I Understood The Whole Of It

It landed whole and you had not asked for it.

You were on the bus, not listening to anything on purpose, thinking about something else entirely. Two people behind you were talking, and a sentence went past, and you understood it.

All of it. Not the gist. The whole sentence, every word, at the speed it was actually said, without translating anything.

And you did the thing with your face where you have to arrange it, because you were about to look like somebody who had received good news on a bus.

That was Thursday. And you have thought about it about nine times since, and you have not told a single person.

That is what this article is about, and it is the last one on this site.

Because there is a check that came in after about four seconds, and you know exactly which one I mean. It said: it was one sentence. It probably said something about how it was a simple sentence, and about how many years you have been at this, and about how far there still is to go.

And it turned a genuinely wonderful thirty seconds into something smaller, and then you got off the bus.

I want to take that apart, and then I want to leave you with something you can hold.

Here is what actually happened on that bus.

Two people who were not speaking to you, who did not slow down or simplify anything, said something at full ordinary speed in a language that is not yours, and it arrived in you as meaning.

That is not a small event. It is precisely the thing you have been working toward for years, occurring, unannounced, in the wild.

There is no speech nor language

There is a line in the nineteenth psalm about languages, and it comes in the middle of a passage about the sky.

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. (Psalm 19:3, King James Version)

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

The passage is about the heavens declaring the glory of God. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge, and then this: there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

It is saying that the testimony of the sky is not carried in words, and therefore reaches into every language there is. No group of people is outside it. Whatever tongue you were born into, this is being said to you.

And I want to be careful with what I take from that, because I could make it into a large claim and it would not be honest.

What I want is the picture it assumes, and the picture is this: God is aware of all of them.

There is no speech nor language. That phrase takes in every tongue on earth, every one that has ever existed and the ones that died out with the last speaker, and it puts them all inside a single sentence in a psalm about the sky. The variety of human speech is not a problem being described here. It is simply the world, known and accounted for.

So the one you are learning is one of them. Not an obstacle course. Not a certification path. A real human language, spoken by people God is aware of, which is what those two people behind you on the bus were using to talk about something ordinary.

And you heard it.

For thirty seconds on a Thursday, a language that is not yours carried meaning into you the way it carries meaning into everybody who grew up in it.

Every tongue on earth is inside that verse and accounted for, and the one you are learning has never once been an obstacle course. Psalm 19:3 says there is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody arranging her face on a bus.

The check has been taking these off you for years

Here is the practical half, and it is about the four seconds.

The check that arrived is not perspective. It is a habit, and it has been running for a long time, and it only ever operates in one direction.

Notice what it did not do. It did not arrive after the difficult conversation last month to tell you that you had been too hard on yourself. It did not moderate the flat feeling when you could not follow the film. It has never once said: that was less bad than you think.

It shows up when something good happens, within about four seconds, and it discounts it. And it presents itself as realism, which is why it has never been questioned.

But look at what it costs over years, because that is the actual damage.

Learning a language as an adult is long, and the good moments are rare and small and scattered: a word that comes back unbidden, a sentence you build without assembling, thirty seconds on a bus. Those are the entire supply of encouragement available in this project.

And the check has been intercepting all of them.

Which means you have been doing years of hard work and receiving almost none of the reward, and then wondering why it is so hard to keep going. It is hard to keep going because nothing has been allowed to land.

That is why you stopped three times, incidentally. Not lack of discipline. A project with no felt progress is one that any sensible person eventually puts down, and the progress was there, and it was being confiscated at the door.

The good moments are the entire supply of encouragement in a long project, and that check has been intercepting every one of them. The written word puts all the languages of the earth inside one sentence without a word of difficulty, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody who has been doing the work and receiving none of it.

Write it down and keep the paper

So here is the last assignment on this site, and it is a piece of paper.

Write down the sentence you understood and keep the paper.

The one from the bus. Write it in the language it was said in, as well as you can, and write what it meant underneath.

On paper. Not a note on a phone, because a note on a phone joins nine thousand other notes and is never seen again. A real piece of paper, in your handwriting.

And then keep it. In your wallet, in the book, in a drawer. Somewhere you will come across it.

Here is why this is the last thing I am asking you to do.

You have had these moments before. Not many, but this is not the first. And you cannot name the others, because nothing was ever done with them and they were discounted within four seconds and they dissolved.

A written sentence cannot be discounted. It is not a feeling that a check can moderate. It is an object, in your own hand, that says: on a Thursday I understood the whole of this, at speed, without trying.

And in a month, when you are in the flat stretch that always comes, and you are considering whether this is worth continuing, you will come across a piece of paper with a sentence on it. And you will not have to remember whether you were making too much of it, because it will be there, in ink.

And here is the last thing I want to say on this site.

The gladness on that bus was the correct size. Not a bit much for one sentence. Correct. Something you have been working at for years happened to you unasked, and you were glad, and the gladness was the accurate response to the size of the event.

You are allowed to have had that thirty seconds at full strength, and you are allowed to keep the paper.

The gladness on that bus was the accurate response to the size of the event, and it has never once been a bit much for one sentence. Psalm 19:3 takes in every language on earth without difficulty, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody writing a sentence down in her own handwriting.