The Contronyms Conundrum

Amelia Bedelia is a fictional character from my childhood. She was a young person who was trying to navigate the world when language is so full of double meanings. And so Amelia Bedelia got into all sorts of trouble not because she misunderstood but because she understood. She just understood the other meaning. For instance, when asked to “draw the drapes when the sun comes in” Amelia Bedelia might get pencil and paper to illustrate the drapes. But she did not close the drapes. She understood the “other” meaning of the word draw.

There are a set of words called contronym which are common and yet rare. There are not that many contronyms in total but we use them all the time that we remain unaware of how rare they are. A contronym is a single word that have two contradictory meanings.

Here is a list of the most common contronyms I found:

• Apology – a statement of contrition for an action or a defense of one

• Bolt – to secure or to flee

• Bound – heading to a destination or restrained from movement

• Cleave – to adhere or to separate

• Discipline – a form of training to obey rules or a form of punishment for an offense (or a field of study)

• Dust – to add fine particles or to remove them

• Fast – quick or stuck and made stable

• Left – remained or departed

• Peer – a person of the nobility or an equal

• Sanction – to approve or to boycott

• Weather – to withstand or to wear away

These common and simple words above are words English speakers say we understand and that their meaning is clear. But these simple words show us that words can have not only different meanings but directly opposite meanings. The existence of contranyms should humble us when we consider reading the Bible - a collection of books written in different languages over different time periods. Could it be that there are passages in the Bible that have Hebrew or Greek contranyms?

Yes. Yes there are.

The most cited one is in Job chapter 9 when Job’s wife tells Job to “barech God and die.” Your Bible might show that the word barech means to curse and to bless. So which is it? Is Job being instructed to bless or curse God and then die?

We are limited and the Bible is not always as clear as we would like it to be. As Paul says, we see through a mirror only dimly. Which when you think about it, this is a masterful sentence. Not only does it state a truth (we do not fully understand) but the sentence itself is an example of that very truth:

Do we see just fine but the mirror is dim and it makes what we see dim? Or is the mirror so dim that we can only see small specks of light? Is the dimness in our eyes or the mirror?

What a conundrum.

The Faith Trip

Many metaphors make up the language of faith. Anytime someone talks of God, it is through a metaphor. Jesus uses metaphor when describing the kingdom of God. The prophets use metaphors to critique the powerful. Modern Christian teachers use metaphors to help us grasp the work of God today.

One of the metaphors we lean on to describe our growing, dying, maturing and learning is our “faith journey.” The faith journey is a rich metaphor that allows the speaker to utilize additional metaphoric language to paint a fuller picture of the journey. We can talk about a “guide” or a “map” that help us on the way. This is a helpful metaphor to be sure.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Until it is not.

Listening to others talk about their “faith journey” I hear a conviction that the “journey” is headed somewhere specific. Often called “heaven” but sometimes called “peace” or “joy”, the faith journey metaphor builds in it a basic sense that there is a time when we will “arrive” and we have yet to get there. It is also assumed that when we arrive at this destination that all will be better or something.

The power of the metaphor of “faith journey” is neutered when we use the metaphor with a predetermined destination in mind. Having a destination in mind means that we not only are not going on a journey but that we also have little faith.

To go on a journey is to emphasis the process of traveling, not the destination. When we go somewhere, say for vacation or for work, we do not use the word journey to describe it. We say we took a trip to Florida or we have a work trip this week. I have yet to hear anyone say, “I have to journey out for work on Thursday.” Or even, “we journeyed to Disney.”

The language of trip presupposes that the point is the destination. Otherwise why would you leave home at all if not to “arrive” that the destination.

The language of journey presupposes that the point is the process of traveling. It is the process of learning and trusting the guides will take you places that you did not predetermine. It is the language of faith that there are things in the journey that are more important than the destination, if only we were not focused on the destination.

We are on a the faith journey, not the faith trip.

The People Without a Right or Left Hand

Photo by Pablo García Saldaña on Unsplash

Guugu Yimithirr is a language of some aboriginal people of Australia. I know nothing about how to speak it. What I have come to learn about this Guugu Yimithirr is that it does not have a word for right or left. When giving directions, a native speaker might say, "go north, then turn south and there will be my house on the east." The speaker may also say something like, "raise your east-side hand and touch your west-side foot." 

The people who speak Guugu Yimithirr have a language that is geographically centered. Conversely, English speakers have an egocentric language, where right and left are words used in relation to the person rather than the outer world. Those who speak Guugu Yimithirr do not have a right or left hand, only hands that are north, south, east or west. 

(This wonderful little article from 2010 goes into greater detail on the limits of language and where 20th century thinking got a little off when considering the role of language. However, the article also points out that just because someone does not have the word left or right does not mean they are incapable of understanding the concept. The article is more a discussion on the axiom, "Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.”)

The language of the Church, at her best, is Christocentric. This Christocentric language is designed to not only draw our eyes to beyond ourselves but also to reorient our lives. There is a difference in saying, "look what I am doing" and "look what Christ is doing though me." The first is egocentric, the later is Christocentric. The first implies that the individual is paramount, the latter implies the self is a small part of something larger. The former props up the ego. The later puts the ego in proper location. 

For all those weird Christians we meet who want to "give God the glory" or say "it is by God's strength," just consider how weird it would be to listen to someone ask you to raise your north-side hand. It is a different orientation. A different orientation does not always mean a misguided, wrong, evil, sinful or heretical orientation.

How egocentric is your language? Are you willing to be re-orientated?

What a Stuck Nut Teaches Us About Scripture

I think that I have this story correct, but I may have it a bit off, however here we go:

My mother in law took her pool pump to be repaired. The repair man shared with her that there was a nut stuck in the pump which is why it was not working. This made sense to her since the pump has many nuts, bolts and screws in order to hold it together. A nut breaking loose would cause the pump to break. The news made it to my father in law who was told that there was a screw stuck in the pump and that it was all repaired. When my father in law saw the invoice, he began to crack up. 

From a nut to a screw back to a different nut. 

It is just a reminder that no matter how clear you think you may be when you are communicating, once you communicate there is a bit of trust that what you are communicating is received. 

If three people use the same language within the same hour, through both written and verbal mediums and STILL have misunderstanding, then perhaps we need to take a breath when we read scripture. As a reminder, scripture was written by several people in a different language in a different time and place translated at least three times before most of us read it. Oh, and it is talking about the mysteries of God and not a broken pool pump. 

Perhaps we "understand" the Bible is talking about hardware and we are going to share that with everyone but in fact scripture is talking about pecans.