It takes months, years, and at times more than a lifetime, to learn and understand the expressions one experiences. Cultural nuances play a role. Individual family and childhood backgrounds often add a spin which can become a whole new dialect. Gender and age add wildcards, at least from one side looking across to the other. In special relationships, insider knowledge is both helpful and distracting. One thinks one knows only to discover much later how the expression contained hidden meaning and nuances.
A question yesterday triggered a review of lessons I hope I always remember.
Understanding the expression of another is more than hearing or seeing. When one begins a quest to understand, one engages the heart, the mind, and every sense. Context matters. Details can be revealing. Everything contributes to the story of what one is expressing. The messenger may not fully realize what is being revealed and yet it is all part of the truth.
Even as I close my mind, a jazz singer at the Rockwood Music Hall comes to mind. Her expressions when seen through a powerful camera lens, told far more than she intended. I only glimpsed into her soul, looking away because I had not been invited to come into this part of her soul.
As I consider the soft dusty sunrise in Dubai, I wonder what God is expressing to anyone willing to understand through experience. There are metaphors, images, and stories being revealed to those willing to let each touch her/his heart.
In considering one’s expressions to others, as one telegraphs expressions of care, kindness, and compassion, one invites others into the experience with you. I used the psalmist’s words, “Treat my prayer as sweet incense rising; my raised hands are my evening prayers,” (Psalm 141.2) as my own as I stood by a dock as God created me on the cold Finnish night. Even as I repeated the expression on other occasions, I realized my prayers were never isolated events. Each prayer was a continuation of the past and introduction to the future.
Expressions are heart words.
