Beyond words
17/09/15 02:34
At the cutting edge of science and technology, there are always new words coined to describe new phenomena. We continue to marvel as the computer industry goes through bytes and kilobytes, and megabytes on its way to gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, zettabytes and yottabytes. Theoretical physicists speak of quarks and research into neutrinos is all the rage in the scientific community. Technical and scientific language has become a specialty among the editors of dictionaries as our language expands to keep up with our expanding understanding of the universe and new theories about how it may be organized.
We have been slower, however, to come up with language to describe our growing understanding of spiritual relationships. Perhaps our understanding is not growing as quickly in that arena as it is in the language of science. Perhaps the ancient words and language are more fitting to describe our discoveries. Whatever the reason, the field of religion seems to have a tendency to use the old words when describing our discoveries.
There is nothing wrong with old words. In fact the process of attaching new meaning to old words is a long and ancient part of the human story. If you study the scriptures it is clear that the concept of God has undergone a wide variety of meanings as our people grew to understand God. There have been times when God was employed to explain any phenomena that was not understood. God was a term for that which lay beyond our understanding. There have been other times when God was the term applied to a special relationship that guided the decisions of our forebears. When Abraham and Sarah set forth into the land that God was going to show them, they thought in terms of God being the creator of a particular area of land in the ancient Near East. They didn’t think in terms of the globe because they didn’t experience the world as such. It was many generations before people began to think in those terms. The concept of God had to be expanded to match the discovery of the scale of the world. As we began to understand more, so our concept of God grew. Now we speak of God as creator of the universe and are beginning to understand that uni-verse doesn’t describe the fullness of reality. Some have taken to speak of multi-verse to begin to describe the many different dimensions of reality.
Sometimes it seems as if we need to invent a new language to speak of care and compassion and the role of humans in vastness of time and space. Our attitude toward this plant has been largely one of consumption. When the world’s population was relatively small, our methods of consumption were relatively small as well. As our population grow, our capacity to extract the things we wanted in larger quantities grew. Coal, for example, has been used by humans for fuel for many hundreds of years. But the rate of extracting coal from the earth has sped up as our demand for energy has increased. At the current rate of acceleration, it is estimated that we will have consumed the readily mineable coal from the earth in the next 40 years, making 90% of human consumption a product of the last half of the 20th century and the first half of the 21st century. When the coal is gone - or so scarce that the price makes its use unaffordable, we will probably come up with another way to fuel our lights and appliances. Less certain than the inevitable decrease in the consumption of coal, is what large scale environmental changes will be caused by the burning of fossil fuels. There are some who believe that we are fully capable of rendering our planet uninhabitable within in the next century.
We don’t seem to have the language for the value of leaving things the way they are - for allowing land to go undeveloped and remaining wild. We lack the words for teaching ourselves to consume less and live more simply. Our attitudes have shaped our language into the language of growth and expansion and increased consumption.
Similarly, we seem to lack the language of peace. We have learned to live with colors to indicate the level of risk of terror. We have learned new words to describe different weapons employed. We speak of IEDs and suicide bombers and the response of drones and smart weapons. We take it for granted that not only do we have the capability to send troops around the globe to fight, we also have warriors who do their work in remote locations while remaining in their operations centers in the midst of our own country. We’ve developed the language to describe some of the injuries inflicted by war such as PTSD and TBIs.
We have been slower to develop the language of peace and nonviolent conflict resolution. We have been slower to imagine the ways of peace and the possibility of decreasing violence in human interactions.
It seems unlikely that I will ever contribute to the expanding vocabulary of human interaction, but if I could, I would find words to describe the uniqueness of each individual in the midst of the multitude of commonalities that we share. I would find words to describe the power that enables us to share burdens and pains as a community and transform that which is unbearable as an individual into something that we can together face with joy. I would make new words to speak of the resiliency of human beings. I would explore the outer edges of our power to forgive and forge new ways to move beyond retaliation to reconciliation.
That’s the way that I think. I would love to see as much energy invested in making peace as we invest in making weapons - as much energy invested in searching for lost children as we invest in searching for dark means and dark energy.
