...in your eyes

To all, life thou givest, to both great and small;

in all life thou livest, the true life of all;

we blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,

and wither and perish – but naught changeth thee.

---Walter Chalmers Smith, 1867

This mid 19^th century hymn of praise tackles a tough issue for many God-seekers of all eras: the unknow-ability of God. God, invisible, hidden, inaccessible. Over centuries, millennia, from the dawn of humankind, folk have been searching for a face for God; usually the one we come up with is an awful lot like our own. Having an invisible God doesn’t suit a human race that likes visibility. Thus, we erect statues. We paint icons and frescoes. We weave tapestries. We create stories full of personification and pronouns. We fall short. Every time. Our minds are too small for the vastness of God’s identity.

And that’s ok. With every rendering, parable, grasping simile, we stretch ourselves to glimpse a little more of the God-ness of God. In this hymn, Walter Chalmers Smith grasped just a bit, I think. God gives life to all, great and small. God lives a true life in all. God lives in all. …God lives in all? If God is present in all life, perhaps we need not look too far to catch a glimpse of God’s glory. Perhaps I need only look into your eyes, and you need only look into mine.

...how love sounds

Lord, your church on earth is seeking your renewal from above;

teach us all the art of speaking with the accent of your love.

We would heed your great commission: “Go now into every place;

preach, baptize, fulfill my mission, serve with love and share my grace.”

---Hugh Sherlock, 1960

I am always interested in the decision of television directors and producers---mainly of news, documentary, and reality programming---to decide to use subtitles to “translate” the speech of characters or interview subjects with broken English or thick accents. I am continually amazed (and amused) by the great diversity of ways that we speak “American English”---cultural, regional, and even generational differences. Yes, generational---I sometimes think folk of a certain age might need subtitles to understand the everyday slang of teens and twenty-somethings! One of the most humorous choices, to a (mostly) southerner like me, is subtitles applied to a thick southern accent---how could anyone have trouble understanding that?!

I think what fascinates me is accent. People who specialize in training actors can sometimes isolate and identify accents not just by country or region, but by city, or even borough or neighborhood in the case of New York City. They can train actors to speak with the accent of a certain location, a certain people group, a certain era.

Imagine with me what the sound might be of all of us speaking with love’s accent. What would our voices sound like? What words would fill our vocabularies? What tone, what timbre would govern our speech? How does love sound, translated into everyday language? Would the world recognize love’s accent on our tongues?

Would we need subtitles to translate love?