As a progressive Christian, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to a loving God; this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
The sound of a violent wind, tongues of fire on top of heads, speaking in other languages at nine in the morning – what’s going on? Were they drunk? Read it for yourself in Acts 2.
I believe that God will go to any lengths to communicate to us in the language that we understand the best – I call that our heart language.
To some of us it will be through art. To others, through a simple story that rings true. For still others, God comes to you through a powerful experience. The important thing is, God speaks your language.
Rev. Joy Fallon tells a story of a man named John Wyon. He was born in Britain, became a doctor, and as a conscientious objector in World War II had served in a Quaker hospital in Ethiopia during the war. After that, John went on to spend years in India, working among rural villages, he was the only Western-trained doctor serving one million people.
Over time, John became an expert in global public health issues, and taught at the Harvard School of Public Health, about how whole populations could become more healthy when key practices were adopted widely by communities – from childhood immunizations, to birth control to AIDS prevention.
But John’s most ground-breaking discovery was his insight into how to communicate the needed medical protocols to people. How local communities could be convinced by foreigners like himself, to consider new approaches. His patients were suspicious of white-coated, white-skinned doctors with sharp needles aimed at their infants; can you blame them?
Finally, there was a breakthrough in Bangladesh. Rather than using TV and public service announcements, or newspapers to communicate, they found a way to work through the communication structures most important in that society: the weekly large markets, where women from a network of surrounding villages would bring their produce, and sit and talk as they sold their goods. It was in these markets that relatives caught up on news; that different techniques of growing and harvesting were discussed and debated; that details of health conditions and successful treatments were exchanged.
The Western doctors learned that certain women were highly respected advisers at the markets, sought out by others for their wisdom and knowledge; if these women became convinced of how certain treatments worked, they would share them with others at the market, and the practices would quickly spread within that area. News then could be passed to broader regions because these women entrepreneurs literally met at key crossroads and spoke and shared their knowledge.
John Wyon and his students made breakthroughs in global public health affecting millions, because they learned to deeply respect and value the existing communication networks in Bangladesh, rather than assume that Western ways of communication were superior, or even applicable.
Dr. Wyon showed the importance of speaking in the language of those you’re trying to teach; not just the right dialect, but through channels that honor those who are listening. About the power, as a listener, of being taught in your own native language, like how on the day of Pentecost all of those gathered in the room with the disciples suddenly heard their own language. Suddenly God’s message was coming to everyone very clearly; it didn’t need translation.
Have you ever traveled in a foreign land, not being able to read the signs or speak the language, and then, suddenly, you find someone who understands you, who can quickly get you to your destination? What a relief to find someone who speaks your language!
The questions become, “How do we find the right words and ways to communicate what we mean?” Imagine God feeling the same way. To use your particular language – your heart language. To think through whether you will be most affected by a sunrise over water, or the cascade of a waterfall; whether you will hear love most in the gentle musical notes of a solo flute, the rhythmic pulses of hand drumming or the powerful chords of a massive pipe organ.
When you love someone very much, you try to communicate with them in the way that makes their heart sing; through fresh cut flowers, the scent of freshly brewed coffee that you get up early and make, you name it. Some of us learn by doing, some by experiencing and some in deepest silence.
In fact, as Christians, we celebrate that God sent Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, in human flesh to convey God’s message of love to us. God will do anything to reach you, in your language. Watch for it!
“God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophecy,
Your young men and women will see visions,
Your old men and women will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
And they will prophecy.” Acts 2
Old, young, male, female, trans, straight, lesbian, gay, bi, questioning, black, white, brown, when God’s Spirit comes upon us, we can go beyond the limits we’ve put on ourselves. When God’s Spirit is poured out upon us, all of us, without exception, are capable of being God’s agents of communicating God’s love.
Listen, God is speaking your language, and wants to tell you how loved you are and how you can share that love with others.
