One Word at a Time

As my two year old son played with kinetic sand, I said to him, “Make me three cakes.” He replied, “OK, Daddy!” and got to work shaping the cakes. Observing his linguistic abilities emerge has been an ongoing source of wonder and pride. 

While the acquisition of language by children is amazing, languages themselves are perhaps even more extraordinary. In one of his works, C.S. Lewis marvels that rather than being invented by one person, each language is the collected culture and wisdom of an entire people, built little by little across generations. 

I find it fascinating that as finished products, both speech in individuals and entire languages appear almost miraculous; and yet, they were developed one word at a time. Other abilities like playing the violin, running a global corporation, or creating a flourishing family culture are similar. To the uninitiated, these abilities seem like foreign languages. It’s difficult to see how we could ever be as proficient as the masters of these abilities are. And yet, these too were built up little by little from “words”—small manageable units that when combined produce something extraordinary. 

This week, I invite you to ask: 

What “language” would I like to learn? That is, what is some intimidating, almost miraculous result that I would like to achieve?  

What will my first “words” be? That is, what are the small next steps that I would need to take in order to make progress toward my result? 

God bless,
Dan