Sign Language

I had an excellent topic in mind earlier today... For some reason what that topic was escapes me right now...

Anyway, this is something I wrote at the beginning of the month as a backup blog in case I had a day when the creative juices weren't flowing. The original version is on my work computer, so this is what I can recall from that one.

OK, so I like languages... I speak 3 and know little bits of a few others. The thing I like best is that often you can compare words and their root elements, and it helps me better understand concepts.

I got thinking of this a few weeks ago, as I watched my wife teach a song to some kids, using sign language. I noticed a few interesting things. The signs for strength and trust are very similar. Both involve slight variations on bring your hands up towards your upper torso. The sign for obedience is pretty much the opposite action. Taking both hands from your upper torso and moving them down and away from your body.

Here's what it got me thinking about. To trust others is a strength. By moving your hands towards your body you could say that these ideas strengthen the individual. To trust another takes some courage but it strengthens us.

Obedience is a sign of weakness. But blindly following another, we diminish ourselves and lose our inner strength.

This is of course just my opinion...

[And below is the original piece which I wrote a week or 2 back - I thinks it's a little more succinct]

My wife has been teaching song to some kids in Sign Language. Sometimes a different language can help you see things differently since you don't take the root words for granted.

As I watched her on Sunday I saw something very interesting. The signs for strength and trust as very similar. Both involve bringing the hands up towards your upper torso.

Trusting other people is definitly a strength, and just like physical strength adds to your physical stature, I think trusting others adds to your spiritual stature, hence the bringing of the arms up and towards the body.

Obedience is the complete opposite. You take your hands from the upper torso and move them away from your body. Obedience dimishes your spiritual stature as your surrender an important part of yourself to someone else.

I could be completely up in the night on this one, but I thought it was very interesting.