Sometimes the feelings inspired by being in the presence of God are beyond the language that I possess. And that is a good thing. Maybe in the silence of awe we will discover the seeds of a new language.
We have been slower, however, to come up with language to describe our growing understanding of spiritual relationships. Perhaps our understanding is not growing as quickly in that arena as it is in the language of science. Perhaps the ancient words and language are more fitting to describe our discoveries. Whatever the reason, the field of religion seems to have a tendency to use the old words when describing our discoveries.
There is nothing wrong with old words. In fact the process of attaching new meaning to old words is a long and ancient part of the human story. If you study the scriptures it is clear that the concept of God has undergone a wide variety of meanings as our people grew to understand God. There have been times when God was employed to explain any phenomena that was not understood. God was a term for that which lay beyond our understanding. There have been other times when God was the term applied to a special relationship that guided the decisions of our forebears. When Abraham and Sarah set forth into the land that God was going to show them, they thought in terms of God being the creator of a particular area of land in the ancient Near East. They didn’t think in terms of the globe because they didn’t experience the world as such. It was many generations before people began to think in those terms. The concept of God had to be expanded to match the discovery of the scale of the world. As we began to understand more, so our concept of God grew. Now we speak of God as creator of the universe and are beginning to understand that uni-verse doesn’t describe the fullness of reality. Some have taken to speak of multi-verse to begin to describe the many different dimensions of reality.
Sometimes it seems as if we need to invent a new language to speak of care and compassion and the role of humans in vastness of time and space. Our attitude toward this plant has been largely one of consumption. When the world’s population was relatively small, our methods of consumption were relatively small as well. As our population grow, our capacity to extract the things we wanted in larger quantities grew. Coal, for example, has been used by humans for fuel for many hundreds of years. But the rate of extracting coal from the earth has sped up as our demand for energy has increased. At the current rate of acceleration, it is estimated that we will have consumed the readily mineable coal from the earth in the next 40 years, making 90% of human consumption a product of the last half of the 20th century and the first half of the 21st century. When the coal is gone - or so scarce that the price makes its use unaffordable, we will probably come up with another way to fuel our lights and appliances. Less certain than the inevitable decrease in the consumption of coal, is what large scale environmental changes will be caused by the burning of fossil fuels. There are some who believe that we are fully capable of rendering our planet uninhabitable within in the next century.
We don’t seem to have the language for the value of leaving things the way they are - for allowing land to go undeveloped and remaining wild. We lack the words for teaching ourselves to consume less and live more simply. Our attitudes have shaped our language into the language of growth and expansion and increased consumption.
Similarly, we seem to lack the language of peace. We have learned to live with colors to indicate the level of risk of terror. We have learned new words to describe different weapons employed. We speak of IEDs and suicide bombers and the response of drones and smart weapons. We take it for granted that not only do we have the capability to send troops around the globe to fight, we also have warriors who do their work in remote locations while remaining in their operations centers in the midst of our own country. We’ve developed the language to describe some of the injuries inflicted by war such as PTSD and TBIs.
We have been slower to develop the language of peace and nonviolent conflict resolution. We have been slower to imagine the ways of peace and the possibility of decreasing violence in human interactions.
It seems unlikely that I will ever contribute to the expanding vocabulary of human interaction, but if I could, I would find words to describe the uniqueness of each individual in the midst of the multitude of commonalities that we share. I would find words to describe the power that enables us to share burdens and pains as a community and transform that which is unbearable as an individual into something that we can together face with joy. I would make new words to speak of the resiliency of human beings. I would explore the outer edges of our power to forgive and forge new ways to move beyond retaliation to reconciliation.
That’s the way that I think. I would love to see as much energy invested in making peace as we invest in making weapons - as much energy invested in searching for lost children as we invest in searching for dark means and dark energy.
Sometimes the feelings inspired by being in the presence of God are beyond the language that I possess. And that is a good thing. Maybe in the silence of awe we will discover the seeds of a new language.