Pondering what to post, I thought back to a few years ago. Having just finished seminary I found myself in a bit of a spiritual crisis. Capturing thoughts on 'paper' (Word Documents, actually) seemed to help in the process. This was what I wrote one evening in 2007. Glad to have captured a glimpse of where I was then to see how far I've come til now.....
Rote learning. You hear it and repeat it. I studied German for three years in high school. Our teacher would play the tapes of fictional German characters talking about what they do in their free time. We would listen and repeat these phrases. “Her zu und weider holen”; which means listen and repeat. We would sit there as a class, mindlessly repeating those useless phrases into the air. I still have yet to tell someone what I do in my free time using German. Years later after studying Mandarin totally immersed in Chinese culture I realized that I learn well in this way. Mimicking is a great way to learn language. I found myself repeating the phrases of shopkeepers and waitresses. These phrases were often ‘poo-pooed’ by my teachers as ‘bu biaozhun’ , not standard. Chinese prides itself on Putong Hua; Mandarin. A high compliment to a foreigner studying Chinese is “Your Mandarin is so standard; even more standard than mine.” People who have grown up in rural places often speak dialects and with accents that are less than standard.
But I was good at mimicking these phrases the way locals did. I didn’t care if they were ‘bu biaozhun’; my local friends and waitresses got a kick when I spoke like them. I even got to the point where I could lead people to think I was Chinese on the phone; at least initially. Of course my accent would quickly give me away, but those initial greetings were learned in a way that I could fool some. It was simply a matter of using the correct inflection and emphasis. It was simply a façade I could put on. “Your Chinese is great” people would say. Yet, proceeding in conversation would reveal that actually my Chinese was not that good. My tones are bad, and my vocabulary is quite limited. Moving into any area of specialty like medicine, politics, or religion very quickly reveals just how lacking my Chinese is. But, I had only studied for a year so I didn’t worry too much about my insufficiencies. And that kind of learning seemed to fit well in China where rote memorization style learning is the norm. It seems the whole education system is based simply on memorizing immense amounts of facts and figures and then spitting them back on an exam. So I continued to imitate the lamb kabob salesmen, fruit sellers, and waitresses. It worked in helping me navigate the daily tasks of eating and polite conversation. Unfortunately it doesn’t work well in learning things like talking about faith or matters of the heart. I can engage in all kinds of false humility about my Chinese skills, and laugh about local dialect; but I can’t tell people about my dreams and hopes for the future or about issues of faith. Honestly, sometimes I’m not sure I can in English, either.
I have realized recently that my skills in rote learning have come in useful in my faith life as well. Somewhere along the line, long before I ever realized what I was doing, I became very adept at ‘hertzu and wieder holen” with Christianese. After all, Christians have their our own lingo and if you can learn the lingo, you can navigate the culture, just as I did with my local kabob salesmen in China. Over the years I have immersed myself in the culture of Christianity, wholeheartedly engaging in the full range of good Christian things. I can say the right prayers, respond to people’s problems with appropriate bible verses, and commit to pray with just the right touch of sincerity. With fervor I learned to craft a worship experience with prayers, readings, and appropriate songs related to the topic of the day. My shelves contain numerous half-read books by theologians from which I have gleaned just enough to be able to hang in the conversations about Piper and Lewis. I can articulate the differences between Islam and Christianity. Yet when I examine myself, I’m not sure where I stand on all these issues. Like my Chinese, my knowledge is a nice façade that if plumbed will be exposed as lacking. Life in the Christian world often seems to be a continuous stream of good, pat things to say. Mostly they pacify people and leave us feeling good about our spirituality. “I’m really struggling today.” “The Lord will provide.” “God is in control and He has a plan; the book of Jeremiah tells us so.” I hate these phrases. I’m not sure I believe them anymore. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an issue of believing the core truth. It is a matter of there always being an easy answer for life trials and tribulations. Why don’t we say things like: “That sucks. That is really difficult” “That is really painful.” “I have no idea what God is doing in that situation.” .
