Why I Pray in English
Apr/21/2008 08:41 PM Filed in: Language
Free me from the tyranny of words
Let me be their master, them my slaves
I have been thinking about the stories we tell ourselves of who we are. It’s easy for me - I am an educated, well-travelled woman. I have been drawn to pray in Singlish for some time now, which is a form of pidgin English native to Singapore. I don’t, because I have tried hard to convince myself that this proper English-speaking person is who I really am. If I wanted to help Singaporeans in their relationship with God, I would start praying out loud in Singlish, because maybe then we’d all see that God isn’t offended when we do.
But English is the lingua franca amongst those we want to impress. If we speak, or write in Singlish, we are seen as ESL speakers. Great excuse, because we want to be understood - the conversation we want to join is in English, mostly - but in prayer? The issue then, is not being understood, but how this contradicts the story we have told ourselves about ourselves. We can’t bear to be them. Who wants to play a Caliban? I have been prodded to pray in Singlish for a while now. God has been patient. Will I dare?
I have always been wary of discussions and literature that concern themselves with the marginalized. It seems like a digression from the main issues. Colonialism is only interesting to a point, then, I get impatient to go on to the real issues, which are life, truth, beauty, eternity. If English is an adequate vehicle for these truths, yeah, I’ll use it.
But I’ve always wanted to be led down a hallway, away from words. I long for a place of silence where I can go to be free of words. Free of language, free of grammatical structures and how they confine and imprison thought. I don’t believe that the medium is the message, not wholeheartedly. Am I hoping then, to reach that Platonic ideal essence of the thing, unencumbered by their paltry symbols?
I am at home in 3 Englishes. When I write, when I pray, I choose. When I want to believe the story that I am posh, I use British English, that I’m one of the guys (and gals), I use American, that I am - humble perhaps, I use Singlish. But you see, it is always a choice. There is not one language that I can pray in without choosing a story about myself. There is not one corridor I can walk in, not a language I can pray in, where I can be free to be made, to be born, to be formed from the clay, without clothes. That is why I write - writing is the closest I can get to being without an audible voice, without having to hear the histories and meanings of culture. If the backdrop of nationality is not removed, at least it is blurred.
There are certain grunts that are guttural and universal, unencumbered by language or culture. To speak out of that place. There is a core in the heart like an apple’s seed, that one can push, barely, beyond the layers of flesh and skin, and that is the core I want to get at. That is the small light, that small unnamed thing, that I want to crack open the flesh and earth with, and out of those fissures will come trickles of bright water.
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter still
Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on, play to the spirit ditties of no tone”
- John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn
Let me be their master, them my slaves
I have been thinking about the stories we tell ourselves of who we are. It’s easy for me - I am an educated, well-travelled woman. I have been drawn to pray in Singlish for some time now, which is a form of pidgin English native to Singapore. I don’t, because I have tried hard to convince myself that this proper English-speaking person is who I really am. If I wanted to help Singaporeans in their relationship with God, I would start praying out loud in Singlish, because maybe then we’d all see that God isn’t offended when we do.
But English is the lingua franca amongst those we want to impress. If we speak, or write in Singlish, we are seen as ESL speakers. Great excuse, because we want to be understood - the conversation we want to join is in English, mostly - but in prayer? The issue then, is not being understood, but how this contradicts the story we have told ourselves about ourselves. We can’t bear to be them. Who wants to play a Caliban? I have been prodded to pray in Singlish for a while now. God has been patient. Will I dare?
I have always been wary of discussions and literature that concern themselves with the marginalized. It seems like a digression from the main issues. Colonialism is only interesting to a point, then, I get impatient to go on to the real issues, which are life, truth, beauty, eternity. If English is an adequate vehicle for these truths, yeah, I’ll use it.
But I’ve always wanted to be led down a hallway, away from words. I long for a place of silence where I can go to be free of words. Free of language, free of grammatical structures and how they confine and imprison thought. I don’t believe that the medium is the message, not wholeheartedly. Am I hoping then, to reach that Platonic ideal essence of the thing, unencumbered by their paltry symbols?
I am at home in 3 Englishes. When I write, when I pray, I choose. When I want to believe the story that I am posh, I use British English, that I’m one of the guys (and gals), I use American, that I am - humble perhaps, I use Singlish. But you see, it is always a choice. There is not one language that I can pray in without choosing a story about myself. There is not one corridor I can walk in, not a language I can pray in, where I can be free to be made, to be born, to be formed from the clay, without clothes. That is why I write - writing is the closest I can get to being without an audible voice, without having to hear the histories and meanings of culture. If the backdrop of nationality is not removed, at least it is blurred.
There are certain grunts that are guttural and universal, unencumbered by language or culture. To speak out of that place. There is a core in the heart like an apple’s seed, that one can push, barely, beyond the layers of flesh and skin, and that is the core I want to get at. That is the small light, that small unnamed thing, that I want to crack open the flesh and earth with, and out of those fissures will come trickles of bright water.
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter still
Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on, play to the spirit ditties of no tone”
- John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn
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