The Word

Language has always fascinated me. I remember first learning French songs and rhymes in pre-school. We would sit Indian-style (as it was called then) and try to understand our teacher with the beautiful silk scarves and the thick accent. During recess, we would practice counting the monkey bars, passing cars, skipping rope, anything in imitate the lovely lady with the stylish hair and clothes.

The next occurance was in my AP English class in seventh grade. French again. This wasn't as colorful and fun as the teacher was only Mrs. Steinhoff and she never wore scarves and made us sing silly songs for which we were too cool to be bothered to memorize. We wanted to know only the fun stuff: our names and swear words.

High School Spanish my junior year with Mrs. Borho: she was a homely woman with a love for the language and Latino culture. Her hair was closely cropped; her nose shelved small spectacles decorated with filigree and hazel eyes. The boys teased her like a skinny wormy dog. Still, I liked her. She sincerely loved Spanish and feigned innocence to the boys attempts to insult her. Not enough people signed up for Spanish 2 my senior year, so I took it as an independent class and sat in class for her occasional help while she inducted a new set of ignoramous testosterone laden fools into the tongue of our southern neighbors.

As God would have it, I enrolled in Spanish 1, a five hour course, in the fall of my freshman year at the university. I sat three or four seats over from an older, but funny and good-looking Marine who would, through our choking down of "verbs and vocabulary," pursue and capture this girl's heart; which he still lovingly holds today.

We still speak Spanish. There are occasions when we wish to make a private comment in the midst of eyes and ears that are simply not invited into that place with us. The girls are learning the language, as we have passed that love and desire to communicate on to them.

Sitting in church this morning, I allowed my mind a few moments away from the sermon to wonder what will the language of heaven be? Since I believe that God created all things, including language, and also believe that once in Heaven I will have a perfect body, soul, and spirit, will this enable me to converse with people in every language? Will I be walking along, reveling in the splendor and beauty, and begin a conversation in a language that I never learned while on earth? Or will words be immediately translated into English and placed directly into my head? Will there be a new and totally different language that will be automatically known and understood just because we are there? Whatever the answer(s), I do believe that communication and language is important to God, (else why would Jesus have even had a ministry and spoken to people; why the "Word" of God? "God said..." "Jesus spoke, saying...") and that all the imperfections that come about in our daily verbal intercourse will be removed and we will somehow perfectly commune with one another and God in eternal camaraderie.