While watching the news reels on repeat about the war in Ukraine, my heart went out to the destitute women in particular struggling to voice their circumstances to reporters through interpreters, and often in their secomd or third language. Their frustration of not being able to share in their heart language screamed through the TV screen!
I can partially relate to their communication barrier. I am most at home and at ease while conversing with a bilingual Arabic and English speaker. We unconsciously and seamlessly use both languages, depending on the intention of the moment. We totally relate!
I’m reminded of a story from many years ago, when my now almost 13-year-old granddaughter, Kendall, was in kindergarten. At the time, my cousin and her husband had come to visit from Scotland. Kendall was resting in her car booster chair next to me in the backseat, her damp cheeks smushed against the side headrest, her eyes closed, her body listless and dozing in the sun-warmed car. The adults conversed in hushed tones, mindful of a napping child as the bluebonnet strewn rolling hills passed us by.
Suddenly, Kendall’s voice broke through the lulled car interior. “I speak Spanish too,” she said. “Rojas means red!”
I cocked my head towards her in puzzlement only to find her eyes still closed in that half-awake-half-asleep daze. With a big grin on my face, I realized that she had assumed, because she couldn’t understand their Scottish brogue, that my cousins were speaking Spanish, the only second language to which her small-town Texas ubringing had exposed her! Her heart’s desire in that moment was to relate, to have something in common with her visiting Scottish cousins. She wanted them to feel at home, to know that she understood their heart language!
Oh, if only we all had that innocent, validating desire, to learn another’s heart language!
To whom do you need to listen with all your body, mind, and spirit?
A person finds joy in giving an apt reply, and how good is a timely word!