What is the greatest kind of love?
Great love does not flow with tears.
Rather,
it burns in the great Fire of Heaven.
In this Fire
it flows and flows swiftly
yet all the while
it remains in itself
in a very great stillness.
Dear friends ~ Marveling at how very young children accomplish the astonishing feat of language acquisition makes me wonder about the power and meaning of words. The nature of being human is that we need to shape thought into language. The way we use language with each other can either hurt or heal, confound or connect. As inadequate as they may be, words help us attach names to meanings, express and share ideas, and circle round questions together. How do words in turn shape our ideas and beliefs? What does it mean to use culturally laden or gender specific names for God? Do they help us to understand more about God or about ourselves? If various world religions have different words for names of God—the Compassionate One, the Light, the Truth, the Eternal, the Creator—is this more a matter of form than substance, language than meaning? And what is the Word we listen for in the Silence?
It is the nature of a word to reveal what is hidden. The word that is hidden still sparkles in the darkness and whispers in the silence. It entices us to pursue it and to yearn and sigh after it. For it wishes to reveal to us something about God.
Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.
[Humans became human] by breaking into the daylight of language—whether by good fortune or bad fortune, whether by pure chance, the spark jumping the gap because the gap was narrow enough, or by the touch of God, it is not for me to say here.
"The Tamil language is very precise,"
the Tamil poet said.
"There are seven different words
between the English words, 'bud' and 'flower.'"
One would have to live in attentive quiet,
live with the plant,
marveling at each subtle change
to create such a language.
Love creates such a language.
