Tag: Matthew 25:40

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10. IO

If, in the Book of Genesis, the world was spoken into being (and the description of creation in chapters 1 and 2 contains the elements of speech: breath, water and flesh), it means that we ourselves are language, words in the making.

We have seen how the ego in English, I, is a straight line. It resembles the number 1. It could be taken to represent the line that isolates us as individuals, the line that we have used to carve up the earth and divide it into properties, the line that we fight over, the line that needs defending, the line that we use to package the products of the earth and trade in them, the line that we use to build roads and transport them. When we separate ourselves off from others, we lose our shared vision (we can’t see over the fence). We view other people, and the products of the earth, as commodities we can profit from, rather than as God’s creatures for whose spiritual well-being we are responsible. The line – I or 1 – isolates. It creates an illusion of self-dependency.

At some point, this self-reliance crumbles, and we realize that we depend on others. Our spiritual eyes are opened, and we begin to see the world not as “us and them”, but as one shared humanity whose needs (and fears) are more or less the same. We are not so different, our time on earth is limited, but we seem to think that if we keep busy (packaging and transporting goods with the line that alone enables us to count things), we can safely ignore our own mortality, or at least by the time it reaches us, we will be too exhausted to care too much about it.

And so we step onto the line, a moving walkway at the airport that takes us to our gate (which might be 2 or 41, we don’t know). That time (connected with line if we cross out the l and apply the phonetic pair m-n) enables us to safely view the landscape, the runways and planes, with the illusion that it will go on forever and what goes on out there won’t affect us.

But it doesn’t go on forever, which means that our own resources as individuals are limited. Instead of counting up and amassing wealth or memories, we learn to do what the Greek alphabet does and we breathe life into the line, turning it from I to O, omega, a long o, the last letter of the Greek alphabet (compare the Latin alphabet, which counts up from I to Z, or 2).

When the line is opened in this way, it is as if we reach a realization of something deeper at play, we tap into the hidden root system, the root system that was there the whole time, only it was not visible to our eyes, just as there are colours on the spectrum of light – infrared and ultraviolet – that are not visible to our eyes, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

And since, as we have seen, the world was spoken into being – the opening two chapters of the Book of Genesis can be understood as a description of speech, with the three elements of breath (h), water (vowels, voice added to breath) and flesh (consonants, breath obstructed by the lips or tongue, with or without voice) – this means that we are surrounded by language, we ourselves are somehow language, words in the making (I believe that this is what death is – to be spoken into eternity). And language can teach us.

So, count down from I to O, from the limitations of the ego to the eternity of God, and instead of live being read in reverse, being somehow distorted, and giving evil, it gives love – love for the other, love for God.

Perhaps you do not believe me, but love and other are connected, you just need to know where in the mouth consonants are produced, forming seven simple pairs, one of which is l-r. Then take a step in the alphabet (t-v, omitting the intervening vowel) and add breath (h). Love-other. The vowels are the same.

We have seen that if we take another step in the alphabet, r-s, other is connected to the Greek word for “God”, theos, and so the two great commandments Christ gives his disciples in Matthew 22 – to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbour as ourself – which together form the core of Christian teaching, are themselves confirmed by language:

love-other-theos

The ego has been taken out of them.

Similarly, we turn from the sin that may have characterized our youth and, having acquired spiritual knowledge, we become children of God, children of the light – son. Again, we achieve this by making the progression in language from I to O.

Even Christ did this by willingly going to the Cross. He counted down from I to O, even though there was no sin in him. He did it to show us the way, the answer to the questions we should be asking: who and how.

So, we have live (evil)-love, sin-son, Christ-cross, all examples of the path we must follow from the selfish demands of the ego to that wonderful moment of realization (and repentance) when we understand that there is more to life than we can see with our physical eyes. Our physical eyes can be used solely for the purpose of identifying and taking in the (external) objects of our desire. When we are subject to our desires, we become disconnected. Fragmented.

When we make the progression from I to O, we become whole again (in our brokenness), because while love is connected to other and theos (the two great commandments), it is also in whole (v-w, addition of breath). Love-other-theos, love-whole.

There is one other word where you will find love, and not surprisingly it is a word connected with language, because a word spoken in anger can destroy, but a word spoken with love builds up.

Again, we have to apply the pair v-w, the phonetic pair l-r and a step in the alphabet, d-e.

