Hidden Language

Deleriously, no place to go to be private, and yet within the public view, I wanted to open another page.  A secret page, unopened by any hand of man.  A private place…

Once, I upeneded a sofa and crawled underneath into a cave.  What is there so satisfying about being contained?  About being hidden?  Even when my roomate came home and thought I had been burglarized and left for dead under the furniture I didn’t crawl out. 

I like to be around people who don’t know I’m there.  I like to have the social contact without the pressure of expectations I can’t meet.  Verbally, I am inclined to trip over my own feet.  When I try to speak, all the words I wanted to say run to the back of my mind and huddle in fear.  My language has stage fright.  Perhaps I really speak English as a second language, and in moment of intense emotion my ability to translate fails me.
       If that were so, what language would I speak as my first?  Some tongue angelic, or born of star dust, the speech of another branch of humanity, residents of some place untouched by the hand of sin… perhaps when I approach the throne in Heaven, it will be the language He speaks in.  The original tongue of Babylon, the tongue of men and of angels, in which the host sings before the throne.   “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty, who was and is and is to come,” says the English translation.  How glorious would it be in the original?

      Perhaps I speak the tongue of the world as it is- the wordless communication that is between all living things.  The plants grow towards the light, butterflies pollinate them, the fruit is bourne and eaten all without speaking.  I spent so much of my childhood watching and wandering and waiting… perhaps I am more at home in the language of the wood things.  The water rushes and wanders and falls over things, the trees fall and lay supine on the forest floor hatching beetles and growing moss.  There is a stillness in things that is palpable.  They MEAN without ever having language to speak the meaning.  And yet, they are not less because they can’t say it.

There is a big argument in scientific circles about language.  What is it?  What is the threshold of language- at what point can a creature like a gorilla or a dolphin be said to be “communicating”.   As anyone who has owned a dog knows they are already communicating.  They learn and have language.  They know and recognize many things.  They speak with their actions, with their bodies, with their emotions, with their silences.  They speak in posture and gesture and instinct.
      The scientists who are arguing are trying to locate evidences of evolution in various animal’s brains and developing intelligences.  I find nothing to argue about.  Each of the creatures of the earth is made of and by the living, thinking, creating God, who put part of his own divine nature and purpose in each of his creations.  They share in his life, they live with the instinct and intelligence he gave them.  They give and recieve affection.  They communicate, each in its own unique way, each with its perfectly designed intelligences.

And I, too, created by God, speak.  I speak his purposes.  He dwells in my thoughts.  I gather in impressions of the world he made.  I love the people around me, as he loves me.  And to make up for the hesitant, tripping tongue He gave me, he has also given me the ability to type nearly faster than I can think!

I have hidden Him in my heart, and He has hidden me under His wing!