We’re All Just Trying to Speak the Same Language

A quick and simple moment of the Kingdom:

Something that always spurred my interest and slightly confused me was the way that people greeted us on the streets. As a group of white girls, my team is very obliviously English speaking and stick out like a sore thumb everywhere we go. It is not uncommon for people to just sit and stare at us all the way down the street, even whip out their phones and take videos or pictures of us. 

It is extremely common when in passing we greet others with a smile and a “Hola” or “Buenas” which is shortened version of saying good day to you. Everyone always peaks up and replies with a “Hello!” or a “Good morning!”. Sometimes we will just be sitting down, minding our own business, and will hear people shouting Hello and Goodbye to us in English. 

I thought it was extremely strange at first. Why were these people trying to speak English back to us when we were trying to speak Spanish to them? 

There are many moments where we will have conversations with people where we speak to them in broken Spanish and they try and respond in broken English. In the plethora of these moments, one of my squad leaders made the remark, 

“Isn’t kind of beautiful how we’re all just trying to speak the same language.”

I thought back to all those faces that were jumbled with confusion that uttered those simple hellos. I thought back to all those exchanged apologies of me explaining my Spanish is bad and them retaliating the apology that their English was bad. It was all a beautiful picture of this imaginary chasm between an us and them mentality that was crumbling to the ground. 

It is a simple epiphany, yet it holds unimaginable power. All of us, every single bone and body are merely that, bone and body trying to chase this universal reconciliation. I am a strong believer that understanding is the universal language. 

The giggles of children in the dirt ring the same and the strained look of tired eyes cry out all the same. How sad is it that we have allowed surface differences to cut deep into a culture of segregation. 

One thing that I love about Jesus is that He teaches us how to see the person in front of you instead of the facade of outer appearance. He was the Lord of lord’s, the King of King’s, the only Holy One, yet He still knelt to the ground to look the lowest in the eye and see their value and understand them. 

I think Christians spend too much time looking how to build themselves higher when Jesus was the one who knelt to get low. Striving for understanding feels the most like Jesus thing to do. Choppy conversations of broken Spanish and English remind me of our instinctual pursuit of understanding, and it is quite beautiful. 

Through crinkled eyes signifying exchanged smiles in masks and hand squeezes to women who need a helping hand, it all feels a little closer to Heaven.

We’re all just trying to speak the same language.