words

I found this in a folder called "August" while I was de-cluttering my computer's desktop. That must mean I wrote it in August. I don't know how I forget these things. Actually I do kind of remember writing this ... kind of.

  Ah, but you make it so small, he said. You say that the sycamore is only a leaf, when it means the whole tree, and the root system, too. Is language only these words we babble? Do we surpass the apes only in sophistication? God forbid that our minds should cling to these barren crags, when the heavens are open to our exploration!

  I make no jest and I expose no lunacy when I tell you that we all speak the same language. It is only our speech patterns that are dissimilar. What a curious thing, wasn’t it, when God reached down at Babel and stirred up the syllables of communication, forming canyons between man and man, scattering the nations across the planet. To this day we spit out the sounds of our expression in different orders, and conjure up myriad ink lines to express on paper the vibrations we make in the air. But do you notice something? We’re all telling each other the same things. 

  Every man knows in his heart the sensations of love and hatred, obedience and rebellion, of fear and curiosity and rejoicing; and every man is compelled to attempt some description of these invisibilities to his neighbors, to form some mutual understanding of their natures. We give names to the things we find around us in the world – tree, candlestick, antelope, electron – and special names to one another. We tell stories and ask questions. We reach our groping hands out into the darkness and try to remember why we are here.

  “When is breakfast?” “I think it’s going to rain.” “Get out of my house!” “I love you.” Forming different sounds in the air across the globe, we’re all saying the same things.

  We are the image of God, walking immortal through time, living or perishing beyond the fate of this world. This is the scope of language; this the expression of divinity.