There’s so much to take in—the cacophony of sounds that is never-ending in this place. Our swelling, overcrowded city is bursting at the seams and is never silent. The sounds of South Asian life are becoming familiar to our Western ears after a couple of months of immersion in them.
Allahu Akbhar. The melodic nature of the call the prayer lulls the children to sleep.
Briing. Briing. We have come to expect the jingling melody of bicycle rickshaw bell no matter the time of day.
We hardly notice the yelping of the street dogs anymore, the clanging of aluminum rice pots in the early mornings. These are the sounds of life in the most densely populated city on earth where our neighbor’s kitchen is feet from our own, separated by only a thin screen window. We feel our place amidst the noise and know we are but a speck in this teeming sea of life.
It is when I try to interject my own voice into this space that I become even more aware of my smallness. The syllables I long to speak sounds like just another noise to my untrained ears. This language has existed in some form for thousands of years, descendant from one of the most ancient tongues on earth. This language is the pride of its people, shaped the very foundation and form of this nation.
Friends who’ve learned what feels impossible from my vantage point tell me the first step of learning the language is teaching your ear to recognize the rising and lilting sounds of Bangla. They call it the listening phase. For the first couple months full comprehension isn’t the goal—just recognition.
Right now, I know enough to get around town (sometimes) and talk to my shop keepers (about some
things). I stumble my way through a sentence or two with my co-worker who speaks no English. A glimmer of joy passes through her eyes when she feels understood and our normal communication of gesturing and sounds becomes something a little bit more.
Dhonnovad. Thank you.
Onek Shundor. Very pretty.
Bideshi. Foreigner.
I recognize such a tiny amount of the words I hear each day. I am impatient for the day my listening will produce the fruit of knowledge, of separating noise from language. I want to cross the bridge into familiarity instead of everything feeling exotic, unknown, other. I wonder if I will ever understand. I keep up my attempts in the hope I will..
But it takes time. Lots of it. It takes discipline, work, repetition—and always listening.
I’ve been working for years to understand another language, the language of the Spirit. Silence. Communion with God.
I’ve been struggling to separate God’s voice out of what feels like the din that is ever-growing around me. Sometimes I feel a glimmer of recognition. I feel progress in hearing, experience the Divine Presence. Other times God’s voice seems as unrecognizable as the curls of the Bangla script to this bideshi’s eyes.
It’s been my goal to write in such a way to create space for others to listen for his voice too. It’s the very reason I dared to become a writer, to put my heart on the page for others to see. Every now and then someone sends a message to tell me my words opened up a space for them to listen to God’s voice and I feel it is enough. But I often feel no closer to my goal of hearing and guiding others to hear that still, small voice in the noise than when I first began and it can lead me to despair. Will I ever understand?
I am starting official language school this month, giving myself full-time to learn the language of the country I now call home. I set goals for understanding, for conversation, and for pushing myself into what I know will be an uncomfortable and often embarrassing task. I asked a friend who has lived in South Asia most of his adult life when I should expect to leave the listening phase of language learning. Never, he responds with a laugh. You are always a learner. You’ll never be a Bengali no matter how hard you try.
So I think it is with Our Father. I’ll always be training my ear to hear his voice, always discerning if it is him I am hearing in the words of Scripture, in the silence, in the community around me.
As the calendar pages turn and I face down another year, I try to set goals for my language learning. There are benchmarks I must pass, and tests I must take. But the goals don’t have to do with learning Bangla in a vacuum, knowledge for knowledge’s sake. These desires all come back to wanting to know and being known. I want to feel I belong here in my adopted home. I want communion with these people.
So too all my desires for my inner life and spiritual formation spring from the hope that at the end of another year I know more of who he is than I did before and more of who I am.
I want communion with Christ. I am sure will be on the top of my goals each year for the rest of my life, never fully attained. I’m never giving up the search and the belief that he wants to be known and to reveal himself to me more each day if I will but open the door of my heart.
But it takes time. Lots of it. It takes discipline, work, repetition—and always listening.
*Originally published January 8, 2018 at The Mudroom. Updated and republished on October 23, 2024.
Photo from my favorite place to listen to the sounds of the city, my bedroom window overlooking Dhaka (2018).
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