Linguaphobia

People in the United States are not the only ones on earth who have an anxiety about learning another language.  It is a common problem all over the world.  Some of it is due to educational attempts that do not work real well to teach foreign languages.  Some of it is due to a strong nationalism and identity with a mother-language.  Anxiety or fear of learning a foreign language is often called “linguaphobia”.

The real problem develops when linguaphobia develops into a linguacentrism; the idea that one particular language should be the only one spoken.  This is becoming more prevalent in the United States in recent years as a result of the rise in immigration and in particular the rise of Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants.  More and more, one hears the angry declaration, “They live in America now.  They should speak English!”  As if, somehow crossing a boarder grants one the magical and immediate power to learn a foreign language.

The cultural tension becomes greater when xenoglossophobia develops among the mother-language speakers – English, in the case of the United States.  This is the fear of foreign language speakers.  It can also be called xenophobia; the fear or dislike of people different than your self.  I believe this is a growing problem in the United States.  It is a problem created more from “group-think” than any actual threat.

The fact of the matter is that the United States has always been an nation of immigrants.  As such, it has always contained within its borders people who speak many different languages.  Early on, it began mainly with European languages – German, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish among many others.  This explain the complexity of the American English language.  It is a compound of many additional foreign words!

Another fact that is often overlooked today is that English language acquisition has often taken immigrants a generation or two to assimilate so that it is no longer a foreign or second language to them.  In the Midwest for example, many community churches retained their ethnic language identities in German and Scandinavian languages up until a few decades ago!  There are still a few who use the original mother-tongue language occasional in their church services.

Indian Heaven Wilderness Stream, Summer 2002 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

My Swedish grandfather came from Sweden as a child, struggled to learn English, but still retained and spoke Swedish until his death.  It was not until his children came along that English was the mother-tongue language.  As his grandchild, I know and understand no Swedish.  I suspect that for recent immigrants – legal or illegal – to the United States it will take the same amount of time.  Our own experience as immigrants should make us more tolerant and patient with new arrivals to this land of opportunity.

It is particularly shameful for those within the Church to be intolerant or xenophobic.  Since the Great Commission compels us to be witnesses to every ethnic group on earth, they should see this as a golden opportunity.  Instead of needing to go to foreign lands to the people of the world, the people of the world are coming to our communities and neighborhoods!  This saves the Church thousands of dollars in sending missionaries overseas.  Now the mission field is settling around us in small ethnic conclaves that can be easily reached by many Christians and churches.

The final picture of the Bride of Christ – the Church – we have in The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ should also motivate us to welcome and embrace people of different cultures and languages.  The vision presented to us (7:9) is a multi-ethnic, multi-language celebration gathered around the Lamb’s throne.  They will be singing and dancing – each according to their cultural and language – to the words, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!” (7:10).  I really do not think that at that glorious and holy moment some xenophobe American is going to yell out, “Hey, speak English!”

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

Read Full Post »

Truck Stop Jesus

One would have expected a different plan to introduce an important person; even if that person was a baby.  Historically, after all, royal births were always accompanied by fanfare and celebration.  Every important dignitary in the world is notified and invited to the event.  When the savior of the world arrived little more than 2,000 years ago, maybe someone made a mistake and got the address wrong.  Not only that, but they forgot to get reservations.  The young couple was left out in the cold to give birth to their child among animals and all that accompanies animals posted in a barn.  These would not be the first sights and sounds that I would have wanted any of my children to have as their first experience in this world.  Jesus’ birth was so radically different than the antiseptic world we live in today.  It leaves the modern individual amazed he survived his first year.

The irony and mystery of Jesus’ birth is that it was planned ahead of time to take place just the way it unfolded.  Prophets hundreds of years before had already laid out how this baby boy was going to come into the world.  The details they left for others to figure out, who were some of the wisest people on earth by the way, did not include royal privilege, birth in a capital city or any of the other things that would normally accompany the birth of someone important.  There was no golden spoon privilege for this messianic figure.

Imagine a modern day set of new parents caught far away from any hospital, family or friends when the expectant baby decides to come into the world.  Not only that, but now the birthing plan, carefully prepared hospital bag for mother and baby and new born baby clothes are all forgotten.  The fact of the matter is that even for 1st century Joseph and Mary the conditions of the birth of their child were far less than desirable.  Any parent of any socio-economic class at any time in history would have hoped for better.

Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea.  Bethlehem, the city of ancient king David’s origin, was not an important city on the world map 2,000 years ago.  It still is not in today’s political or economic world.  It was more like a modern day truck stop on the way to a major city – Jerusalem.  Today it is a walled-up small city that survives on the arrival of tourists who come to ogle the supposed site of Jesus’ birth.  It is a battle-scarred town divided by deep religious factions that only seems to know peace once a year.  In Jesus’ day, Bethlehem was not prominent.  Its history was more storied than its present.

Bethlehem was a place that served the more impressive city of Jerusalem to the north.  Its trade in sheep, wool and grains provided for the needs of the much bigger and more important metropolis.  Bethlehem was a place one passed through on the way to Jerusalem.  It was rarely, if ever, a destination city.  On the trade route from Egypt, it served as a resting place for the traders.  The surrounding hills provided pasture for the sheep that were used in the temple sacrifices or kitchens of Jerusalem.  Bethlehem, “the house of bread”, also had rich fields surrounding it that provided the wheat and barley for Jerusalem’s bakeries and kitchens.

Like a modern day truck stop, then, traffic was always flowing in and out and through with goods on the way to the more important city of Jerusalem.  At the time of the census, when Joseph had to report to his ancestor’s hometown, Bethlehem, the already bustling city was packed.  The only space available was the equivalent of a small garage where some vehicles of transportation were parked.  Unfortunately, these eco-friendly vehicles would also leave their exhaust all over the floor of the place.

Cascades from Elk Pass Rest Area ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

Truck stops are never pretty places.  As much as I appreciate the Flying-J Travel Plazas, Pilot Travel Centers and TravelCenters of America, they are not places I ever intend to stay very long.   I am always just passing through.  On top of it, I would definitely not ever have dreamed of having a child at one of those places.  Perhaps it is for the purpose of avoiding having children at truck stops that doctors now discourage women from traveling during their final couple weeks of pregnancy.

Jerusalem was the capital city; the city of commerce and politics; the center of religion and learning.  Everything and anything important that happened took place in Jerusalem.  In the United States, it would be the equivalent of New York or Los Angeles.  In Europe, it would be the Paris or London.  In Asia, it would be the Tokyo or Beijing.  Anyone who wanted to be anybody made their way to Jerusalem, bought property, and hobnobbed with the rich and powerful.  Perhaps God did not get updated about conditions in Palestine during 1st century B.C./A.D.  I suspect, however, that he had a different plan and procedure than the one derived and practiced by humans since their arrival.

The birth of a messiah and savior would have been much more pronounced if I had been calling the shots.  Everyone on earth would have known that “God-in-the-flesh” had shown up on the scene to straighten out the crookedness of humankind’s ways.  It surely would not have been left up to a few foreign wisemen and local low-class shepherds to welcome the arrival of the most important figure in human history.  But then, I am not God.  This is not my creation.  It is not my story.  Plus, I suspect that God’s ways are directly counter intuitive to most of our human ways.

As it is, God might as well come in disguise. I mean, who among us would be apt to recognize his arrival today anymore than his contemporaries did then?  His economic class, education and means of arrival did not shout “God’s here!” in neon letters that is for sure.  Besides the angelic proclamation to lowly shepherds, no birth announcement cards were sent out.  Likewise, most scholars and religious leaders did not get the cryptic prophetic message left hundreds of years before by various writers of the Old Testament.  So, in a sense, when God sent a savior, he did it on the sly.

So, the most important birth of the most important human was scripted ahead of time to take place in obscurity – a couple of low socio-economic status and a shed on the back side of a truck stop served as the main characters and the setting.  As the story continues, things do not get any better.  Soon the couple was on the run from the law, spent a few years as illegal immigrants in a foreign country and only returned to their own home town years later.  The messiah grew up in obscurity and learned the family business.

This amazing story of truck stop Jesus violates our highest sensibilities of what we believe God is like.  We like to picture him in a Cathedral with mighty stone pillars and statutes, rich woods and tapestries, and lofty music.  I think, rather, that given Jesus’ birth record he would be just as out of place there as he would be at a Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue or Bloomingdales.  After all, we like our deities to remain “high and lifted up” – far above the corruption of lower class humanity.  We would rather have the name of our deity pronounced in the more lofty open throated English “Gawd” than the too familiar buddy-buddy name of Jesus.  Somehow, a god who would prefer blue-grass music to Mozart and Beethoven just does not meet our criteria for divinity.

