“Encountering the Word”

“Encountering the Word”

There are no special languages: not Greek, nor Latin; not Hebrew, nor Arabic; nor yet Sanskrit. Certainly not English. Why then do we persist in the myth making of the power of particular languages to capture in their net “the Word of God,” of Truth, more perfectly in one form of words than in another? Is it because, having once been “moved,” emotionally, psychologically, and – in particular – “spiritually” by an encounter with the One, we find, grasp for words that may ‘contain,’ hold, the essence of it, this ‘shadow of the Real’ that we cling to, for life itself? My own encounters with such “realities” certainly seems to point to this. My heart – the human heart – acting like a photographic negative clings to this ‘touch of light’ once cast upon it, in its darkness. And it is this very erudition that ‘fixes’ this image, somehow carrying it over, across the ‘chasm of fire’ that separates this world from the next. I have written elsewhere (“Amphora, Metaphore, Akasha”) of this “carrying over” and the traces such attempts leave behind  in mapping this “Pathless Land,” so will not attempt to recapitulate this here. However, something of this need – this deep human need – to grasp, to hold, that which is by its very nature ephemeral, underpins this same desire to hold fast to the words themselves, as if they were it, and it is this, I believe, which keeps alive this desire to hold one language as more able, more admirable, more expressive of the ‘divine presence’ than another.

We must know sometime, somehow, that God, Allah, Yahweh, the One, if He, She, It, be such, then they must know and respond equally to all such language, from wherever they may originate, because God knows hearts, and it is the human heart in particular that was given custody of the Names in the Beginning. And it is only the human heart, in all the universes, that it has been said, can contain the One. Thus every language is sacred, or none, for in the realisation of this “holding” or “mirroring” of the One the language that is called upon – that appears to one – is expressive of this ecstatic “union” with the One, and it is this that transforms us from the worms and microbes that make up all life in the darkness that we inhabit, carrying us over to a sacred place, in an embrace that never dies. No wonder then, we seek to elevate such language as we use to express this inexpressible longing to hold, to repeat, this “instance”. Sadly, time moves us on from this place of knowing, and then the grasping begins again.

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This morning one of the young males (“Tambo”) decided to exercise his authority over my paddock, chasing off the poor little Calico de-sexed female (“Missy-Too”) and “One-Eyed Jack” (probably his father). The fighting and ruckus kicked up by him thereby causing dogs all over the neighbourhood to erupt in excited barking. How like us humans at our worst moments, affirming our own “territory” by acts of bravado and bluster.

Meanwhile, poor “Boofy” (Tambo’s brother) is still looking very raggedy and hopping about on three legs having injured one of his front paws, probably likewise fighting (or running from) other males!

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The sun shines, the ruckus settles down again and another day moves on its merry way.