In this twelfth video on “Theological English”, Jonathan Dunne continues looking at word connections made by the addition of letters, this time from “i” to “w”. It is curious that “die” contains “be” and “I” (we saw in the previous video that the “world” is a spiritual “womb”, which might explain this). What is even more curious is that “live” also contains “be”, but two “I”s in the first two letters. “Blood” gives “spirit”, as “seed” gives “sleep”. “Word” gives “sword” – our words can become physical, just as God’s words in the beginning created a physical environment. There is a previous video on this theme: “Addition of Letters (0)”.

For the connection between “blood” and “spirit”, see Marcus Plested’s instructive article “‘Give Blood and Receive the Spirit’: The Ascetical Dimension of Mystical Experience” (available online), which looks at the connection between ascetic endeavour and direct experience of God in early Christian literature and how it can be applied today.

To access all the videos in this course, use the drop-down menu “Theological English (Video Course)” above. The videos can be watched on Vimeo and YouTube.