Babble

Have you ever tried to learn a language?

Languages have, I suppose, been my thing ever since childhood. This is despite the fact that I can easily become tongue-tied, even in speaking English!

I am still picking up new ones. Currently I am having a go at Welsh, and discovering how a language which is on my doorstep can be so very different from my own.

When learning a language I see myself as trying to pick up some of the pieces that were left behind after Babel. The story of Babel is found in Genesis Chapter 11. Some scholars think that this story reflects the rise of cities in ancient civilisations. They believe that our original ancestors lived in very small and scattered communities, with their backs to the wall in the constant battle against Nature. Babel reflects a time when the emerging groups deliberately banded together to form great cities with imposing structures, thus attempting to stamp their authority on both Nature and the people who lived in their neighbourhood.

Those who planned to build the city of Babel wanted to include a massive tower with its top in heaven. While uniting for their own protection, they were overreaching themselves and looking away from God as the true provider of their safety and security.

God is recorded as coming down to look at their city and the tower which they had built. He said,

“Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech” (Genesis 12:7 ESV).

It may not be a mere coincidence that “Babel” and “babble” look similar. Some in ancient times called those who spoke outlandish tongues “barbarians”, which meant they uttered babbling, incomprehensible sounds.

Going back to the Babel story, we read that God dispersed the would-be tower-builders from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. I reckon He made a good job of confusing the language at Babel. There is now virtually nothing which all the world’s languages can be said to have in common. Yet at one glorious point in time God openly reversed what He had done at Babel as a sign to all of us about what He will achieve. That moment was the sending of the Holy Spirit on Jesus’s followers at Jerusalem after the Saviour’s resurrection.

“When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language” (Acts 2:1-6).

Whether in jumbling up languages or bringing them together again in mighty power, God leaves us all speechless. He seeks to reunite us ... but not for any displays of human pride. It is His choice to scatter us in confusion or to unite us in Christ.

Home from home

One of the joys of being single is that kind people, from time to time, let you into their lives for a while. It may be through opening their lives up to you in friendship or being a guest in their home.

Sometimes I am invited to house-sit for friends, to come and look after their home while they are away. Then they leave food and give you a chance to have a change of scene. It is an act of kindness and friendship even though you do not have their company during that time.

Of course, living for a while in someone else's home is not like being in your own. You are very much aware that you are in a space that has been formed and fashioned by others. It is their history that is all around you, not yours. But in some ways it doesn't matter to me so much. As I am the only occupant at my home address, there are limits to what I can do by way of homebuilding. When I leave the bungalow to go on holiday I haven't exactly left behind a place with my own stamp on it.

Thus, when I return, it will be to roof over my head, the place where I store my things, rather than being "home" in the sense of a family home. So that makes the experience of being in somebody else's home quite a novelty. I see their interests displayed in every room: their hobbies, the pictures and photographs of ones they love. The wife in the home where I go is a keen gardener and the garden is colourful and beautiful; it has her imprint all over it. I particularly love relaxing in the family's sun lounge, where even more plants are growing in profusion.

My experience reminds me of my Saviour when He was on earth. Jesus said that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Even foxes have their holes and birds their nests, but He, the Lord of all, with a right to feel at home anywhere in the universe, is denied that advantage while on the earth. He too was blessed by the hospitality of others: various prominent women of the neighbourhood undertook to look after Him, to give Him somewhere to stay and to meet His needs. He never allowed Himself to forget the blessing of their hospitality. But he was acutely aware that His home was somewhere else: His home was in heaven.

I remember disappointing one lady, many years ago, when she asked me what turned out to be a trick question: where did I consider to be home? I said I didn't know; I went through a list of a number of places which had had significance for me during my life, but I wasn't sure. "Oh," she replied, "I thought you would say your home was in heaven." 

I felt intensely irritated. It seemed to me that I had been caught out and I had not come up with the expected pious answer. I had not, in other words, met expectations. I still feel uncomfortable about that to this day. Of course, it goes without saying that home for a thorough Christian is not on earth but elsewhere. We already live under a new set of neighbourhood rules, the laws of the kingdom of heaven. We have a new head of government. The King in all His beauty and majesty is close at hand all the time, running the affairs of this precious kingdom. Believers once there will never feel out of place again.

Some people comment that I often look like a lost soul wandering around. If that is a witness to my belief that this life isn't all there is and I am not earthbound, I can't be going far wrong.