Te doy gracias y alabo tu grandeza, porque tú eres mi Dios. Den gracias al Señor, porque él es bueno, porque su amor es eterno. Psalm 118: 28-29
So Alan has this little wry observation that he shares upon occasion:
Haven’t you heard, English is the language of men, Spanish is the language of God, Italian is the language of lovers, and German, well, German is what you speak to your dog.
Yesterday I went to three Christian school chapels. In a row. Which can certainly be a marginal experience. But God gripped me, my heart, until tears of joy ran down as that music throbbed, led of course by a crowd of kids in black.
Como un trueno escucho
desde el cielo tu voz
Fuego eterno en tu mirada
que a la tierra estrecmició
como un trueno escucho
desde el cielo tu voz
fuego eterno en tu mirada
que a la tierra estremecieo
Tú me cuidas y me libras,
me escondiste en tu amor
Confiado en ti estoy.
And it occurred to me, My God language is Spanish. In Spanish, I am absolutely childlike, stumbling along in my toddler fluency and tangled syntax. I am constantly humbled and very aware of my limitations. I am in a place of awkward dependency, and yet, there is a bunch of freedom in that spot. I am what I am without pretension.
And. God has met me in my profoundest need in Spanish, faithfully and in abundance because of this desperate need. In English there are all of these false support systems of comfort, family, friends, education, sort-of-cultural-awareness, and water faucets that work every time. Our culture tells us all sorts of lies about Who is in charge of what and Oh, yeah, I can handle this one on my own and Rugged Individualism that just don’t exist in my personal Spanish world. Rather I have stories of writhing bodies resting in peace, engines running on empty, a village surrounding an uplifted child in love, staring down demons without fear and even watching peanut butter sandwiches multiply like bunny rabbits.
As I head downstairs, into the taxi and off on a nineteen-hour trip home, may I carry more than some snot fruit for Alan back home from Colombia.
Confiado en ti estoy.
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