Is There a Universal Language?

Is there a medium of communication understood by all humans? How about all living beings? Is there a way of conveying meaning to others that can be apprehended by others no matter where you are or who you are with? For a stranger, a foreigner, an alien in a strange, foreign and alien land this is a persistent question. The type of question that keeps coming back and confronting you in the face of your on-going life experiences.

When your TA ("Teaching Assistant" also means for me, "Translation Assistant") is not at your side, you quickly reach the point where you are desperately searching for a medium of common communication -- a universal means of conveying meaning. My nine weeks here in Korea have convinced me that the answer to this perplexing question is not found in any naturally spoken human language -- that's right, not even Esperanto!

What I'm finding, though, is that there is a universal language, and it is the universe itself. Those things in the universe around us -- both near by in nature and far out in space -- we see, we hear, we apprehend (and by we I mean all humans no matter your country of citizen or ethnicity) what all of us need to see, to hear, to apprehend. And, by looking and listening to what surrounds us all and what we all share, we can experience a common means of communication.

One of the best examples of this universal reality is music -- and yes, some of you, my regular readers, may be asking right now, has the drum and cymbal corps begun another evening rehearsal? They have. -- But, it is not particular styles of music that I'm talking about, it is the human activity of making (or attempting to make)music that expresses this universality of meaning that is found in the universe itself.

Music is apart of the universe that is. Some have suggested that music is the artistic expression of the science of mathematics displaying the purpose, order and design that characterizes the universe that is. So, music may be one of the media for convey meaning and delight to ourselves and to others. True enough, you may respond that music as an expression may display dissonance and irresolution.


There is, though, music that will attract and delight humans no matter what their culture may be. It is music that displays the wonder of the universe in the same way that a glorious sunset delights all who witness it. It is music that expresses the wonder of life even as a blooming flower or the autumn blaze of colors across a hardwood valley. I hear this music in the songs that resonate through Handong's halls and hills.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

(Psalm 19:1-4)

Pondering the Persistent Questions of Life

A few weeks back, I was asked by KWMU - St. Louis Public Radio - to put together a brief statement about how I use the information I glean from listening to their programming in my classroom instruction. I've been a listener to NPR for more than 20 years.

It all started with my introduction to Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion during my early years of law practice. It has grown into a daily habit of to Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as well as the BBC during the night time hours -- which are now daytime for me here as I listen via the Internet.

Follow this link to St. Louis Public Radio's website and you'll be able to listen to the audio file for the spot:
http://www.stlpublicradio.org/support/mysource.php
Check under the heading: "St. Louis Public Radio is My Source for . . . "

The Beat of Drums and Clash of Cymbals

I have been told that it often takes some time to grow accustomed to a new culture, a new country, a new community. Often usual customs of the local people present challenges to one unaccustomed to their practices. One such custom here in Korea is the playing of traditional drums and cymbals. In a few weeks, the students of Handong will celebrate a festival. One of the highlights of the festival is traditional drumming, cymbals and the accompanying dance.

In order to prepare for this festival, a group of about 20 students have begun practicing the drumming and cymbal crashing outside the back of the Student Center under the large canopy. The structure of the Student Center forms sort of a amphitheater that resonates any sounds that are produced within it. This effect becomes particularly reverberating when the drum and cymbal corp commence there rehearsal.

It started last evening about 8pm. It continued -- constantly -- with the same recurring rhythm and clashing -- loud pounding -- and pronounced clashing -- until after 11pm. My apartment in the Mission House is within 100 yards of the area of the Student Center where the "rehearsal" was taking place. Needless to say, I was not able to even think about sleep until after the numbing drumming and clashing cymbals ceased.

While I sat and listened to the recurring rhythms, I was reminded of a story that my son Caleb told me from his experiences living among the Yanamamo Indians in the south of Venezuela. The young men of the community began preparing one night for a hunt. The preparation ritual involved their gathering around a large fire with drums and dancing. The partying continued to three days and nights before the young men (with Caleb tagging along) departed for the hunt.

As Caleb first reported this account in his email to us, he reminded us that teenagers are the same all over the world. They all enjoy the strong rhythms of the drum, dancing and a never-ending party. Well, Caleb's assessment of the young Yanamamo seems to hold true for the youth of Korea also -- at least here on the campus of Handong. So evidently, I will need to adjust my sleeping schedule or pull out my trusty ear plugs (an item every world traveler needs to have readily at hand -- another lesson I've learned from my son Caleb).

In any case, I am beginning, with a large measure of grace, to grow accustomed to their sound. I take some solace in knowing that even the Lord enjoins his congregation to:

Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!

Psalm 150:4-5

Put Another Star on the Calendar!

By the grace of God and the goodness of my brother Harry Jee, I accomplished another first today. I must readily admit that it was not as "Korean" as my first taste of kimchi a few weeks back, but on the other hand, it was just as dangerous, or even more so. Today, I drove for the first time -- and the drive was not just around campus, but along the winding country-side roads from Handong south to Pohang.

