Im English. In England when someone tells you you are looking well they mean that you dont look ill. You look fit and healthy. But Im living in Ireland - and in Ireland when someone says you are looking well they mean that you are looking nice. Its a subtle difference - but I spent the first year I lived here wondering why people were commenting on my health and engaging in what must have been baffling conversations with people about the minor cold I was just getting over.
It has always amazed me that in a land mass as tiny as the British Isles there can be so many different ways of speaking , dialects, nuances, accents and meanings. I spent many years in Scotland and picked up a whole raft of wonderful words which the English just dont use. But I will never forget the day I went to Glasgow and got into a taxi there. Id lived in Edinburgh for several years but when that Glaswegian taxi driver started talking to me I didnt have the first idea what he was saying!!! His accent was so broad he might as well have been speaking Norwegian.
Language is crucial. It is a fundamental requirement of relationship. Its the first thing we do with a newborn baby - start to talk to it. And the lst thing that breaks down before wars are embarked upon. Communication is the lifeblood of human society. Before Babel we all spoke one language. Everyone on the planet - thats quite some thought. No foreign languages, no opportunity for mis-translation or misunderstanding or exclusion . Everyone was able to clearly understand his fellow man - but of course rather than this being a huge advantage to us as God had intended it to be , mankind decided to use their common language to argue and compete and brag and generally be annoying.
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Not only do we now have trouble understanding our fellow man, but I fear we are not attuned to the language of heaven either. God speaks but so often we dont really understand what He says. We speak in tongues but only have the vaguest of impressions of what the message might be. Angels might be singing over us but would we notice or know it if we cant recognise their tongue? We read a Bible which has had to be translated from the original so that we can understand it. The fall has robbed us of that clear communication between us and our peers and us and our God. One day we shall see clearly, hear perfectly and understand entirely. But until then we look to Jesus, who came to show us that it is possible to be fully human and communicate brilliantly, both horizontally and vertically by tuning into the spirit of God and being obedient. Jesus says
For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. ( John 12:49)
Perhaps this Lent we can renew our resolve to speak less and listen more to the Father. To only do what the father is doing and speak what the Father is saying. I wonder how different my day would look if I could manage 24 hours doing that !!
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