the edge of Winter and beginning of Spring. There was still heavy snow on the mountains and no leaves on the trees. But the weather had suddenly turned warm and sunny. The birds were chattering away and I saw a few bravely defiant yellow butterflies flitting around in the sunshine.
Early on Sunday morning I walked out of the hostel where I was staying to explore the streets of the city before everyone woke up. It was cold and fresh but the sky was blue. As I walked past opulent shops and down cobbled alleyways, I began to notice that almost all of the people I was passing were carrying willow branches, olive leaves or interesting lollipop type floral structures. I had seen the lollipop trees the previous day in the market place and thought that it was possibly a Spring tradition.
If you look carefully in the photo above you will see the man and woman are carrying lollipop tree structures.
This couple are just carrying the olive branch. And look at what they are wearing ... for some unexplained reason I started seeing more and more local people dressed up in traditional Bavarian clothing.
I decided to follow the trail. Where were they all going with their tree branches? What secret ceremony might they all be attending? I had to find out. The only thing to do was to follow someone. I chose an elegant lady wearing a fur coat and shadowed her through a rabbit warren of backstreets. Keeping a respectable distance, I stopped when she stopped, pretending my shoe needed attention or I'd lost something in my pocket. I felt deceitful but I had to know what was going on. I couldn't let her suspect that I was actually following her.
We all ended up in a large square in front of a fountain.I wondered if this was going to be some ancient Spring festival involving water from the fountain, chanting and the waving of green leaves. I took a closer look at what everyone was carrying and was surprised to see pretzels tied in to the branches.
Weirder and weirder. What were we all doing here gathered together in large numbers in a public square next to a fountain, holding tree branches and ribbons and pretzels?
An elderly man came over and chattered to me in German, spraying me with spittle. I had no idea what he said... I imagined he was asking me if I too wanted to become a member of the Spring Blossom Pixie society. I wondered if I was about to be sprinkled with fairy dust. He put his hands over his ears and began to indicate that it was about to get noisy. I waited as the crowd swelled. There were couples and families in Bavarian attire. Lederhosen for the men and thick winter skirts for the women. People wore Alpine felt hats and some wore fur coats.
And then the bells started ringing, and the old man was right. It was earth shatteringly loud. Bouncing all over the city the bells rang shaking the ground beneath our feet. The bells signalled the start of something and everyone shifted from passive spectator to participants in some secret ceremony. The crowd began to move forward and created a passageway that led from the huge building to the right and out into the square over to the fountain. It looked like someone important was going to walk down the human corridor.
I was bemused. What was going on?
A choir began to sing, beautiful hymns lifted into the blue sky and a priest emerged from the church carrying a cross followed by men in robes carrying incense and candles. Of course, now I understood.... it was Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy week. Instead of the vegetation of palm leaves that grow native to the Mediterranean Middle East, the good folk of Salzburg were adapting to their own climate and carrying pussy willow and lollipop trees! We were all gathered to remember Jesus and His entry into Jerusalem. On Friday we would remember His crucifixion and on Easter Sunday, His resurrection. What a pleasant surprise, I was part of a public display of the Christian faith in Austria and not a secret Pixie festival!
So I left Salzburg inspired by the fact the people here still remember and love their God. From Maria and her sisters at the Abbey, to the good Bavarian folk of the mountains.
Photo credit - Austrian Tourist Board
Photo credit - Austrian Tourist Board