Oh yes, the me monster rages inside all of us. There is no language barrier, no cultural divide, no social setting where he is not liable to show up.
Something about living in a world you hardly understand (and I’m just talking about language) seems to feed the me monster’s obtrusiveness. But why? In all honesty, I think a lot of it has to do with the value we (to avoid the more dangerous and personal “I”) believe we attain through language and communication with other people.
In the words of Donald Miller, “man was wired so that somebody else told him who he was” (Searching for God Knows What, 71). Its tough to say something witty or insightful to show everyone how valuable you are when you don’t speak their language or have any idea what everyone’s been talking about for the last ten minutes.
It doesn’t make my me monster happy, but, who knows? Maybe our journey through ignorance into Dutch will lead us to actually live out God’s hope for us in Christ:
Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with its practices and have been clothed with the new man that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it…Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience… -Colossians 3:9-10, 12
