Language of Love

Every morning at 6:08 a.m. the voice of my son can be faintly heard from his bedroom.

“Mommy…can I have some milk, please?”

The communication is straightforward and his words convey exactly what he wants.

Living abroad gives you a new understanding of communication.  Here in Switzerland, there are four languages spoken, all depending on the region you find yourself in.  It can not sometimes help, especially when you don’t realize that you have crossed over into a different region.  For instance, a simple “thank you” can be “Merci,” “Bitte,” or “Grazie.”

More often than not, when the normal means of communication (language) breaks down, you sometimes have to resort to using your hands to communicate.  My experience in the grocery store last week trying to buy lemons would be a great example.

Communication is a funny thing.  For us, language is always at the forefront because we deal with it every day.  And yet, language, or better put, the actual words that we use, only tell a small part of what we want to communicate.

Research suggests that words (the literal meaning) account for 7% of the overall message, while the tone of voice accounts for 38%.  But it is our body language that accounts for 55% of what we actually want to communicate.

I have found that most things that are truly important in life cannot be reduced to words, for our words fail us.  Try to explain a sunrise over the ocean to someone or the moment when your child looks into your eyes for the first time.  Try to come up with the syllables or adjectives to describe a loved one who just passed away.  Our words fail us, for they can’t capture the fullness of truth.

We recently were in Venice, Italy, during the boy’s Easter break from school.  It was our first time there, and it is a city like no other.  The canals, the history, the way of life, Venice is truly unique and beautiful.  It was also Holy Week.  So I was very grateful to attend St. Mark’s Basilica all week.

As I sat in St. Mark’s on Good Friday, there was a moment when I was spoken to in a different kind of language.  It was the language of Love.  For on this day, we remembered the death of Jesus on the Cross intentionally and distinctly.  It was a day of action.  Of silence.  God was speaking through body language.

And my words failed me.

“God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.”

-Jn 3:16

In a time in history when technology, the 24-hour news cycle, and social media dominate our ways of communication with words and more words (usually words that shout the loudest and convey the most hatred), there was this moment.  This moment of silence.  A moment when Love was spoken in a way that words failed us.  Logic failed us.  Feelings failed us.  And yet, we responded in the only way that we could.

Throughout the world, a world riddled with violence and hatred, with addiction to power and greed, you found people on their knees.  Bending our knees to a King who voluntarily went to His death, death on a cross.

God has spoken.  We are invited to respond.

And yet, more times than not, there are no words that can communicate this kind of language of Love.

Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

-Phil 2:6-11