Very Like a Whale
Good Morning Friends,
Often times our reality is limited to the words we can use to describe it… one really has to experience it. Still words can help in ordering our thoughts anew around what we experience. Over the holiday break I went camping in the Everglades with my wife Amy. The mosquitoes were out in force….the alligators in abundance. On our second day out we took a car tour to visit some extended relatives and their friends on Big Pine Key. The travel was not as bad as we had anticipated, but one does get to appreciate why the traffic flow is called the snake. The place had the feel of a foreign country especially after we crossed the seven mile bridge. Locals and tourists have called the Southern Keys, the Conch Republic for years. Anyway, Amy and I spent the day with three couples. There was a 74 year old retired school teach and her husband, an 80 year old tenured University English Professor. They were visiting their son our host, an independent construction contractor and his partner of three months, who makes a living by taking natural formations and putting them together as accent pieces and jewelry. One of the older couple’s former foreign exchange students was also visiting. He is a Luxembourg rock star with hair that looks like he had gotten a spark from his amplifier. It was a very diverse group on people. Interestingly my conversation with the professor was focused on the challenge of communication in diverse groups, tribes, professions and in different languages. Finally we determined that when it comes to the language of space and place and purpose and people, oftentimes an intermediary is needed. I thought of Jesus and his compassion but he thought of Shakespeare and the influence of words that help us to imagine that a cloud is Very Like a Whale.
Scripture:
For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind,
Christ Jesus, himself human,
1 Timothy 2:5 (NRSV)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1 (NIV)
Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
John 9:40 (NIV)
And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
Genesis 11:6 (NRSV)
Yet Jesus tells us to love as he did: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
John 13:34 (ESV)
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Acts 2:1-4 (NRSV)
Message: Over sixty times in the New Testament we read the words “Jesus saw.” Most often these words refer not only to physical sight, but a perceiving with the mind or understanding. As for us we have limits of seeing constrained by the language we use but things are changing. Travel among groups who speak different languages has been difficult over history but now, we live in a world where we can board a plane at Southwest Florida Regional and land in China hours later and still hear English spoken. In a global world, it would seem that there be a benefit to speaking the same language… a noble cause for unity. Some groups have advocated that a universal language be adopted, but it would be difficult to find any group willing to give up their own language if only because so much culture and history becomes embedded within it over time. Attempts to create a universal second language have failed as well, thanks to the Internet’s influence, language has evolved so rapidly that it is almost unimaginable that we would ever speak just one. But today’s scripture obliges us to contemplate the possibility of communicating clearly no matter what native tongue we speak. And that brings us to today’s title. It is taken from a scene in Hamlet, in which the prince and the pompous court advisor Polonius look at passing clouds, each seeing different animals in the sky above. After having been cajoled into agreeing with Hamlet’s ever-changing interpretations, an exhausted Polonius concedes that the cloud is “Very like a whale.” You see Shakespeare was extremely good at having us look at one thing and see another. It was his gift of analogy. That’s why you might feel your head spin reading Shakespeare. It is why you might feel your head spinning in reading the Bible. The King, The Potter, The Builder, The Cultivator, The Storekeeper, The Clothier, The Shepherd, The Whale and Cloud are all analogies in the Bible. You start with one image and end up with something completely different. Good communication helps us to see that which we have missed before. Of course our native tongue is especially important, but also program and professional languages influence our minds in ways that may not be so evident. It is not because of what the language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about. For example Amy and I find it useful to use geographic directions when hiking in the Everglades, but the reality is that egocentric coordinates completely dominate our speech when we describe small-scale spaces. It feels so much easier and more natural for after all, we always know where “behind” or “in front of” us is. We don’t need a map or a compass to work it out, we just feel it, because the egocentric coordinates are based directly on our own bodies and our immediate visual fields. But then there is a remote Australian aboriginal tongue that does not conform to this reality. Their language forces them to be very aware of their surroundings. They know North, East, South and West with their eyes closed. Their language doesn’t make any use of egocentric coordinates at all. They rely on cardinal directions and do not use words like “left” or “right,” “in front of” or “behind,” to describe the position of objects. They see things from a bird’s eye view. Now consider another example. Suppose I say to you in English that “Amy and I spent New Year’s Eve with a neighbor.” You may well wonder whether the person was male or female, but I have the right to tell you politely that it’s none of your business. But if we were speaking French or German, I wouldn’t have the privilege to equivocate in this way, because I would be obliged by the grammar of language to give the person a sex. Likewise if I want to tell you in English about our dinner with a neighbor, I may not have to mention the neighbor’s sex, but I do have to tell you something about the timing of the event: I have to decide whether we dined, have been dining, are dining, will be dining and so on. Chinese, on the other hand, does not oblige its speakers to specify the exact time of the action in this way, because the same verb form can be used for past, present or future actions. Again, this does not mean that the Chinese are unable to understand the concept of time. But it does mean they are not obliged to think about timing whenever they describe an action. These three examples give insight into how language can shift our ability to perceive reality and the challenge for us to think Hebrew.
Now it is beginning to become clearer why communication is so darn difficult. Still, I believe that the right word at the right time can help us to see things that we normally would not see. But sometimes finding the right words can be really difficult. Genesis 1 shows us that God is a communicating Being, that he communicates verbally, and that he does so in an immediately effective manner. All he had to do was speak and his words effected the practical purpose that was in his mind. “And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). It is as if thought, word and deed were absolutely one for him….a foundational reality an enduring link between the word and what is perceived. In biblical Hebrew, the word davar literally means both word and thing. We perceive everyday reality by distinguishing something from its background, by giving it a name, and by calling it by a word. This process of naming things is not only how we bring things into focus, it is how we create reality. Still it is a uniquely human ability to interpret a single object in multiple ways. Still habits of speech cultivated from the earliest age, can settle into habits of mind affecting our experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world. Maybe that is why God is so keen on us doing this together with Him, of seeing though the eyes of Jesus…of seeing through the eyes of love. Friends the only single language that all people can understand is love.
Pray for clearer communication between sectors and tribes and dialects and people groups. Pray we use the creative power of speech to discover how to re-cast words that nudge our lives into greater harmony with God. Pray we realize that God’s Word is never void and that when it is used correctly has an extraordinary power to transform us. Pray we realize that words can inspire nations, heal broken hearts, make love, denounce injustice, or calm a crying child. Pray the words we use help us not only to define but also by God’s grace to join with God in helping to create an extraordinary existence. Pray we experience the miracle of sight, sound and speech in a spiritual way. Pray we communicate with the heart in the language of love. Pray we not think we can reach heaven on our own merits and abilities. Pray we realize that God loves us just the way we are, but also enough to refuse to leave us unchanged. Pray the things we see and the words we speak and write help others to have a Happy New Year!
Blessings,
John Lawson
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