From Trickles to Waterfalls

From Trickles to Waterfalls

She still remembered what she saw as tiny toddler.

“I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not blot out. If we have once seen, the day is ours.”

Many of you have heard of Helen Keller. Born in 1880, she was a normal and happy little girl from a small Alabama town. She could see and hear perfectly.

Helen as a girlHowever, before she turned two, the high fevers associated with meningitis made her blind and deaf. The sudden darkness and silence felt utterly nightmarish. She clung to her mother’s dress and had many tantrums from confusion and despair.

Months would pass.

Eventually she started to understand what was going on, using her hands to touch every object. She learned small ways to communicate: shaking her head for “no,” or nodding for “yes.”

A pull meant “come,” and a push meant “go.” If she wanted her mother to make ice cream for dinner, she’d shiver and point to the freezer. Still, she remained frustrated and disconnected from the world at large. It felt like being on a ship, lost in fog with no compass. She later wrote that the wordless cry of her soul was, “Light, give me light!”

Helen and Annie

Young Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan

Years would pass before the answer came.

From her autobiography, she noted…

“The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Sullivan, came to me. The light of love shone on me in that very hour.”

For what was about to happen was a miracle.

 

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Playing Scrabble With God

Playing Scrabble With God

Almost, Later, Better, Already. We say these words all the time, but to a three-year-old they have complex meanings. As language forms in a child’s brain, how do these kinds of nuances develop?

In reference to a stoplight, my three-year-old granddaughter said, “Yellow means it’s almost time to stop.”

In her longing for warm weather she said, “We can run through the sprinkler later, when the snow is gone.”

Toddler girl playing tea party with a dollAfter I suggested several ideas for lunch she said, “I have a better idea.” She wanted to have a tea party.

When saying goodbye after a fun day of play she said, “I miss you already.”

The mystery of language has always fascinated me, particularly the progression from concrete thoughts to abstract ideas.

Linguists for many decades believed that our “mother tongues” held us captive. If you grew up in an equatorial climate, your language might not include a word for snow. Would that limit your belief that snow existed at all? Probably not. One can imagine the idea of snow by looking at photos in a National Geographic.

Asian winter fashion man in snow mountain landscape. Wearing white hoody sweater with furry hat and gloves.On the other hand, if you were an Eskimo you’d have over fifty words to describe snow. You’d understand the difference between wet snow, powdered snow, crystalline snow, falling snow, fallen snow, snow that’s been on the ground for a week, not to mention sea ice, which is altogether different. Snow would be your world, and so you’d know its many facets and forms.

But what if there was no word for “grace” in your language. Would it be inconceivable? Would it affect how you dealt with offenses? Would there be alienation in relationships? Could you understand the centerpiece of Christianity?

In the late 1700s, Moravian missionaries arrived in northern Canada and discovered that the Inuit Eskimos had no word for “forgiveness” in their vocabulary. How could the Moravians explain such an profound idea to this people group?

Hands reaching for the skyThe missionaries ended up creating a phrase for the concept of forgiveness—ISSU-MAGIJOU-JUNG-NAINER-MIK. This odd sequence of words meant: “Not being able to think about it any more.” They formed an association between “forgive” and “forget” using Jeremiah 31:34— “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Thus the Eskimos grasped the meaning of the Cross and reconciliation with God.

Abstract meanings form because known words build upon other known words. And so people from different cultures can communicate.

IbiliBut language evolves, and maintaining connection with others requires constant learning. If you’ve ever felt left out in a conversation between teenagers, you know what I mean. Words like bromance, chillax, hashtag, and selfie are among 5,000 “millennial generation” words  recently added to the fifth edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, published by Merriam-Webster.

If we aren’t growing in language and communication, relationships suffer. And so it is with God.Continue reading

Interestingness

Interestingness

“Self-consciousness is the enemy of ‘interestingness.’” — Malcolm Gladwell.

iStock_000016049950SmallOne of the most beautiful things about small children is their lack of self-consciousness. They sing, dance, and whirl without pretext. Their shimmering self is uncloaked and skipping about with abandon. Spend some time with a three-year-old.

Jesus said we must become as children in order to see the kingdom. Yet, sadly, children are ‘older’ now at younger ages.

Author Marie Winn, in Children Without Childhood, wrote about the cultural changes and demands that put children at risk, causing them to grow up too early–things like family breakups, accessibility of drugs and premature exposure to sex and coarse language in books, movies, TV, and on the Internet.

I was privileged to be child for most of my childhood. In other families divorce happened, people drank too much, and sometimes adults fought. I remember the moment I heard JFK had been shot and watched Martin Luther King’s funeral. But those realities were mere shadows on the periphery of my otherwise sunny world.

HidingStill, sooner or later innocence is lost. And one kind of loss is the development of self-consciousness. While it’s good to know how your words and actions affect others, there is a dark side to self-consciousness that can become a lifelong tyranny.

Do you remember being unaware of yourself? A time when you didn’t know you didn’t have a hairstyle? A place of acceptance where any question could be asked? A season of dreaming and exploring and belly flops without embarrassment.

A shift comes.Continue reading