The Lull of Language

It's Friday afternoon just after lunch. I have spent the first five hours of my work day doing online research, writing grants and trying to avoid a conversation about a co-workers English 101 course. My brain is screaming for some creative activity and my oh-so-favorite song "How to Save a Life" is on the radio (truly, it's time for this song to find a life in the next world. If I could stab it with a sword, I would).

I have been thinking recently about the power of naming something (putting a name to something). Many years ago, in a very different state, I taught an introduction to college class in an adult education program. As a part of the course, we talked about writing and words. We are overwhelmed with words in modern media - written, spoken, sung, lit by fluorescent lights, driven on cars, in cars, personally carried on iPods, cell phones, Blackberries, daily newspapers. So easily we forget the power and mystery of words, and the unprecedented ability of humans to use words.

When Harper was first born, Asher had many words (often in his own language). He used them sparingly as punctuations to his activities. Within two days of Harper's life, Asher jumped to linking two words with the phrase "two babies" (pronounced French-like, "deux bebes" and first put forth as I carried both my children out of their bedroom). Today, he talks nonstop. On my last drive up to Fort Collins, he talked for 45 minutes without pause. Harper, bless her, took a nap. Already, as I wearily answer questions, I am forgetting what a feat it was for Asher to learn a word (and for me to figure out what his word meant. How did "ga ga" come to mean truck?), to link two words together and then to speak in full sentences (now full days!).

There is a mystery to how humans use words, a God-given skill, and a power. Ruling over all the animals, man is given the task of naming the animals at the genesis of the world. "Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name." (Genesis 2:19) Words tame, order, and also call out.

My favorite Greek word is "logos." It's a word with many layers that we translate into English ineptly as "word" and crudely with several words, such as thought, speech, account, meaning, reason, proportion, principle, standard, discourse and logic. Logos is the kind of word that you can only catch the meaning of without the taming and ordering of words (no word for "word"), in a lull of language.

How much logos gained in its language use - established as meaning the fundamental order of the cosmos in Western philosophy by Heraclitus and later, used to mean Christ. My favorite Bible passage, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." (John 1:1-5) Here Word is translated from the Greek, logos. I get goosebumps - the intertwining of Christ, God, words, logos, the mystery of God and the trinity, the power of Christ - so represented by the word "logos," in a place that you might get a glimpse of a place without words.

There are times, like Wednesday night, when I want a break from words, when I want to lie in a hammock and swing silently in the lull of language. It is a desire that arose because I am in a relational place between words, between naming, and my minds wants to rush to naming but also fears naming. Michael and I are making moves towards reconciliation. In this nebulous state - separate homes, hearts feeling out if reunion is possible, worthwhile, safe, hearts wishing to be known by another heart that was the best at eliciting wrenching pain - there is no name beyond "reconciling" (making harmonious, making congruous). Between us, we experienced a softening, a willingness to venture towards each other again. This plot of land remains erected as we toss out different scenarios to each other, toss out different words and recognitions of the roads we traveled to get there. While I look forward to what will be built on the plot, desire a name to be there, I fear a name, fear the power of the word - what the possible words will require of me, what power a possible word will have in my world. No doubt, however our new house appears, it will require logos, my love of logos and logos' love.