Murcia taught love can’t hide behind language

learning a – From a flu week in Murcia, Spain to a decade-spanning spiritual lesson in The Lost Princess, one English teacher learns that communication isn’t a courtesy—it’s a doorway into humility, friendship, and love that reaches across borders.

When she walked to the door—close to her elevator, close to the sheets that had fallen from a clothesline three stories up—the language barrier didn’t feel like a theory anymore. It felt like the moment someone knocks at your apartment when you’re sick, anxious, and alone.

In the spring of 2025, the narrator fell ill in Murcia, Spain. It wasn’t described as gravely dangerous, but it was enough to confine them to their apartment for a week. Thousands of miles from family. imagination took over: anxiety tightened and by the fifth day a profound loneliness had settled in.

They had come to Murcia for another kind of loneliness—one they chose. Two years earlier. they moved alone to teach English in a rural public school. where the bleating of sheep could be heard from the classroom window. Their apartment was under Murcia Cathedral. beneath the hourly ring of church bells and the constant presence of what they called the loving gaze of La Virgen María. bebe Jesús. and Los Santos from the cathedral’s heights.

Even with that beauty, they found living alone far from easy. The story doesn’t romanticize Europe as a fixed dream. They describe the fantasy many Americans carry—airbrushed couples sipping pinot noir on the Danube—and insist “nothing could be further from the truth.” Learning a language. they say. requires humility. Perfectionism, they write, stops you from learning because you have to make mistakes to improve.

So each day they swallowed pride and communicated in broken Spanish—with colleagues, roommates, and the clerk at the mercado. Making friends. they say. meant vulnerability: no pretending you’re not a foreigner. no hiding when you need help at the bank or to get to the doctor. They even link that feeling to other immigrant stories they picture closely: the Guatemalan migrant worker in Florida worried about being judged for her lack of English. and the Burmese sushi server in small-town America afraid he might not find a friend.

That is the emotional bridge into the central lesson they tie to fiction. George MacDonald’s The Lost Princess, they argue, shows how “respectable people” can have “cankers” in their souls—people who talk about justice and compassion while avoiding help to the neighbor right next door.

In their retelling, MacDonald’s fairytale follows two girls: Agnes the shepherdess and Rosamond the princess. Redemption, they emphasize, comes through an inward journey toward lasting freedom from sin. Agnes is “mild-mannered” and the pride of her parents—until she’s placed in the Wise Woman’s magical sphere and realizes a shadow self is slowly destroying her through conceit. They quote the doppelganger: a “little girl—heedless. ugly. miserable—staring at her own toes. ” with an “odious. self-satisfied expression.” As Agnes sees herself through that uglier mirror. the realization becomes unmistakable: she is “despicable in her own eyes. ” and is astonished she had never seen the truth about herself.

From there, the narrator turns the argument back toward their own life. They say that rubbing shoulders with people different from them—especially those who don’t speak their native language—unveils the doppelganger: the self that believes its small world is best. the spirit that demands the world cater to its hunger. the spoiled child who begs to be praised and treats inconvenience like a crime.

This is where their religion becomes practical. They write about moving toward theosis—climbing the ladder of divine ascent—and insist that even inconvenience and irritation are meant to refine them like precious stones. In their view. learning a foreign language and making consistent efforts to communicate with those who speak it natively cultivates godly maturity: humility. grace. and wonder. shaped into the facets of love.

When the flu came, that idea stopped being abstract. On the fifth evening of illness, they describe pleading: “Please God, just give me a job. Bring me someone to help.”

It wasn’t long after. Thirty minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

The visitor was a tiny old woman, mumbling something in Spanish. The narrator took a breath, hoping they could communicate. What unfolded is the scene that anchors the whole piece: the old woman lived alone with a nurse who happened to be away for the day. Her sheets had fallen from the clothesline three stories up, and she thought the narrator might have retrieved them. When she realized they hadn’t. she still allowed the narrator to gently guide her up the elevator to her flat.

Once inside, the old woman invited them in. She showed them her “tendedero,” “plantas dulces,” and spoke about her queridos—her hijos and nietos. The narrator looked at her little sala, with a brown rug, and smiled. They told her it was all lovely. The woman answered she was tired and old, but she had faith in God.

For the narrator, it became a kind of reversal. They left Encarna’s apartment “a step closer to heaven. ” writing that the fiend had disappeared with “¡Dios te bendiga!”—a blessing that the narrator says was mutual. They never saw Encarna again. Months later, a friend told them Encarna had passed away.

The narrator admits they didn’t understand Encarna’s Spanish perfectly. Yet they believe God enabled them to understand what mattered most: that the love of God and neighbor transcends language.

Their reading of The Lost Princess becomes a parallel to that experience. Agnes and Rosamond. they write. don’t get redemption in a single dramatic moment; they travel and work arduously for it. They also cite St. Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 about salvation as a process: “Moreover. brethren. I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you. which also you received and in which you stand. by which also you are saved. if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”.

They describe Rosamond being asked how she could love an “ugly. ill-tempered. rude. hateful little wretch” of herself—and the Wise Woman answering that she saw what Rosamond would become. “But remember you have yet only begun to be what I saw.” The Wise Woman. in their account. tested Rosamond’s character repeatedly. forgiving her when she came penitent.

After Encarna, the narrator says they didn’t instantly conquer their shadow forever. They’re still in need of the Wise Woman—still learning, still getting untangled. They say they’re still using Spanish to do it. And now that they’re back in the U.S. they believe the language they learned didn’t just add vocabulary. It gave them a new way of life. new expressions. cultural knowledge they didn’t have before. and the capacity to love foreigners more completely.

Their final image is both spiritual and intimate: if more American Christians took time to learn another language and make meaningful connections with immigrants. they would experience the grandeur of God more clearly—taste his goodness. hear his love calling in tones sublime. smell even his incense in “small acts of kindness” done for “the least of these.” They end with a conviction drawn from their central theme: where there is love and language. you will find the body of Christ.

Murcia Spain language learning immigrant experience cultural identity George MacDonald The Lost Princess Christian faith humility love spiritual maturity culture