{"id":1673,"date":"2017-07-27T08:30:58","date_gmt":"2017-07-27T12:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/?p=1673"},"modified":"2017-07-19T20:06:36","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T00:06:36","slug":"guter-mann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/guter-mann\/","title":{"rendered":"Guter Mann"},"content":{"rendered":"

This city is so peaceful. As the bikes whiz by, I notice the absence of the cacophony and polluting fumes of traffic. I\u2019m walking down the sidewalk in brown leather shoes and a tucked-in dress shirt while eating bougie gelato. I love gelato. I look up and notice the blue sky. It\u2019s a deep blue and the clouds have distinct borders. I\u2019m in Salzburg, Austria for a conference and I\u2019m loving this city. Just as I marvel at\u00a0the clean streets and begrudge\u00a0the abundance of luxury vehicles, I turn the corner and see my sister on the floor asking\u00a0for money. I immediately cross the street and\u00a0reach in my pocket to hand her the change I received at the gelato stand. My sister is donning the flag of Islam on her head and I greet her with the anthem of Islam, a greeting of peace.\u00a0She smiles and\u00a0says, \u201cAllah yijzeek al-khayr<\/em>\u201d – God reward you with the\u00a0good. As I\u00a0walk away,\u00a0I smile at the beauty and seamlessness of our interaction.<\/p>\n

I continue walking back to the conference hall. I review my rehearsed\u00a0words as I finish my gelato. My presentation is on the data I generated regarding the\u00a0controversial use of bisphosphonate anti-resorptives in the setting of chronic kidney disease mineral bone disorder. The nephrologists in the crowd won\u2019t be too thrilled. In my head, I am considering all the different questions I could be asked, when I see another of my friends on the corner of an intersection. As I approach him, he brings his hands together and bows his head. When he raises his head again, I smile at him. I don\u2019t have any more change so I reach into my pocket and hand him 5 euros. He has a cup in front of him, but I decide to hand him the money. I think this might make the money more of\u00a0a gift than a charity. I can see hurt in his eyes as he tries to find a way to thank me. Reaching out I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze, pointing up with my other hand, trying to tell him that I will pray for him. While my hand is on his shoulder, he turns his neck and kisses my hand. I say, \u201cNo, no!\u201d and withdraw my hand. I feel ashamed.\u00a0I know I should be the one kissing his hand for accepting my miserly gift of 5 euros while knowing full-well that I have another 10 laying comfortably in my pocket. Ten euros that I will, over the next couple hours, undoubtedly spend on a sacherwurfel<\/em> from the bakery next to my fancy hotel and then on another helping of overpriced gelato.<\/p>\n

Lost in my thoughts of embarrassment, I begin to walk away, and as I do, he yells in German, \u201cGuter mann!<\/em>\u201d – good man. Halfway across the street, I think to myself, I may not be a good man, but I\u00a0have the opportunity to try, and so I turn back around.<\/p>\n

Ten euros was all the money that I had left on me. But\u00a010 euros was all it cost to earn the respect and love of a man I had only met minutes ago. Excitedly, the man begins to talk to me in German. His name is Damien. (We spend a good 5 minutes on my name. I would say, \u2018Mo-ham-mad\u2019, and he would then repeat after me, \u2018No-han-nam\u2019). Damien is a father of 3 kids. He was doing well for his family until his wife lost her vision. He said, \u201cNow my heart is still good, but children\u2019s stomachs are empty, so my hand is outstretched.\u201d<\/p>\n

I notice the tears in my eyes. I had never heard German spoken before, and I shouldn\u2019t know what he\u2019s saying to me, but I understood every word. Home is where the heart is, and this man is my neighbor.\u00a0As I leave Damien for the second time, I point up again and then turn my palms up to the Heavens\u00a0in prayer. He says, \u201cAllah.\u201d And I repeat, \u201cAllah.\u201d<\/p>\n

On my second day in Salzburg, I take the long way to the conference center, hoping to run into my friend Damien. I turn the corner and there he is, sitting at the end of the block. My stride lengthens and my steps quicken. As I approach him, I see him leaning left and right, squinting his eyes; he\u2019s trying to see if it\u2019s me. He leaves his corner and yells, \u201cNohannam!!\u201d while jogging towards me\u00a0and we embrace each other as brothers and lifelong friends. And as my neighbor and friend embraces me, I realize I may not be a good man, but Damien is willing to show me how to become one.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit:\u00a0Sam Rodgers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This city is so peaceful. As the bikes whiz by, I notice the absence of the cacophony and polluting fumes of traffic. I\u2019m walking down the sidewalk in brown leather shoes and a tucked-in dress shirt while eating bougie gelato. I love gelato. I look up and notice the blue sky. It\u2019s a deep blue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":1674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[201,408,1,407,9,16],"tags":[256,135,130,117,134,283,124],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1676,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions\/1676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themspress.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}