Lost in Translation

I spent a good amount of time walking around with my camera in hand today. I sat on benches, and waited to capture an expression through another. Every time I look through a camera, I see something I missed before, and even when I take the camera away, I see the world different. As if it were black and white, still, telling a story. As if every moment had a lineage of thought and heart and lessons to the culmination of that moment. 

The older couple on the park bench, cuddling as though teenagers. Four friends laughing swapping stories, the man with his baby girl throwing her in the air as he takes her home from the park, the young man trying over and over again to get his skate board to do what he wants. Each with a story, a desire, a want, a belief that took them to that moment. Language holds to no barrier of words. In a camera's lens, we all speak the same tongue... 

It is no easy task living in a foreign country. The barriers seem innumerable. Lost in translation, the communication of logic is impossible. Nothing makes sense. Doing the smallest task can be a trial of patience, hope and well... self-confidence. 

What had been the mainstays of my displays of competence have been wiped completely away. I can't prove my intelligence through deep conversation and revelations of life. I can no longer show my complexity through the maze of my talents slyly woven into conversation. There is no ability to speak encouragement, or love, or... anything.

Only a few things translate fluently, neither through word of mouth. The best I can do, the most I can do, is be present, and exemplify humility. Though both would seem easy enough, neither allows for the walls so easily created through the language of excuse or desire. I can't explain the desire for alone time, or my appreciation for kindness, so the best I can do, is be present. Smile, laugh with others, show intent to be immersed in a life other than my own. Even in the uncomfortable moments of family time in another language, the only way I can express my love, my grace, my anything, is to be there. To listen and watch expressions, listen for intonations to make myself apart of relationships I can not enter into through verbal forms of communication. Presence being the one thing I have always thought was not enough, I have come to realize, is the keystone of relationships.

And with that, praying for grace (and the gift of tongues), the humility of diving in to a language unknown and making a fool by trying. Reduced to kindergarten level communication, barring finger-paints, the embarrassment of wrong pronunciation, the miscommunications leading to almost offense... daily trials of self esteem. What am I if I have no accomplishments to rely on?

But the strange thing is, there is freedom in the lack of pomp and posturing. To be a kindergartner again with those that expect nothing less... well, it's much easier than others have other ideas regarding what you should and should not be. And to know that my presence, my just being near, is the only thing I can, and should do, it stretches the mind and heart to a new place of realization. 

A piece of my heart melts into the pool of past lessons as I realize, that is all I have ever wanted myself. The desire that my presence be enough, and the desire that others be present while offering or requiring nothing... novel. Boundaries of language of come to parallel boundaries of heart that bleed into safety and understanding. Freedom in lack of requirement, freedom in the offering with no other hope, than to express love and appreciation, I am beginning to see, it the most basic cry of every heart.

So caught up in the language of excuse, the web of reasons we concoct to deny these truths, to defend actions - or inaction - we forget, words are only as important as the actions that accompany. 

There is no substitute for presence, or humility, or boundaries in the form of outrageous love. Exactly what He offers all of us, I have built an ivory tower leading to distance and longing. What I desire the most, what feels the most like purity, genuine love, a tower of safety, place to no longer fear what lies below the surface, that is exactly what He offers. 

What I have discovered as truth, as been truth all along and exists in Him. "He has placed eternity in the hearts of men...." different minds, different interpretations, but for this moment, in this light of truth and half a world away from the normal, it means answering the one question I have been asking for too long: What do you want from me? The answer: me. Just my presence. An acknowledgement of grace from Him by showing up, instead of choosing the isolation that is easier. A desire to understand the heavenly language of a trinity I don't comprehend. The humility to try, fail, and continue trying.

As I fumble through French, I am learning to stumble through the language of love and grace every heart so desperately desires and needs. The only difference is, in 6 weeks I will leave Paris, but Heaven, Heaven is still calling me home and the learning will never stop.