I suspect that if we were to have to look for Jesus’ arrival today that we would be better off looking for him at a truck stop.  His neighbors are more likely to be migrant workers and trailer park inhabitants than a gated suburban community.  I suspect that his address would more likely be under a bridge, overpass or homeless shelter than in a 2,000 square foot house.  He would be more acquainted with the living conditions of foreigners in our land than the economic well-to-do and socially established.  As a religious reformer, his audience would more likely be among the illiterate and poorly educated working class than among the highly respected theologians and seminarians of our day.  His calloused carpenter hands would shake more gnarled and calloused hands than manicured ones.

In short, most of us might have a hard time relating to this truck stop birth of Jesus.  I suspect, however, that it is all part of God’s redemption scheme.  For those of us who think we are better off than others, we will need to get down on Jesus’ level and humble ourselves to accept him and his mission to the least, the last and the lost of this world.  To those among this latter group, he raises their vision, empowers their future and invites them to participate in his redemption story.  So, the next time you have a chance to stop in your travels at a truck stop, just think to yourself, “Maybe Jesus is here.”

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

Read Full Post »

Let’s All Calm Down

Island at low tide on Washington coast. ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

In the politically charged climate of our day where polarization of opinions is populating every form of media, I have a suggestion:  Let’s all just calm down.  I especially speak to the political right and even more so to conservative Christians.  We all need to calm down and get a better perspective of our current state of affairs.

Every generation’s story could begin with the great literary line “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times“.  Some times, granted, are better than others and some worse than others.  Nevertheless, when put into an overarching view of human and national history, I think we can all say, “Well, thank God it’s not the worst it’s ever been but wish to God it was more like some of our better moments in history.”

Instead of listening to our pundits and favorite promoters of fear and hate, it might behoove more of us to study the events our day in light of our common history as a nation.  Each generation is crippled with a blindness to their history.  As such, they think that what they see and experience is unique.  Chances are, however, that it is not.  We are simply suffering the doom of repeating history.

For example, do you think that the vitriolic animosity between the opposing political parties today is as bad or worse than it has ever been?  Well, you would be wrong to think that way.  At the early formation of our nation, just after we won our independence from England, there were congressional episodes of politicians yelling at one another.  On at least one occasion, a fight ensued and canes were used in the battle with some bloody results.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson became so embittered toward one another after the colonies won their independence from England that they refused to speak to each other.  George Washington lamented the fragmented state of politics because of political parties.  Abraham Lincoln was hated by the opposing political party as much as Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush were in our recent history, perhaps more so.

Our country also seems to be fighting for its own identity as to whether we will be a nation with small government and strong individual and state rights or a nation with a strong all-encompassing central government that serves the needs of the people and the states.  Once again, this is something that the United States of America has been struggling with since its inception.

It was one reason for the break up of the friendship of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. In fact, those who had risked life and fortune in a revolution were, shortly after their victory, to become bitter political rivals over this very question.  John Adams believed in a strong central government with a strong central bank and the capacity to deal with other nations and protect itself with a standing army and navy.  Thomas Jefferson didn’t want a central “all powerful” bank that would put money in the hands of a few financiers.  Other than representing the United States to the nations of the world, states and individuals should rule themselves as they see fit.  This debate has been a constant debate in American politics and will continue to be in the future.  Cries against socialism and communism go back to the late 19th century but have it roots in the 18th century.

One of the big debates today is what to do with immigration.  Once again, this has been a constant issue for Americans.  Except those of native American roots, we all come from an immigrant heritage.  Newcomers to this land have suffered discrimination from day one.  Literally.  The settled colonies in the “new world” were pitted against one another based upon nationality and religious expression – Catholic, Anglican, Puritan, Lutheran, Pietist, Anabaptist, on and on.  And sometimes, the discrimination could turn deadly.  The Danish, English, and French were a miserable triangle of national self interests and ethnic prejudices.

Afraid of losing the English language? I dare say that there has been very little of history where we have all spoke the same English dialect.  Up until a few years ago, the Midwest was full of churches that only used the “native tongues” of their forefathers – German, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, French, Russian.  My Swedish grandfather told of times when he first came to America where the discrimination against him for being a Swede was really brutal.  At a young age entering school, he was mercilessly made fun of by the other kids who spoke English – with strong German accents mind you.  His Swedish language and broken halting English made him an outsider for a long time and a brunt of jokes well into his adulthood.  It was a crying shame when in the ’70’s the Lutheran congregation of Swedes could not find a pastor any longer who preached in Swedish.

