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Thoughts from Rev. Matt

Accented Rhythms

A few of you know that I’m taking a short series of beginner French classes this month, through the UBC Lifelong Learning centre at the Robson Square site downtown. This is, in part, a little bit of preparation for the approximately one month I plan to spend in Montréal in the fall during my sabbatical leave (yes, I know, plenty of people in Montréal are able to speak English… and no, I don’t imagine a single French Beginner 1 course is going to result in a whole lot of fluency… but still…)

Now, one of the more notoriously difficult aspects of French is pronunciation. After all, for native English speakers, there’s enough shared or parallel vocabulary between the two languages to be able to make sense of quite a bit. But being able to actually speak it, and being able to understand someone else speaking it—that’s a whole different ball game. Myself, I’ve even sung a number of pieces of music in French, and so it’s not completely new to me. Nevertheless, I’ve been finding myself tripping over my own tongue and lips as I try to put into speech words I’m confident of in my head, and countless times I’ve noticed my pronunciations not matching that of our teacher (darn it, Spanish/Latin/Italian, you’re messing with my ability even to say “un” [one] correctly!). There are just under a dozen or so participants in the class I’m in, and while we all currently habitons à Vancouver, au Canada, we come from a variety of previous locations and backgrounds. My “mis”-pronunciations are not the same as those made by my classmate visiting from Japan, nor the one originally from Australia, nor the Kuwaiti one.

Matters of pronunciation and accent are tricky when it comes to languages. On one hand, in learning a language, one wants to learn to say things “correctly,” in so far as speaking in ways that they can be understood. On the other hand, though, many languages have multiple ways things get pronounced. The English word “bath” sounds different in the south of England versus the north, and still yet different in Australia. Which is “right”: /bɑːθ/ or /bæθ/ or /bɐːθ/ ? (Those are the International Phonetic Alphabet transcriptions of “bath” in south-of-England, north-of-England/North-American, and Australian accents, respectively, FYI.). Obviously, the answer is none of them… or all of them…

In fact, sometimes people learn to cherish their particular accent as a symbol and reminder of the place from which they come. I’m reminded of a video shared last fall as part of The United Church of Canada’s annual “40 Days of Engagement on Anti-Racism” series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l3l9KkRI00. I encourage you all to watch it (or watch it again, if you saw it in the fall). In the video, the presenter speaks to the fact that his accent carries with it stories, resilience, and identity… and, moreover, “home.”

Christian faith is not unlike language in this way. The way in which each individual and each community of faith expresses their belief and theology and their ways of behaving, praying, worshipping, and acting—these all are like “accents” with which we speak Christian faith. Even within The United Church of Canada, we can identify some particular accents that sound forth more strongly in some individuals and congregations than in others—whether one puts more focus in their approach to Christianity on their personal faith in Jesus, or on joining in God’s making of justice and mercy in the world, or on the mystical experiencing of God in creation or human community (just to name a few). Our faith tradition is richer for having all of them in the mix; I would be missing out on something if I didn’t have the opportunity to hear my faith spoken to me with the ‘accent’ of a spiritual stream or theological perspective different from my own default from time to time. Sure, sometimes it takes a bit of work on my part to connect with the faith testimony of someone coming from a different theological perspective or speaking a different vocabulary of piety from my own, but I also get the gift of receiving what only they and their journey can offer.

So, while I will continue to work to improve my French pronunciation, I’m also going to choose to not get too stressed out if I’m not sounding like a native of Trois-Rivières anytime soon. After all, I’m not… And my own journey and my own story, with all the gaffs and all the graces along the way, is its own gift—from God to me, and from me to others.