So, I borrowed David Mundy's Hyundai Accent (GM's and Ford's are a bit rare in these parts -- in any case, I had no interest in drawing attention to the car that this foreigner was driving), picked-up my new colleague, Dr. Harry Jee, and we were off. I introduced you to Harry several weeks back (read more). We are both new faculty here at Handong this semester, although he has a definitive advantage over me -- he's a native-born Korean and speaks his first language quite well even though he's been in the States for the past two decades. Evidently, speaking one's mother-tongue is much like riding a bike -- you never quite forget how to do it, and once you pick it up again, things just start rolling along.

So too with driving a car -- I hadn't been behind the wheel of any vehicle for over eight weeks. Even in my advanced state of age, I imagine it would take a little more than two months to rob me of sufficient recollections necessary to operate a car. I'm just thankful the Accent was an automatic and not a manual. Had I needed to clutch and shift, that would have presented a problem. I've never been very good at a standard transmission. Just ask my son, Justin.

The drive actually went quite smoothly. I only made one wrong turn on the way to the restaurant, and then, after a few trips around the blocks nearby, I finally spotted my landmark -- two golden pigs atop the gateway entrance to an apartment parking garage. Next door was the Chinese restaurant I was looking for. Harry was quite impressed that I had found the place. All along, he was thinking that he would have to find a place for us to lunch after I had finally given-up on my search.

We enjoyed a fine feast on sweet and sour pork (which I ate, mind you, with chop sticks, no less) and then, topped off our luncheon by sipping several cups jasmine tea. Now satisfied, we set off on our return trip to Handong's campus. Harry suggested that I take the new highway back, and I did not hesitate to heed his challenge. I was quite confident that this Eagle Scout could find his way anywhere even in Pohang, Korea.

Well . . . after making a couple of circles around the new district of the city where our restaurant was located, I decided to venture out on one particular road and began to see some landmarks that looked somewhat familiar. We were indeed on our way toward the new highway that led back toward the campus. We discovered, though, that the exit off the new highway that was suppose to connect to the road in front of Handong was not yet completed and thus, we were now on our way toward the Sea and the new port.

At the last intersection before entering the port authority, we made a right turn that turned out to be right as it led us back toward the winding road we had traveled on our way out to lunch. The trip out from campus had taken about 15 minutes. The trip back, took over 30, but we did make it back! The old saying still holds true: A boy scout is never lost, only a mite bewildered.

It is Two Degrees!

How many times does something need to happen before we get it? Why are we surprised when what we have experienced before happens once again? Well . . . when what is happening goes against the norm; when what we are experiencing reminds us that we live in world -- not of chance and randomness, but one of purpose and design -- where things that appear to just happen actually happen to remind us that we all are quite closely connected -- it can be surprising, but even more, it should awake us to the wonder of life.

It was the words of Francis Schaeffer that so vividly impressed upon my mind the difference between viewing life as a matter of chance and randomness and viewing it as an expression of purpose and design. In his book and the accompanying video series, How Shall We Then Live, Schaeffer shows how music, film and art all attempted to embody a world of chance and randomness during what he called the "Age of Fragmentation." But, even in these attempts, "the universe that is" kept coming through. A universe of purpose and design that neither Jackson Pollack nor his comrades could overcome.

I was reminded of that very purpose and design this weekend when I attended a lecture by one of my new colleagues, Prof. Heinz Schoenhoff. I was intrigued to learn from Heinz that after leaving his professional counseling practice in Canada in 1975, he and his wife, Elsie, moved to Switzerland where they became a part of the L'Abri community founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer. There they frequently attended small group gatherings in the home of Udo and Debbie Middelmann, the Schaeffer's daughter and son-in-law.

I was even more fascinated to learn during a conversation with Heinz following his lecture, that among the other members of the L'Abri community at the time he and Elsie were there was Jerram Barrs. Jerram was one of my professors during my studies at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. What is particularly significant though, is that Jerram was one of the most influential professors on my life through not only his teachings and writings, but even more so by the life that he lives and the person that he is.

There I was again -- meeting someone who knew someone that I knew -- two degrees of separation!












From Heinz to Udo Middelmann and Jerram to me. Yes, it is a very small world, especially within the fellowship of Christ's Body. Yet, there is still something more. When I went to Heinz's lecture Saturday afternoon, I was carrying along with me a book (following the example of my Missouri Baptist University colleague, Clark Triplett -- who is never without a book in hand) to read while I was waiting for the lecture to begin.

The book was one that I had purchased from a used-book table at Covenant Seminary's library several years ago -- a volume entitled, I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Since it was a used book, it was not unusual to find that inside the front cover there was an inscription. The book had been a gift from one friend to another many years ago.

The inscription reads "To Egon at Christmas ~ love and warm regards, Ron 1989." The Egon to whom this book had been given was Egon Middelmann the brother of Udo whom my colleague Heinz had come to know at L'Abri more than thirty years ago. Such closeness of ties within the fabric of life experiences continues to amaze me. Maybe one day I will begin to view these experiences of community with less surprise, but I trust, no less wonder. May we all find greater joy in the journey, today.



"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)