Hearing Where Words Come From

Quaker John Woolman had a deep concern for the rights of Native Americans.  In 1761 he traveled from Mt. Holly, New Jersey to the Wyoming Valley (Scranton-Wilkes Barre area) in Pennsylvania.  There he visited with many Native American tribes that he “might understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some interaction from them, or they be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of Truth amongst them.”  On one visit, Woolman prayed without the use of an interpreter.  Papunehang (a chief) who knew very little English, is said to have listened intently to Woolman’s praying and then said, “I love to hear where words come from.”   

Where do my words, your words, and the words of others come from?  Do we only hear or read the word without “hearing” or “feeling” or “sensing” from whence it comes? The word “fine,” for example, “has fourteen definitions as an adjective, six as a noun, and two as an adverb” according to Bill Bryson.  Almost every word in the English language has a multiplicity of synonyms—“things are not just “big,” but also large, immense, vast, great, massive, and humongous.” When we read the word “fine” or hear the word “fine” do we really know what the person using it means?  Do we hear where the word comes from or simply attach our own interpretation or meaning to it?

Etymology is the history of words—where they came from, how they have been spelled, and how each word has been used over time.  But I don’t think Papunehang was pondering the etymology of the words Woolman prayed when he said, “I love to hear where words come from.”  He was hearing something deeper than the words.  He had no idea what the words meant, but he somehow heard, felt, sensed where they came from.

Years ago the Catholic Mass was spoken entirely in Latin.  Many Catholics had no idea what words were being said, but most of the faithful “loved to hear where the words came from.”  The same is true of the Eastern Orthodox.  I do not understand the words of the liturgy, but with Papunehang, “I love to hear where the words come from.”  And hearing where the words come from, I understand what is being spoken (that which is deeper than the words themselves).  We may read the Bible and know all the words.  We may even have memorized portions of it which we think are important.  But reading the words and “hearing where the words come from” are two very different things.  In Romans 10:17 we read, “…faith comes by hearing…,” and I think that means “hearing, listening, and understanding where the words come from rather than the words themselves.