My grandson came to visit this past weekend (along with his parents). He’s 23 months old today. We have been fortunate to see him fairly frequently over his short life, and watching him develop had become one of my joys. He happens to be a very large child with advanced motor skills, so that has been fun. He can play catch with some success, and he spent a while this visit running around chasing balls and yelling “Kick” with each kick. However, as someone who has studied human language development and worked on making machines try to “understand” human languages, what intrigues me the most is his developing language skills.

His language has been particularly interesting to observe because it hasn’t followed the expected pattern very clearly. He has had a great tendency to come up with surprising vocabulary that he’ll use very infrequently. And he’s been coming up with the occasional full sentence for a few months. However, most of his speech is still repetition of fairly typical favorite words like ball, Mama, Daddy, kitty, shoe, side (outside), etc. On this visit, he had a new word: James. That happens to be his father’s name, so every use was immediately followed by his mother saying, “That’s Daddy to you.” Note that he was still using Daddy, but was using James when he was upset with his father or was calling him from a distance. As you might guess, those are the times when he hears his mother calling James: when she’s calling James to come or when she’s irritated with him for some reason.

Watching this scenario play out, I was grateful for the perspective that said it’s going to be okay because the child is not going to keep this up forever, and, of course, I felt sorry for my daughter-in-law, who was clearly frustrated and perhaps a little embarrassed. I also found myself reminded of a time when James was a few months older than my grandson is now. I was taking a human language development class for my Ph.D. and had to do a project where I analyzed the language of a child who was between 18 months and 3 years old. Since I had a handy 2-year-old in my house, I did the project with him. As I was transcribing a session, I noticed that James had used the phrase “I don’t think so” in a really weird way in a situation where he clearly just meant “No.” That led me to realize that I used “I don’t think so” a lot with my sons in order to avoid just telling them “No.” Of course, James had figured out that I meant no whether I actually said it or not, so he had decided that the phrase just meant no and used it that way.

While adults tend not to be so humorous in their imitation, we all do have traits that echo others we are close to, be it parents, siblings, mentors, or friends. I find myself occasionally recognizing a turn of phrase or a gesture as being clearly learned from a parent or a close friend. Some of those I’m glad of; some I’m less enamored with. There are times when my imitation is deliberate, as when I adopt teaching practices of other teachers I admire. There are other times when my imitation is unconscious and comes as a complete surprise when I notice it. The key point is that imitation is a thing. We are all imitated, and we all imitate.

If we are imitated, what a responsibility that is. I’ve always be amazed at Paul’s bravery when he twice tells the Corinthians “Be imitators of me” (I Cor 4:16b; 11:1a ESV). What danger to put yourself out there as a model for other Christians. And yet, Paul is not alone in that role. We all walk in a world with eyes on us, both of fellow believers and of non-believers. How do we live with that reality?

The key is in the remainder of I Corinthians 11:1, where Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” Elsewhere, Paul commands us to “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:1 ESV). So how do we do that? I think the key is in that phrase “as beloved children.” My son imitated me because he spent time with me and listened to me. My grandson is imitating his mother because of the time spent with her and the close relationship there. We can, and should, consciously imitate God, but we will become most like him when we spend the time and energy on that relationship that allows us to begin to imitate unconsciously, simply because we hear and see and God is doing and we automatically do the same.