Today marks my first birthday in Latvia. I say that not to elicit congratulations or birthday wishes or anything of that sort;¹ as I see it, a birthday a paradoxical combination of celebrating surviving another year² and realizing that death is one year closer.
Yay.
I've recently started receiving some language tutoring in Latvian. I'd like to dazzle you with my newfound language knowledge, but in fact the single greatest lesson that I've learned thus far is just how much there is to learn.
Words, phrases, thoughts and concepts which are familiar friends in English have turned into strangers. I am far from being the most eloquent speaker even in my native tongue, but trying to communicate something - anything - in Latvian sends my brain into overdrive. Just to be able to utter a single phrase, which may or may not even be correct, causes smoke to pour out of my ears.
Words, phrases, thoughts and concepts which are familiar friends in English have turned into strangers. I am far from being the most eloquent speaker even in my native tongue, but trying to communicate something - anything - in Latvian sends my brain into overdrive. Just to be able to utter a single phrase, which may or may not even be correct, causes smoke to pour out of my ears.
This would be frustrating if I was an adult, trying to communicate using adult language in an adult world
Thankfully, though, I'm not.
I've only just had my first birthday, after all
If I keep that in mind, then I suddenly feel much more optimistic about my chances of someday speaking something which sounds like Latvian. I can't expect to have the vocabulary and communication skills of an adult while still a child; this process has just begun, and there is still so much to learn, to hear, to discover and absorb.
But while there is an awareness that this process will take - is taking, is going to continue to take - considerable time, I also want to be sure that I do in fact grow up. I don't want to remain at this age of fluency; I'd someday like to be able to speak like a five year old. Maybe even, someday, at the level of an adolescent.⁴
I'd like to tell you that my spiritual maturity mirrored my actual age more than my Latvian age. That would be great. It also wouldn't be true. In fact, I feel like what I've been learning in my life with God mirrors my biggest lesson from Latvian as well:
There is so much to learn, and I know so very, very little.
Therein lies the beauty, however, of both language and life with God. One never truly finishes learning. There is always more to discover, words to learn, different ways of communicating the same timeless truths.
And to learn, one must first acknowledge that one does not know.
Humbling, but also empowering.
So, it's back to the words⁵ I go. Es nerūnaju Latviski vēl; tagad man ir tikai viens gads.⁶
¹That, among a few other things, is what facebook is good for: guilting people who are stuck with the "friends" label into sending along birthday greetings when facebook prompts them to. It makes birthdays much more enjoyable to get a deluge of well-wishes from around the world!
²No small feat for some of us.
³And which almost assuredly has the wrong case ending on some - or all - of the words used.
⁴Because that'd like, be, like, you know. Yeah.
⁵And the Word
⁶If you speak latvian, please feel free to correct me on my grammar!
