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International traveler speaks the language of the heart

by Beth Carey - from Spirituality.com

        A beggar woman with crutches kept a daily vigil outside Margie Hamlin’s hotel in Vietnam. Margie recalls, "She’d put her hand out, and I’d always put my hand in hers and shake it and say a few words in Vietnamese. She’d smile the sweetest smile. We’d hold hands for a minute. Then I’d go on."

        Margie, a long-time world traveler, is referring to her 1993 trip to Vietnam with her husband, Hank, and their daughter, Priscilla.

        Crossing the streets in Vietnam meant dangerous maneuvering between the chaotic paths of bikes, motorcycles and cars. The family always tried to cross with at least two other people. They looked straight ahead and let the vehicles avoid the group, rather than the group trying to avoid the whizzing vehicles. One night Margie was delayed, and faced the daunting task of crossing alone.

        “Suddenly,” Margie says, “I felt a hand on my elbow. I looked down and there was the sweet face of that beggar woman from our hotel, smiling and nodding. We started across the street. She used one crutch to walk with and the other to protect me. I said, 'You have the most beautiful smile.'

“She pulled me down and kissed me.”
        She stopped right there in the middle of the street and put both crutches and both arms around me. We stood there with all the bicycles and motorbikes zipping around us. She pulled me down and kissed me on both cheeks and left after I’d safely crossed the street. I never gave her a penny, but I gave her time and attention. I recognized her existence. What she gave me was beyond money."

        Today, Margie usually wears some kind of outfit from her travels—a blue Indian sari or African jewelry. Her career of nearly twenty years included advising international college students. Her work and travels have taken her to many countries: Bhutan, Vietnam, Kenya, Russia, Mexico, Turkey, India, among other places. Margie’s life passion is celebrating cultural diversity and taking her love of people to a universal level.

       "Every heart is receptive to kindness. I have never met a person in any part of the world who is not receptive,” Margie says. She believes to be accepted and loved on some level is important to everyone.

        Margie’s concept of God is the foundation for her ideas about universal love. She explains, “It seems to me each person needs to know there is love alive in the world, embracing them. We are all one, and are all beloved of one Father-Mother God who cares."

She feels she’s a part of that “universal family.”
        Margie appreciates the ideas about the universality of God’s family she’s found in Science and Health. There she reads that God is “…one Father with His universal family, held in the gospel of Love.” (See complete reference below.) That's the basis of Margie's approach to her experiences as she travels. She feels as if she’s a part of that “universal family,” and this family is united by the “gospel”—which can literally mean the “good news”—of Love.

        Margie confides though that it is not always easy to understand how everyone is cared for by this universal Love—especially in some of the underdeveloped countries she’s visited. She says, "Before I travel, I like to think, What am I going out to focus on? Am I going to see only poverty and disability, or am I going to see a member of God's universal family?" Sometimes when poverty or disability stares you in the face, you feel helpless. But Margie has endeavored to acknowledge more than just the surface of things in order to foster the universal love she wants to share.

“We’re friends now.”
        By that time his hand was down, and he was looking at Margie and talking. She said, "The young man brightened up. And I found myself saying, ‘You are so handsome. I’m so happy we had a chance to get together and talk a few minutes.'"

        Margie continues the story, "My husband was calling out to me. I reached into my pocket, and I had two Vietnamese bills (2,000 dong). I said, 'I'm not giving this to you as a beggar, but we're friends now, and I just want you to have this. We're leaving Vietnam, and I will not need it.'"

        She continues, "Amazingly enough, we had exchanged exactly the same amount of money. He was so thrilled that he had something to give me, as I had something to give to him. At that point, he didn't want money from me. Talking with me and visiting with each other was more important to him."

Margie wanted to say her own goodbye.
        Margie says, "Seeing radiance come out when you pay attention to someone is so rewarding.”

        Margie knows, whether at home or abroad, language doesn’t have to be a barrier. When it came time to say goodbye to the Samburu tribal woman who served as Margie’s hostess on a trip to Kenya, the translator stood by to help with the farewells. However, Margie wanted to say her own goodbye, so she went into the little smoky hut alone. Margie says of that farewell, "I kneeled down beside her and took her hands in mine and told her in English how much I appreciated everything she had done, and how I would never forget her all my life. When I got up to go, she started talking in Samburu, looking right at me. I felt she was saying we would always be welcome, and she would never forget me. We got up holding hands. We both knew we had communicated.

        In another of her writings, Mary Baker Eddy says, "When the heart speaks, however simple the words, its language is always acceptable to those who have hearts." Margie’s heart is certainly brimming with the deeper meaning of experiencing God’s universal family.
 

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