But words are not the thing of which they speak. They are gestures that point to it but they are not it. When I attend to words, it is not to the words that my attention is directed; it is to their meanings. They call up in me memories and visions of things seen and unseen. There is the thing and there is the telling of the thing and of you I have your tellings. But not only your tellings but also your laughter, your motions, your dances, the smell of you, your breathe, everything that is your presence and your singing; and most sweet of all your singing.
All this back and forth, all this laughing and crying, dancing and singing, is spoken of and we smile. It is a wonder, it is a glory of our lives to sit together and share everything. And so words can seem divine.
But they are not the divine. They are the gestures we make, but not the thing. Words are like the sunlight in the dappled shade of trees, beautiful, always shifting with the breeze. We sometimes, in the warm moist air of spring, wish the moment would never end; that in the glory of that moment we might persist forever. But the breeze shifts, the sun moves in its orb and we, ourselves, bestir to other errands. But the wish persists. Could we not somehow capture this thing and forever have it as we might have some jewel that does not tarnish or grow old.
Like the scent of some long forgotten place and time, some words remembered can unlock the past as well. They can be like a beautiful bottle that holds what we hold most dear and so by reciting them, the words bring back to us the long agos and far aways. But they are not these things we cherish, but we come to cherish them as they can bring to us what we cherish.
In all our coming and going, in all the going to and coming from that fills up our lives we sometimes seem to hear the tinkling of silver bells in the air. What purity of tone this is that touches us. This singing is like an intimation of a grace beyond our ordinary lives and we wonder at it. In the wondering we weave a gossamer of words to tell of what we have heard. For it is our natures to wrap around all that we see and hear and do in such wordy fabrics. Words we tell ourselves and words we tell our friends. And so we wrap a shimmering fabric of ever shifting words around some hardly seen, some hardly heard ineffable tinkling of bells and we call those words religion.
These word woven tales when spoken live from breathing lips can sometimes share the wonder and the mystery we have felt and nodding heads about the fire affirm our quaint attempts to catch these breezy songs in too coarse nets. It is a sacred thing, this telling from the heart some heartfelt truth. But like the shifting dappled shadows of the sun we do not capture it.
We cast down the words that are themselves but mere reminders into ink on pages bound. That such dead marks, reminders of reminders should still stir up a soul to singing, is a wonder.
Written words, like arrows, fly to the heart if their aim is good and the heart is there to hear. But in the end they are but gestures pointing to some grander thing to be seen or felt. And how much more fleeting must their presence be when they gesture to the divine? Because of ink and page it is sometimes thought that written words can somehow hold a finer thing than merely spoken words, but this is but illusion. Illusion to think a shadow of a shadow can be the thing itself. These are reminders, sometimes wonderful, sometimes loved, reminders of our finest selves, but they are not finest selves. What can it mean to say this book is holy, to say this is the one recitation of life? For each moment there is not but one word spoken, but a million, no, a million million and then another without end. Our words are but artifice, some small attempt to capture one sunbeam among the thousands. Holy books are like ancient treasured family photos. We hold them dear, but do not confuse them for the lives they represent. Here are the words of a prayer uttered three thousand years ago, but it is not the prayer, it is not the person, it is but a gesture to a thing long gone into the shadows of time.
Soc. I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.
Phaedr. That again is most true.
Soc. Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this, and having far greater power-a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten?
Phaedr. Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?
Soc. I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.
Music may sometimes point more clearly to our finest selves than words alone. How fine a gift it is, our singing voices. It can make us feel the spirit welling up within us. It can make us smile. And with the music is dancing and I sometimes think that motion and music can take us to the center. I have often thought the celebration of the spirit of life should include some dancing, some motion. It is the holy braid of words and music and motion that can teach us. But as we approach this knowing, this gnosis, there is fear. It is the fear of losing everything to gain the world. At the center of our heart’s labyrinth there is a Minotaur and it is through its jaws that we must pass. And the Minotaur’s name is love. This dancing with the angels can happen almost anywhere. Here is a little poem that hints at it and perhaps tells other things about my younger days in Woodstock nights. The Tinker St Café is but a memory now. Do you think the Minotaur was far away?
Dancing at the Tinker St Cafe We feel the white hot rif move out across the dance floor and open our veins to let the sounds pour in. We are the music and the motion. We are each other. Lost, found, and moving, dancing up on top of the damn beat drums exploding us into bits hair like barbarian banners of war we sometimes see each other and grin like maniacs.
Words are like a mirror that reflects what we have brought to them. If we have run from the Minotaur and go to the written word in fear and anger, we will see our fears and angers reflected there. We will find ample reason to flea from reason’s grace and pick up a gun. This move is so easy. And in our incomprehension we point to holy tracts and say, “See! There it commands the killing that I do!” We cannot find what we need to know in books, we can only find it in our hearts. When we find it, then some written words may sing to us of what we have found and inspire us to sing and dance. It will be a celebration of what we already know. This was written in the gospel of Thomas.
When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."
Could it be that Socrates and Jesus are talking about the same thing? Is this self knowledge, the intelligent word? I think it is. And it is this self-knowledge, this intelligent word; that we need to bring to the words we hear, the words we read and the words we speak. It is the guide we have. It is not in some book that can be lost, or in some speech that can be forgotten; it is in each of us. In this vision, all the different holy books, and all the different readings, all the different stories that we tell each other, seem to melt away and leave us clothed only in our humanity. When we stand naked before one another we will sing in harmony our human songs. And the harmony will be the harmony of many parts each bringing with them what grand tales their fathers told to them, each bringing with them their own intelligent word.
As we learn to sing our human song, we will still be ourselves and we will still make mistakes and still sometimes act the fool, but then we are just people. But let us try to remember the guide of our hearts, and as we do this, we will change a little and so the world will change a little and that is not so bad a thing. Do not despair that you have made no difference, for what difference do you know you made? No one knows the difference they make, but if we sometimes hear the song of birds and smell the sweet air, then we will think perhaps we can do some good. And we will be right.