We were singing about the Bible.

Ancient words, ever true
Changing me, changing you

I looked across the room. I saw someone signing the song to her husband in his wheelchair. He had a stroke a few years back. He was in nursing care for a long time, but finally was able to move home last summer. They work really hard and they need help.

Most of us singing were looking at the lyrics. We were talking to each other, but we didn’t look at each other. Except for these two. They were looking right at each other. And when she signed “changing me” she pointed at herself. And when she signed “changing you” she pointed at her husband.

That’s just how the signs go. I know that. But it is one thing to sing words. It is very different to say them with your body, to acknowledge by pointing that the words of the Bible, the words from God are changing me. A physically tangible, identifiable, me. I can say lots of things. But when I have to raise my hand, when I have to sign my name, when I have to point at myself, I’m involved in a different way.

And it is a remarkable thing to point at someone and say, “I see that you are changing. God’s words are working at you, chipping at you, shaping you.”

Knowing the story of these two, I cried as I watched. As she signed, she was demonstrating gesture by gesture compassion and commitment and love. Suddenly the lyrics aren’t just words you sing. They are life. They are conversation. They are affirmation.

I’ve often had a sense that signing goes deeper into songs that singing. I don’t know whether that’s true.

But it was true on this Sunday morning.

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Ancient words video

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