I’m not usually known for my
theological dissertations. I leave that
kind of stuff to my dear husband, the Astrophysicist, PhD, Book writing, Lay
minister. My comfort zone is in the day
to day.
My favorite “religious quote” is;
“Preach the gospel and if necessary use words.”
This so explains why I seek to put my faith in the things I do with my
hands, feet and heart. Sadly lately I’ve
felt like my feet are not working well and my hands are too sore to lift many
up. Needless to say I’ve felt like I had
not been “preaching” much anymore.
Then the other day during one of
our drives around town that my son and I disguise as errands, we began to talk
about our faith and what we believed in from a spiritual point of view. I will spare you a longish repetition of
these revelations for now. As I tried to
explain to my son how I had come to this point in my life where I now refer to
myself as a “doner”. That is, I’m done
with organized religion, but how this has not negatively affected my faith
life. I struggled to explain to him how
I believe that in the end everyone’s god is God. Bear with me here, there will be a chart.
Everyone in the world does not
speak the same language. We all of us
grew up with different “cradle tongues” that is the language we grew up hearing
and intuitively understanding. Even if we learn a different language later in
life we will always struggle with translating the words we know into the words
of our newly adopted means of communication.
Because it is very difficult to hear the words in your head that you
want to say in the language you need to say them in. Your head wants to tell
you those words in your cradle tongue. Just ask any linguist.
And
then there are our cultures. Those myriad of traditions, sacred beliefs and
histories that uniquely identify as belonging to that culture we are each born
into. Now a day’s people talk about cultural appropriation because
people from different cultures feel they are being disrespected when someone imitates
some part of their tradition, behavior or dress. These cultural aspects have as
much influence on us as our cradle tongue.
Being yet another filter through which our brains consider what is going
on around us.
So if you take into
consideration the language and cultures that populate this world you begin to
realize that there are thousands of ways of looking at the most simple of
things, like the names for everyday items.
Every language and
culture has a different word for the most common of things and in many cases many
different cultural beliefs and traditions surrounding these common things.
If you look at the
chart I’ve inserted below you will see that I have taken 5 common English words
and translated them into 4 other random languages. (Armenian – A language far
enough away from the common German, romance language influence found in
English. Chinese (Simplified) - A world away from common English speaking
cultures. Hindi – A language surrounded by so much cultural history. Spanish –
Because everyone knows Charlemagne spoke “Spanish to God.”
I’ve listed each
language’s translated word for a common item and included a very short cultural
tradition note for each item in relation to that language. Except for one, I did not attempt to find or
would even begin to be able to list all of the cultural traditions surrounding the
word god.
With but a few minutes
of Google searching May I present.
|
Language
|
English
|
Translation
|
Cultural Tradition
|
|
Armenian
|
Puppet
|
Տիկնիկային (tiknikayin)
|
Children’s Learning, historical
|
|
Chinese
|
Puppet
|
木偶的 (Mù'ǒu de)
|
Performing Art
|
|
Hindi
|
Puppet
|
कठपुतली (Kaṭhaputalī)
|
A string marionette story telling
|
|
Spanish
|
Puppet
|
Marioneta
|
Folk
art
|
|
Armenian
|
Wall
|
Պատ (pat)
|
monumental defensive walls and city gates
|
|
Chinese
|
Wall
|
墙 (Qiáng)
|
information barrier
|
|
Hindi
|
Wall
|
दीवार (Dīvāra)
|
Varied Functional & decorative traditions
|
|
Spanish
|
Wall
|
Pared
|
Art & Imagery
|
|
Armenian
|
Veil
|
Քող (k’vogh)
|
Wedding traditions
|
|
Chinese
|
Veil
|
面纱 (Miànshā)
|
Red bridal veil
|
|
Hindi
|
Veil
|
परदा (Paradā)
|
Middle Eastern head covering
|
|
Spanish
|
Veil
|
Velo
|
Mantillas & wedding tradition
|
|
Armenian
|
Child
|
Երեխա (yerekha)
|
Numerous cultural traditions
|
|
Chinese
|
Child
|
孩子 (Háizi)
|
Numerous cultural traditions
|
|
Hindi
|
Child
|
बच्चा (Baccā)
|
Numerous cultural traditions
|
|
Spanish
|
Child
|
Nino
|
Numerous cultural traditions
|
|
Armenian
|
God
|
Աստված (astvats)
|
|
|
Chinese
|
God
|
上帝 (Shàngdì)
|
|
|
Hindi
|
God
|
परमेश्वर (Paramēśvara)
|
|
|
Spanish
|
God
|
Dios |
|
But think about it, we all call God by
a vast number of names because we have all come to our beliefs and the names we
call it from where we started or in some cases from where we ended up. In the
end no matter what traditions surround God, we all still believe in some power
or entity of a divine nature. Even atheists believe that these cultural, linguistic
beliefs are just beliefs and not evidence. But that is a topic for another
blog.
So couldn’t it be possible that no
matter what we all call God we all still have a God to believe in and shouldn’t
that be the place to start?
