learning to speak

Anger, frustration, darkness—these characterized the daily existence of a little girl in Alabama.  Because she had an intelligent mind, she had the capacity for normal life, but the normal windows into her mind, her sight and hearing, were shut.  She would become enraged when she didn’t get what she wanted, and even as a six year old, she was getting no closer to sharing what that was.  When through the gift of a persistent teacher Helen Keller was given a language—even a rough sign language drawn on her hands—she said she moved from being almost brute beast into much fuller humanity.  Ideas that were impossible to think and emotions that were impossible to feel were now real and present to her.  Where before she could not relate to people now she could interact, understand, and love . 

It would be correct to say that in some very real way language creates us.  Without it, we would have no complex thought; we could not interact.  Without it, we would have no personality to speak of.

The language of humanity is prayer.  It forms and shapes our character.  As God communicates to us, he educates us in the fullest sense of the word, drawing us out of ourselves and into a relationship with him and others.  Prayer teaches me to love him; it teaches me who I am.  

When God speaks into a heart, it awakens with light the way a crystal outcrop hidden in a cave sparkles in front of a flame.  There is some faculty in a person ready to receive, to hold for an instant, and to reflect back the truth and light of God.  The giving and receiving of that light is called prayer.  Prayer is a true giving and receiving between a human and God.  As mathematics is the language of science, prayer is the language of interaction between creature and creator.  As a mother and father speak to a newborn, God gives words to us and waits for us to understand them.  And we do.  And then we speak back to him.  At first we do this in halting syntax and lisps.  Later, we develop an easy conversational style.  Correction, expression, direction and affection are communicated to us.  We question and thank and resist or comply with prayer.  It is the gateway to becoming who we were made to be.

In Harold Bloom’s “Shakespeare:  The Invention of the Human,” Bloom stakes out a very modern understanding of what it means to be a person.  Bloom writes of Shakespeare’s characters that “they develop because they reconceive themselves…this comes about because they overhear themselves talking…self-overhearing is their royal road to individuation.”

We become human, not by some self-conscious dialogue with ourselves—as if the key to maturity were introspection—but by our conversation with God.   The name of this conversation is prayer. 

Overhearing oneself speak, introspection, and everlasting dialogue with self when there is no outer corrective or partner higher than ourselves with which to speak is rather the path to the hell of solipsism.   

Prayer can be funny; it can be touching; it can be stern and demanding; but it is always asking me to look past myself into a greater reality than that which exists in my own mind. 

The Hebrew scripture begins with this:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Listen to the rhythm:

Darkness

then word

then light

The Gospel of John begins in similar fashion

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Creation and enlightenment comes through the language of God.  Echoes of creation still reverberate in the development of every human being. 

Lord, teach me to pray.  It is in conversation with you that I am given a language to understand the world, myself, and you.   Lord, give me the words and concepts and feelings that are necessary to become a person made in your image.  I cannot love unless you write the language of love in my heart.  I cannot be compassionate, merciful, forgiving, holy, or courageous like you are unless you teach me.  Form these gifts in me and form me in your likeness.  Give me ears to hear you, a mouth to speak to you, and a mind that sees you.  Let your word, like light, come into my heart and transfigure it.