There is one fundamental difference between this and my Chinese. That is the length of time I can fool people. Speaking on the phone, I can fool the person on the other end for a minute or two before my true identity as a big white foreign poser is exposed. In Christian circles, you can fool people, and yourself, for a lot longer. It can’t go on forever though. Eventually all those little sayings lose their meanings. Though I can go on fooling the people on the receiving end, I just can’t keep saying them. I have doing ‘herzu and weider holen’ for too long.
No, I am not asserting that my whole faith journey is a fraud or that I have been living a lie. My faith deep down is sincere. What I am saying is that I have learned to subsist and progress on the “listen and repeat” principle. It is incredible how quickly I can recycle the phrases and ideas I hear as my own. Sometimes I almost wince as the stuff flows from my mouth. “Did I really just say that?” I’ll say to myself with a role of my eyes. Imagine my surprise when I heard Webb’s new song that summed up my thoughts perfectly. “I am like a mocking bird; I’ve got not new song to sing. I am like an amplifier; I just tell you what I’ve heard.” Surely I have some of my own thoughts in there, right? I’m not sure what they look like, though. For so long I have simply wanted to say the right things at the right time to be sure to fit in. So I listen and repeat, listen and repeat. I was recently asked what my favorite song or band was. When asked this, I usually think through what answers will be ‘cool’ according to the person who will be reading my responses. I picked up an application to an independent coffee shop recently and their application included this question. I didn’t submit the application because I was sure my music choices weren’t the genre they were looking for. To be honest, I’m not sure what my favorite genre is. Just like music, much of my faith consists of ideas I’m just not really sure about. I’ll usually flop my stance toward the person I’m talking to.
I don’t think I can do it anymore. I probably won’t offer to pray for anyone for a while. I probably won’t say praise the Lord in conversation for a while. I probably won’t tell anyone that I’m going to pray about a decision for awhile. I may not even pray for a while. It is just repeating the same rote phrases over and over and it must bore God; those same phrases repeated over and over. There has to be something fresh or new.
Rote learning. You hear it and repeat it. I studied German for three years in high school. Our teacher would play the tapes of fictional German characters talking about what they do in their free time. We would listen and repeat these phrases. “Her zu und weider holen”; which means listen and repeat. We would sit there as a class, mindlessly repeating those useless phrases into the air. I still have yet to tell someone what I do in my free time using German. Years later after studying Mandarin totally immersed in Chinese culture I realized that I learn well in this way. Mimicking is a great way to learn language. I found myself repeating the phrases of shopkeepers and waitresses. These phrases were often ‘poo-pooed’ by my teachers as ‘bu biaozhun’ , not standard. Chinese prides itself on Putong Hua; Mandarin. A high compliment to a foreigner studying Chinese is “Your Mandarin is so standard; even more standard than mine.” People who have grown up in rural places often speak dialects and with accents that are less than standard.
But I was good at mimicking these phrases the way locals did. I didn’t care if they were ‘bu biaozhun’; my local friends and waitresses got a kick when I spoke like them. I even got to the point where I could lead people to think I was Chinese on the phone; at least initially. Of course my accent would quickly give me away, but those initial greetings were learned in a way that I could fool some. It was simply a matter of using the correct inflection and emphasis. It was simply a façade I could put on. “Your Chinese is great” people would say. Yet, proceeding in conversation would reveal that actually my Chinese was not that good. My tones are bad, and my vocabulary is quite limited. Moving into any area of specialty like medicine, politics, or religion very quickly reveals just how lacking my Chinese is. But, I had only studied for a year so I didn’t worry too much about my insufficiencies. And that kind of learning seemed to fit well in China where rote memorization style learning is the norm. It seems the whole education system is based simply on memorizing immense amounts of facts and figures and then spitting them back on an exam. So I continued to imitate the lamb kabob salesmen, fruit sellers, and waitresses. It worked in helping me navigate the daily tasks of eating and polite conversation. Unfortunately it doesn’t work well in learning things like talking about faith or matters of the heart. I can engage in all kinds of false humility about my Chinese skills, and laugh about local dialect; but I can’t tell people about my dreams and hopes for the future or about issues of faith. Honestly, sometimes I’m not sure I can in English, either.
