“Wow” is one of the few words I know in sign language. With both hands, hold up the sign for W on either side of your mouth and say “Wow!”
Someone left an enthusiastic comment about Worship Sign Language (WSL) on my post Hallelujah! Finger Disco! ”Finger Disco” is what I call the practice of signing along to music in church.
I just realized something about this practice that blew my mind. Deaf people can’t do Finger Disco! Why? Because they can’t hear the music to follow along with it! Imagine a language that can only be sung by non-native speakers of that language! This is weirding me out.
This is perhaps a good counterpoint to my most recent post Job Vacancy: Village Idiot which provoked a “Wow!” from one commenter followed by, “That was a pretty depressing post.”
I woke up this morning with the song Breathe You In by Thousand Foot Krutch going through my head. Listening to it while composing this post, I thought, “You know, I bet King David would have loved metal ballads.” Many of his psalms sound like angst-laden lyrics to hard rock songs.
Is it possible to do Worship Sign Language to really rocking songs? Can several people do WSL together to a heavy metal song? We could call it “Finger Moshing.”
This post brought to you by: Augusta Roasting Company.
Actually I read or heard somewhere that deaf people can follow along with the music by feeling the rhythm. (I think it might have been a movie with the word Opus in it. Maybe not the most credible source! )
If that is true, though, WSL might work best for mother tongue speakers if the music is really rocking.
Deaf people can’t do Finger Disco! Why? Because they can’t hear the music to follow along with it!
Sounds like the slightly too common situation when rock-style worship isn’t done very well, and there is no clear vocal lead: I can’t pick out the tune for all the heavy bass and drumming, and so I can’t sing along! Now I love that kind of worship when it’s well done, but …