The Word

 I've been thinking a lot about words and language lately.  I grew up speaking English and took a little Spanish in middle school.  Rather than do the practical thing and continue Spanish in high school I decided to do the exotic thing and study French.  It was really fun but not practical and I only remember a few words.  My current job as a Patient Service Representative in a Physical Therapy clinic that happens to be in a very diverse city has me really wishing I had stuck with Spanish.  The fun thing is that I see languages that I've never heard of before.  I've worked in places before that did not provide interpreters, if you didn't speak English or have an English speaking relative you were out of luck.  Can you imagine?  I have no idea what it's like to live that way.  Our company uses a phone service if we need to call a patient who needs an interpreter and our PT's use a laptop with an interpreter on video if needed, in whatever language they need, we also arrange for in person interpreters.  Just today a woman came in to schedule who did not speak English and between her Google translate on her phone and mine on my computer, we were able to figure out how to get an appointment scheduled.  One day I spoke to a woman on the phone, "no Espanol?" she said and I said, "I can get an interpreter on the line" but she wanted to try with what little English she knew.  We were able to solve the situation together and before hanging up she said "thank you for understanding", she was so appreciative and I imagine most of her interactions with English speakers do not go well.  I'm sure one of the reasons our company provides interpreters is so that we can get more patients in to make more money, but I truly think it's also because they actually care and want more people to receive the care they need.

Appreciating and understanding other languages is so important but can also give a new perspective.  My husband has received a degree in Pastoral Ministry, a Masters of Theology and a Masters of Divinity.  He's studied Hebrew and Greek and learned that often they have different meanings than our modern day English language and don't always translate simply.  I've been reading a devotional by Kat Armas called Sacred Belonging and recently read something that inspired me.  She references a very well known passage John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  Growing up with Spanish as her first language, she knew it differently though: 

En el principio ya existia el Verbo," which translates to, "In the beginning already existed the Verb."  Jesus, the Verb of God.  The action of God.  This is the image of Jesus I knew from a young age.  The difference in translation speaks to the power that language holds--how la Espiritu Santa (the Holy Spirit) makes herself known to differing groups of people in unique ways.  Jesus is a word and a verb: a transcendent picture of both the mystery of God and the expansive nature of Scripture.  But more than just a single word, or even a verb, is an entire conversation.

I also learned something I didn't know, but my Seminary grad husband probably does...a word often translated in the New Testament as "righteousness" actually is from a Greek word meaning "justice".  Do you know how much time I spent as a church kid focusing on the word "righteousness" and what it means to be "right", "holy", "pure"...when what I should have been focusing on was JUSTICE?!  For the love.  Kat Armas asks, "what if we read Matthew 5:6 as "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled"?

Mind.  Blown.

The Bible has been used to cause more harm than good as far as I'm concerned.  In the hands of the wrong people, it is used as a weapon instead of a tool.  We have another patient who likes to sneakily leave tracts around the clinic, you know the ones that say things like "This was your life" with pictures of the grim reaper.  As soon as she's gone, I throw them in the trash where they belong.  Those guilt trip papers are NEVER going to show a person the loving grace of Jesus and how anyone still believes you should share something so intimate and personal without establishing a friendship first is beyond me.  I used to do things like that and thank God I have since seen the light.  

I leave you with more from Kat Armas...

"A God who cannot be contained by one language or one culture or one way of being in the world is frightening.  It means we could be wrong about God, and there's too much resting on being right."