I have realized recently that my skills in rote learning have come in useful in my faith life as well. Somewhere along the line, long before I ever realized what I was doing, I became very adept at ‘hertzu and wieder holen” with Christianese. After all, Christians have their our own lingo and if you can learn the lingo, you can navigate the culture, just as I did with my local kabob salesmen in China. Over the years I have immersed myself in the culture of Christianity, wholeheartedly engaging in the full range of good Christian things. I can say the right prayers, respond to people’s problems with appropriate bible verses, and commit to pray with just the right touch of sincerity. With fervor I learned to craft a worship experience with prayers, readings, and appropriate songs related to the topic of the day. My shelves contain numerous half-read books by theologians from which I have gleaned just enough to be able to hang in the conversations about Piper and Lewis. I can articulate the differences between Islam and Christianity. Yet when I examine myself, I’m not sure where I stand on all these issues. Like my Chinese, my knowledge is a nice façade that if plumbed will be exposed as lacking. Life in the Christian world often seems to be a continuous stream of good, pat things to say. Mostly they pacify people and leave us feeling good about our spirituality. “I’m really struggling today.” “The Lord will provide.” “God is in control and He has a plan; the book of Jeremiah tells us so.” I hate these phrases. I’m not sure I believe them anymore. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an issue of believing the core truth. It is a matter of there always being an easy answer for life trials and tribulations. Why don’t we say things like: “That sucks. That is really difficult” “That is really painful.” “I have no idea what God is doing in that situation.” .
There is one fundamental difference between this and my Chinese. That is the length of time I can fool people. Speaking on the phone, I can fool the person on the other end for a minute or two before my true identity as a big white foreign poser is exposed. In Christian circles, you can fool people, and yourself, for a lot longer. It can’t go on forever though. Eventually all those little sayings lose their meanings. Though I can go on fooling the people on the receiving end, I just can’t keep saying them. I have doing ‘herzu and weider holen’ for too long.
No, I am not asserting that my whole faith journey is a fraud or that I have been living a lie. My faith deep down is sincere. What I am saying is that I have learned to subsist and progress on the “listen and repeat” principle. It is incredible how quickly I can recycle the phrases and ideas I hear as my own. Sometimes I almost wince as the stuff flows from my mouth. “Did I really just say that?” I’ll say to myself with a role of my eyes. Imagine my surprise when I heard Webb’s new song that summed up my thoughts perfectly. “I am like a mocking bird; I’ve got not new song to sing. I am like an amplifier; I just tell you what I’ve heard.” Surely I have some of my own thoughts in there, right? I’m not sure what they look like, though. For so long I have simply wanted to say the right things at the right time to be sure to fit in. So I listen and repeat, listen and repeat. I was recently asked what my favorite song or band was. When asked this, I usually think through what answers will be ‘cool’ according to the person who will be reading my responses. I picked up an application to an independent coffee shop recently and their application included this question. I didn’t submit the application because I was sure my music choices weren’t the genre they were looking for. To be honest, I’m not sure what my favorite genre is. Just like music, much of my faith consists of ideas I’m just not really sure about. I’ll usually flop my stance toward the person I’m talking to.
I don’t think I can do it anymore. I probably won’t offer to pray for anyone for a while. I probably won’t say praise the Lord in conversation for a while. I probably won’t tell anyone that I’m going to pray about a decision for awhile. I may not even pray for a while. It is just repeating the same rote phrases over and over and it must bore God; those same phrases repeated over and over. There has to be something fresh or new.