Then love gives word. It makes us whole (addition of breath). We are meant to love the other, who as Christ tells us in the Judgement of Nations is God (theos). This is the meaning of love in the English language. It’s the word itself that tells us. Unfortunately, we see language as a way of getting our message across – as something external (a tool) – and don’t realize it is bursting with meaning, like a bud in spring.

Jonathan Dunne

Heart of Language 10/15

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Posted on in Heart of Language

9. AIO

After the creation of the world (in the beginning, the letter A), we find ourselves in the era of the Fall, which centres around the ego, I. We have to take this line that separates us and open it, count down, perhaps just turn it around, so that we get O.

The correct progression of human life is that represented by the Greek alphabet, AIO (sometimes written AIW). The Greeks are known for their interest in philosophy and theology. Having made the progression from the A of creation to the I of the Fall – the period we find ourselves in – we have a choice: to count up (as the Latin alphabet does, AIZ) or to humble ourselves and count down, AIO.

Language favours the second option. We have seen the examples AM-I’m-om, no one and amen, mean, name-mine-nemo, omen. We go from the name of God in Exodus, AM, through personal importance and gain (I’m, mine) to calling on God again in the Holy Trinity (om) or on God the Father, no one (nemo in Latin).

In the Garden of Eden, between Adam and Eve, there was no competition. So, we have a draw. In today’s world with its competing egos, we set out to win. The vowel in these verbs has changed from A to I. But Christ comes with a different message. He encourages us to turn the other cheek, to lose our life for the sake of the other (in order to find it). So, he encourages us to lose:

draw-win-lose

Here again, we find the progression of the Greek alphabet, AIO (with a silent final e, very common in English, ignore the consonants).

We have seen that we are made to call on God. The first word the human apparatus is capable of producing is a combination of breath, h, and the first vowel to emerge from the throat, u: hu, which is Sanskrit for “invoke the gods” and the root of our word God. We are made to call on God. Similarly, if we turn away from the selfish demands of the ego, represented in English by a straight line, I, we make three symbols, A+O, which spell another name of God, Alpha and Omega. So, again, when we turn away from our selfish desires and embrace the other, we call on God.

In the Judgement of the Nations, Christ goes so far as to tell us that the other is God: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). If we remember that the Greek word for “God” is theos, we might see a close similarity between other and theos (step in the alphabet r-s). Language confirms what Christ is saying.

It is ironic, therefore, that after Adam and Eve have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge in Genesis, chapter 3, it is God who calls to Adam, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9). Of course, he knows where Adam is, and he knows what has happened. But by asking this question, which is the question Adam should have been asking, he is somehow indicating to us what our approach should be.

Make the progression from A to I, and from call you have like (in reverse, addition of e). Like is what we do on Facebook. We indicate our preferences. It also gives kill, and there has been plenty of killing in the history of humankind.

Now, count down from I to O, and you get look, which is the message Christ is trying to get across in the New Testament, the importance of opening our spiritual eyes (our egos or Is) and bearing spiritual fruit. We have seen the relevance of this in the Parables of the Sower and the Tares. So, we have:

call-kill, like-look

And then there are the examples that relate to the animal kingdom. Let us start with swan – a white bird, and white is a symbol of purity. Progress towards the ego, and you get swine – pigs in the mire, we have dirtied God’s image by rolling in the mud (just as the prodigal son does in Luke 15, a metaphor for dissolute living). When we come to our senses and realize that the things of this world will not satisfy us for long, we set out to purify ourselves once more, to return to our father, as the prodigal son does, which is not a return to the way things were before (swan), but a movement onwards, to something new: snow. So, we have:

swan-swine-snow

And finally, what is that most ancient mammal if not a whale that continues to patrol our oceans, despite our best efforts to wipe it out? Make the progression from A to I, and you have while, an indication of time. Time started after the Fall, this is when Adam and Eve became mortal, when they were expelled from paradise. Time will end for us individually when we die (the past tense of I) and for the human race when Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead. Now, count down from I to O, and in a while you become whole again. Whole is a remarkable word, and we will see more of it. So, we have:

whale-while-whole

All are examples of the progression made in the Greek alphabet, where we count down from the ego, which is represented in English by the letter I, and turn to God, the eternal symbol O.

