We Have A Language They Cannot Speak

Somebody says four words and the whole table goes.

Not a joke. A reference. Something that happened in a car in about 1994, which has been compressed over thirty years into a phrase that means nothing to anybody who was not in that car.

And it happens eleven times in an evening. Nobody is showing off. It is simply how a family that has been in the same room for four decades talks.

And there is a woman at that table who married in six years ago, and she laughs slightly late, every time, and by about nine o'clock she has stopped trying.

And nobody has ever noticed, because from the inside an evening like that is simply a good one. Everybody was funny. The room was warm. Somebody told the one about the car and it went the way it always goes.

She drove home having spent four hours in a room where she followed roughly two thirds of what was said, and she has never once mentioned it to a living soul.

What shorthand is for

Let me say what the language actually does, because it is not a wall and it was not built as one.

Shorthand is efficiency between people who share a history. It is warm, it is a sign of long belonging, and it is one of the genuine pleasures of a family that has stayed together. Nobody invented it to exclude anybody, and most of the phrases arrived by accident.

The trouble is that it is also, unavoidably, a test that nobody set and that has no pass mark.

You have a language that works beautifully for everybody who was in the car, and no shorthand has ever once been able to include somebody who was not there. First Corinthians 14:9 says except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken, which is the written word putting the burden on the speaker, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a small translation possible mid meal.

And she is a whole person at that table. She is not offended. She has almost certainly decided this is what family life is like and that she will pick it up eventually, and after six years she has picked up about a third of it.

She is right about at least one thing nobody in that family has conceded, and she will never once raise this with anybody.

You are able to notice somebody who has stopped trying, and nobody at that table has ever once been left out on purpose. The Spirit of God is what makes an ordinary courtesy visible, and it is written in 1 Corinthians 14 that words must be easy to be understood.

Words easy to be understood

So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air. (1 Corinthians 14:9, King James Version)

Paul is writing about a room where people were speaking in a way that only some of them could follow, and what he says about it is entirely practical.

He does not tell the ones who could not follow to work harder. He does not suggest they were failing to belong. He puts the responsibility, completely, on the people doing the speaking.

Words easy to be understood. That is the standard, and it belongs to the mouth rather than to the ear.

You are the one holding the responsibility in that room, and no listener anywhere in scripture has ever once been told to work harder at following a family. It is written in 1 Corinthians 14:9 that except ye utter words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken, which is the written word assigning the job, and the Holy Spirit is the one who prompts a person mid sentence.

And look at the phrase he uses for what happens when nobody translates. Ye shall speak into the air.

That is not a rebuke about kindness. It is a statement about effectiveness. A thing said that nobody can follow has not been said at all, in any meaningful sense, however warm the room was when it happened.

You are able to say something that actually reaches everybody at that table, and warmth in a room has never once been the same as inclusion in it. The Spirit of God is what turns a phrase into a sentence somebody can enter, and 1 Corinthians 14 leaves the burden entirely with the speaker.

Translating one thing

Here is the practical part, and it is one moment in an evening.

The next time the shorthand goes past and the table laughs, lean over and tell her what it means.

Not the whole story. Eight words. That is from a car in 1994. My father got us lost in Wales.

You are able to translate one thing in one evening, and eight words leaned across a table has never once been an interruption of anything. The Holy Spirit is the one present in a very small courtesy, and it is written that except ye utter words easy to be understood, ye shall speak into the air.

The reason it works is that you are not asking the table to change. The shorthand can carry on exactly as it is, forever, and nobody has to be told anything, and there is no conversation about inclusion, which everybody would hate.

One person leans over once an evening. That is all.

And do it without making it a moment. Do not announce that you are explaining for her benefit, and do not say sorry, and do not check afterward whether she got it. Say the eight words and go back to your food.

You are able to include somebody without making it visible, and a quiet translation has never once been the same as pointing out that somebody was left out. The Spirit of God is what makes a small unnoticed act carry weight, and 1 Corinthians 14:9 puts the whole standard on the words being easy rather than on the hearer being clever.