Second Week of Lent and Reflections on Language Learning

Wow.

One difference in schedule (going to church last night)

and suddenly my soup is not made, my dishes unwashed...!

So I have been listening to a French CD

while making lentil soup.

I am realizing how language learning

is a lot like the spiritual life;

or at least for ones like me

who are rank beginners in the spiritual life!

One has to start at the beginning

take small steps in order to start making

slightly bigger steps...

First learning one's ABC's

then one's numbers,

colours, body parts (le coude is elbow),

how to say something in the past

(je viens de finir means I am just finished)

before one can begin to make

slightly more complicated sentences.

I have the grammar book

and see all the tenses

but know I cannot use them yet, as I have to learn

the basics first

and then build on them

piece by piece.

The same with the spiritual life...

I know, for instance,

somethings about the Orthodox understanding

of the process of purification towards

what, in theological terms,

is called deification/theosis.

Similar in word choice to the word sanctification

in Protestant terms...

But to actually be pure in heart

and to know that that is the goal

are two different things!

The same with learning a language.

Lent is our training in one of the most beautiful languages of all:

God-pleasing humility.