HOW WILL YOU SPEAK MY NAME? (Stephen Haughland)

Imagine that today you had the time, energy, and the interest to learn to speak a different language. Would you take the opportunity if you could, and what language would you choose?

My spouse was the child of post-war Dutch immigrants. As a teen, she had wanted to learn “Nederlands-Talle” – the official language of Holland. But, at home, she was simply told  “We’re Canadians now. We speak English.”  She insisted, however, and years later she was still working on the “Hollands-spreken” she had learned from listening to her Dutch relatives. It was her interest and passion during her entire lifetime.

My own love for languages began in university. I had enrolled in German studies, and soon made the amazing discovery that learning a foreign language made it easier to appreciate the English I was speaking daily, but taking for granted. That experience taught me that language is not only about how we arrange words: Learning a language is also about how we relate to the people who speak those words. Language is not only about what we say when we speak to the other: Language is also about how we speak the other person’s name.

Today, events are challenging us to speak languages that are the same, yet different from the languages we usually speak. The challenge comes because the languages we speak today allow us, too easily, to utter the name of “the other” with doubts, and fears, and suspicion.

Perhaps it’s time, dear ones, to cease speaking the language of doubts and fears, and learn to speak a new language. That language could start with how you and I and everybody else might speak each other’s names in ways that sound more like kindness, and respect, and hope. Perhaps, with God’s help, we might yet be able to “speak” our world towards a better place.

Today more than ever, may all our speaking be in the language of kindness!

The Rev. Stephen Haughland
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Chauvin AB