A good friend of mine just a couple of years ago pastored a German speaking congregation in North Dakota.  This is all within my generation!  Go to the upper-Midwest and you can still hear the lilt of the Scandinavian influence in people’s English.  Go to New Orleans and you can hear the strong French and Creole influence.  Go to some places in the Appalachians and you can still pick up the Scottish influences in the dialect there.  Go to Dutch Pennsylvania and lo and behold if there isn’t a Dutch influence on the language and the culture.  Those immigrants!  So, I wouldn’t be afraid of someone with a strong Hispanic accent.  They’ll keep their mother tongue for awhile, but like our ancestors, their children will learn English.  And just as my relatives have kept lutefisk, krumkake, kringla, and other Scandinavian delicacies in their diet, we can expect that they will keep their traditions and diets too.

What about the fears concerning our economy? Once again, American history tells us that there have been many stock market crashes and recessions.  Amazingly, America is still around to deal in the world economy!  The stock market crash of 1929 is the most recent in modern American’s conscience, but there were some that were just as bad.  The crash of 1916/17 saw the market lose 40% of its value.  In the crash of 1973/74, it lost 45% of its value.  The crash that effected the economy from 1901 – 1903 saw the market lose 46%.  Anyone else remember “Black Friday” of 1987?  The market lost almost 25% in one day!  These are just in our own century.  In 19th century America they came harder and more frequently.  1876, the one hundredth anniversary of our nation, was especially hard for the U.S. economy.  After the 1929 crash, there was plenty of predictions that American capitalism was dead.  Yet, here we are today.  Yes, many individuals have suffered.  But it has not spelled the end of us as a nation.

What about the changes in our economy? The loss of manufacturing sectors and job markets?  The change in the late 19th century from whale oil to crude oil for heating and lighting was prophesied to be the end of all good things.  It wasn’t.  The truth of the matter is that our capitalist economy has gone through many changes in 200+ years of history.  We moved from an almost total agrarian society to an industrialized one.  We are quickly moving from an industrial one to a technological one.  We have an incredible capacity as a nation to adapt and change.  Does it bring hardship and change?  Yes.  But does it spell the end of all things?  No.

So, where does this leave us? Let me humbly suggest a few things:

1. Turn off the pundits who make their money by keeping the fear alarm at feverish pitch.  They arent’ doing anyone any favors.  It is their livelihood and business to always be in opposition and to keep the alarm ringing.  They are only serving their own financial interests.  You are just a part of their market.
2. Read up on history.  Educate yourself. You don’t have to check out large, boring volumes from the local public library to be informed.  There are some good web sites on the internet that will distill the information you need into understandable packets.  However, I do suggest reading a few good history books on American history – particularly biographies.  (David McCullough is one of my favorites and so is Barbara Tuchman.)  Even historical novels will give you a sense of background and historical perspective for a time period.
3. Do the very thing the Bible instructs us to do. Pray for and bless our political leaders.  I don’t know about you but I’m sick and tired of the “Obamanation” invective thrown around by political conservatives.  The Bible is clear about using our tongues to bless and not curse.
4. Get involved in the political process and be Christ-like about it. I believe that the political conservative movement has rightly earned their bad image.  We have behaved poorly.  It is especially disappointing for Christian conservatives – those who supposedly follow the way of Jesus – to behave in like manner.  What or who are we taking our social action cues from?  “As much as it depends upon you, be at peace with everyone” and “Bless and curse not” are Scripture verses we could remind ourselves of a little more often.

This applies to those on the left-side of center as well. Christians who find themselves on the liberal side of politics pour as much fuel on the fire as anyone else.  In short, we are all to blame for the mess we are in.  Our greatest enemy is not from some distant Arabian land but from within each of our own hearts.  Therefore, it might be to our best interests if we all just take a little time-out break.  Let’s all just settle down.  It’s not the best of times.  But it’s not the worst of times either.

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

Related Articles

• America’s Fear of Outsiders (time.com)
• Not-so-strange bedfellows (boston.com)
• Books of The Times: A Marriage That Defied Separation and War (nytimes.com)
• Thomas Jefferson – Top 10 American Political Prodigies – TIME (dmacc5022.wordpress.com)

Read Full Post »