No matter what the setting, the first words spoken in a language class are the same:  a greeting, a question, and an answer, all scripted, without variation:

Good morning.   How are you?  I’m fine, thank you

Buenos dias.  Como esta usted  Muy bien, gracias

Bonjour.  Comment allez-vous?  Je vais bien

Buon giorno.  Come sta?  Sto bene, grazie

Guten morgen.  Wie geht’s?  Mir geht es gut

Dzien dobry.  Jak leci?  Bardo dobrze

Ohayo.  O genki desu ka?  Genki Desu Wo heng hao

Sabaah al-khayr.  Akhbaarak ed?  Ana bekhair

Sobh beh’khayr.   Hale shoma chetore?  Man ham khoobam

Jo san.  Nei ho ma? Wo heng hao

What answer we ever offer, given the context, could be more superficial, even trite, less revealing than “I’m fine”?  I may have a pounding headache, just lost my job, my life unraveling, my mood atrocious, but out the answer tumbles, “I’m fine.”  But those two words, those exact words, amidst a circle whose native tongues speak the language options listed above, took on a touching, powerful and profound tone.  I could not possibly, try as I might, convey the poignancy of the hour these paragraphs quietly narrate.  The setting was our Interfaith Group that gathers once a month for two hours on a Saturday morning, their nationalities and faiths revealed in the commentary.

Someone asked how my Mexican daughter-in-law was doing, who had been through a wrenching medical ordeal, four surgeries during a month’s hospitalization.  I told of an incident at 3 am the night she came closest to dying, just as she had shared it with me.  “I felt a hand on my arm, warm and gentle,” she said.  “And looked up to see the face of my father.  He said only this, ‘You will be fine.’  I knew as he said it I could die and be with him, or live and return home.  His saying ‘You will be fine’ did not mean I would survive the night.   From that moment, I could confidently say, and still can, I’m fine!”  Her father died nine years ago!

 “I know just what she means,” Mary Ann, a Quaker and a Buddhist, exclaimed.  “Five years ago I had a brain tumor. As the surgery approached the doctor told me candidly, ‘I cannot guarantee, or predict, that you will awaken from the procedure.’  I struggled with that fact and anguished how to tell my children.  Then, in meditation, a peace came over me.  And a clarity: whether I live or die, I’m fine! Precisely those two everyday words.”

Sara, a Presbyterian, was sitting across the circle, leaning forward, tuned in.  “Thank you, Howard and Mary Ann,” she began.  Eight years ago my husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor, possibly terminal they told me.  Fear overwhelmed me.  I prayed; no, I begged God; do not let him die.  The struggle was relentless.  Then one night, as sleep finally approached, I felt a peace.  I let go.  I put it in God’s hands.  And those two little words are exactly right.  I was able to say from the center of my being, I’m fine!

Two Jesus women sat either side of Mary and began a dialogue, recalling their wrenching struggle when they were first told of the holocaust, and tragic personal stories of relatives.  They spoke of a rage, unrelenting hatefulness that nearly consumed them.  They wanted any last perpetrators captured and executed.  But they also realized that resentment, justified as it was, would only consume them.  Slowly, step by step, each of their stories different yet similar, they chose forgiveness.  Though their sharing was un-rehearsed, they both resonated with that little, no longer trite or superficial, ever deepening phrase gaining currency among us, I’m fine! 

A young Muslim woman spoke next, of the death of her father, an awesome loss.  “But, knowing Allah is merciful, I pray for him each day that he comes each day closer to the heart of Allah.  I miss him still, but those moments of prayer are so healing.  These are the right words.  I am able to say with quiet certainty, I’m fine!”

A trio of Baha’is joined in, knowing we were mindful of the awesome persecution, frequent disappearances and outright assassinations of fellow Baha’is in Iran, none of their three families untouched personally.  Of all ironies, their faith’s commitment to non-violence and peace is a provocation  of the assaults against them.  “Our faith, and the teachings of Baha’u’ullah, and assurance of the presence of a loving God sustains us,” one of them affirmed.  “That allows us, no matter what confronts us in everyday life, or receiving troubled news comes from Iran, to say, if you ask, I’m fine!” she added.

A Confucianist among us, and a Sikh, did not speak but their smiling nods suggested they knew what we were talking about.

The gift of that morning has become a tiny ritual repeated through my days, a meditative interlude, when I realize I am either being unduly enthralled by the ease of the day or knocked off balance by its adversity, that beneath it all – because I am held in the embrace of a loving God – I’m fine!  And when I am asked that predictable and routine answer, I intercept my haste in expected response, pause, draw a mindful breath, so I can say with my heart, I’M FINE!