I wonder if you are looking at the same things that I am. Are you my angel, out there in the void? Or are angels something elsewhere, in close proximity waiting to extinguish all doubt in the right moment. I am walking perhaps and a small sound attracts my attention. I look down to see what it is and am surprised to see a small snail moving along a track leaving a moist trail. While I’m looking down I feel hands on my neck massaging. I stand back up quickly, frightened. But then the caress continues and I relax, allowing your hands to have their way. After a while you pat me on the back to let me know its done. I turn around and see your radiant face and the gold hair on your shoulders. You smile and at first I think where did this beautiful woman come from? And you are wearing jeans, you have a halter top on. And your hands have just massaged my neck, and yes, you look familiar, but also I realize that I’ve never met you before. After a moment, the illusion fades. Now its flowing robes and and gold dusted wings. The beautiful face and the smile remain. When I realize what you are, my heart races and I begin to sweat. You just smile and touch my cheek and the fear retreats. Together, we walk down the mountain. Although no words are spoken ideas are transferred. Its as if we were walking with an open book that you read to me, but there is no sound. Still, the words come. Still, my vision changes. For a moment a door opens. There is a world behind the world. Or is it more precisely a world within the world? Hard to say. But the world I see there is clearer, more brilliant than I’m used to. I understand what Paul meant by illumination. I hear a sound and turn to look - and in that instant, both angel, and vision are gone. What remains is a memory, no more or less intact than a dream. As I walk home the vision fades, as a dream fades, filed away until another day. Sometimes when I am dreaming they are everywhere. While I dream, I can see that every person there has wings. I am the only one who does not need wings to fly and they tell “You humans can do that. It is a gift.” But often when I try to fly with them, we are separated and I become lost. Last night it was some kind of dark struggle. I felt the urgent need to assist, but don’t remember what the struggle was. When I wake from such dreams I never know whether the crisis was averted.
I like it even when the angels disappear and I only hear your voice murmuring. It is like cool water on a hot day. It both quenches and excites my thirst and there is both satisfaction and longing in the event.
Sometimes I have wishes. Today I have a wish. I wish that we could remove the baffle created at the tower, the one that bewildered us and divided us by language. For the sin of Nimrod we are all punished.
I wonder - were the pyramids the tower? Or was it something taller, and more elegant. I wonder if the light was beautiful as it caressed the gold tracings at the top, champagne in the sunset. In the book it says that he baffled their tongues. Sometimes I think that the baffling was a horrific act. But without it, we would not be able to experience the sublime beauty of listening to someone speak in a language we don’t understand. As we listen, certain things sound familiar. Even though the words seem strange, if we watch face, eyes, gesture, we can glean a measure of understanding. The tongues were baffled, but not entirely! You left us this glimmer of understanding. Not precise, not as exact as talking to another in one’s own language. But it can lead to love and understanding just the same. I remember being in a foreign country. I went to a cafe and had coffee. As I sat at the table, a man came over and sat across from me. I looked up, and he smiled. When he spoke I didn’t have a clue what he was saying. But he smiled, and took out a pen. He wrote an address quickly on a napkin, and said “Taxi! Tell driver!” Then he walked away.
That night I went back to my hotel intending to go to sleep. I took a shower, and was going to put my trousers away when I remembered the napkin in my pocket.
I finished drying myself, but instead of going to bed, I got dressed and went to the lobby, where I asked the woman at the desk to call for a cab. When the taxi came, I got in and gave the driver the napkin. He looked at it for a moment and his face lit up. “Yes I’ll take you there!” he said. “No Charge!”
We drove around the city. In the dark it looked very strange. The shape of the windows was different from what I had seen before in my own home. In the twilight it was like being in a child’s book.
We arrived in a busy part of town - the driver pulled over and got out to open the door for me. When I offered to pay him, he shook his head vigorously and said “No charge. I tell you already!” Then he indicated that I should go into the bar that was there.
Inside it was very comfortable. There were big comfortable chairs arranged in groups, each one like a homey and lovely living room. The place was full of young people. In a corner, the man I’d met at the cafe beckoned me over, with a huge smile on his face. When I got to the table I was introduced to his friends - there were a good number of people with him. One of them was a lovely woman who spoke English a bit. After he’d introduced her, she took my hand and smiled broadly, saying “We are students at the University. Will you sit with us and converse in English? We would like to improve our speaking!”
For the rest of the evening, we drank Sun beer, snacked on kimchi, and talked like old friends. In this group, several spoke English at varying levels, some not at all. And they were all full of questions, about my home, what life was like on a ship, what my favorite books and movies were. With some I could communicate clearly - with others I needed assistance from the group. One thing I remember thinking very clearly, as if somebody else had planted it in my mind, that it didn’t make sense that we’d been at war with these people. After awhile I even began to understand some of the rhythms of their language. And I’d listen to them speak to each other. I couldn’t understand the words but I could read the expressions, the emotions behind the words. By the time the bar closed, we were like a group of old friends.
For the rest of my stay there, one of my new friends was always there to take me out and show me the city, or to tell me which restaurants were the best, or to help me find a movie theater.
The last night of my stay, I was invited to Mari’s house for dinner. Her father was the owner of the largest chain of grocery stores in Pusan. The meal was served in the dining room of their house. The table was enormous - perhaps eight feet long and four wide, but very low. We sat on pillows on the floor and Mari and her Mother placed steaming bowls of food on the table. There was kimchi and white rice and bulgogi and octopus and pork fat and many things I didn’t recognize but tried anyway.
Mari’s brothers, both in their thirties, were full of questions about my home. What were the supermarkets like? What was my favorite automobile? I had similar questions for them. All questions were asked through Mari, who acted as translator.
That night, Mari was my angel. Or perhaps she was the holy spirit. Afterwards, I walked through the harbor to the ship with a different idea about the world. I remember thinking that the tongues had been baffled so that we might understand each other better.
Sometimes the lack of a common language can bring us closer - simply because in order to communicate, we must pay such close attention. Sharing thoughts is not as easy as it is with someone who speaks my language. But when we share a thought despite our tongues, the thought is somehow more powerful. And the journey to reach understanding is more profound. Sometimes we take understanding for granted.