Jonathan Dunne

Heart of Language 9/15

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Video
Posted on in Theological English

Theological English (8): Connections – Alphabet

In this ninth video on “Theological English”, Jonathan Dunne looks at the order of letters in the alphabet and how this can be used to make word connections. It was foreign workers in Egypt in the second millennium BC who came up with the idea of using not hieroglyphs for writing (hieroglyphs represented words or syllables), but letters that represented individual sounds, a much more cost-effective way of writing, since you only need 20-30 letters to write down the different words, but hundreds of hieroglyphs. This idea was taken on by the Phoenicians, the traders of the ancient world, from where it passed to Greece and Rome, becoming the Latin alphabet we use 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.

Posted on in Word in Language

Word in Language (12): Love

Let us look at the word ‘love’. We have just received a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy, and it is constantly looking for ways to express its love. Its whole attention is focused on this. What a wonder it would be if we were to approach life in the same way.

 

The first thing I see in the word ‘love’ is the progression from I to O, whereby we count down from the ego, I, to God, O, we count down from the number 1 to 0 – the opposite of what we teach our children to do, which is to count up from 1. If you count up from 1, you will constantly amass, what you have will never be enough, and there will be no end. It reminds me of our system of buying and selling, of production (whatever the cost to the environment and to our fellow human beings), whereas if you count down to 0, you have already reached your answer, there is no need to search anymore, you have, in effect, attained peace (and all without any damage to the environment or to your fellow human beings).

 

We saw how it is possible to apply this progression from I to O in pairs of words like LIVE-LOVE, SIN-SON and CHRIST-CROSS. Even Christ, God himself, who came down to earth to translate for us the meaning of life in a form of spiritual writing for the blind called the parable, was prepared to count down from the ego to God (despite being God himself) in order to show us how it was done. In this way, he also acquired a human nature – he became a translator, as well as an author – and in acquiring human nature he exalted it, that we in turn might go the other way and become gods. This process is known in Orthodoxy as theosis and it is the purpose of our existence, to acquire the virtues, to transform the passions, to exercise self-control and to become as we were made: in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26).

 

After this progression, this humbling of ourselves, we find the two letters ‘ve’, which as I have already pointed out can be connected to ‘be’ by the ‘eighth’ phonetic pair b-v-w. So ‘love’ seems to contain a turning to God in order that we might be. We go from the line to the circle, then we slip down into the valley of the v, in order to reach the e, which as a capital letter (E) is three-pronged, perhaps representing what the I can become when it worships the Holy Trinity.

 

There is a descent, therefore, a lesson in humility, a being brought low, in order to climb again. It is as if we deconstruct ourselves, our false image of what we are meant to be, in order to find our true selves, because if there is one thing I am sure of, it is that if we lose ourselves for Christ’s sake, it is then – and only then – that we will truly find ourselves, in that first and most telling of the paradoxes contained in Christianity (you must lose your life in order to find it).

 

In effect, we evolve. And EVOLVE can be seen to contain LOVE with the repetition of certain letters. If we again apply the pair b-v-w, we might say that EVOLVE reads WE LOVE or LOVE/BE. There is clearly a connection between communion with others – WE – and existence – BE.

 

We have different mathematical shapes, most of them filled out, bulging or with sharp edges – a circle, a square, a rectangle – but the shape I associate with love is not so full of itself as these, it is the oval, a clasping of the hands, a sheltering of the light, a timid prayer. LOVE and OVAL are connected by a slight shift in the vowels, from a to e. As if this weren’t enough, having recourse again to the ‘eighth’ phonetic pair, we see that the first three letters of LOVE give LOW. We do not exalt ourselves, place ourselves first – this is not love – we give way to the other, we make a gesture. This is love.

 

And we already saw how LOVE is connected with OTHER by the phonetic pair l-r, the alphabetical pair t-v, addition of h, in what for me is one of the most remarkable connections. LOVE and OTHER are central words in language. Love implies the other; without the other, there can be no love, or only self-love, which is not really love at all.

 

OTHER is connected to THEOS (alphabetical pair r-s), the Greek word for ‘God’. The other is God. We find (serve) God in the other. Christ says as much in Matthew 25:40: ‘Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ We are called to practise our love on our neighbour, to go beyond our rational thinking, our thirst for revenge, and bestow love even on our enemies. How wonderfully illogical! How wonderfully nonsensical! Turn the other cheek? You must be joking!

 

And yet there it is. A minus leads to a plus when one I combines with another. The other – my wife, my son, my neighbour – gives me back my life. Isn’t it that simple? Whoever gave life to himself?

 

We also saw that LOVE makes us WHOLE (b-v-w again, addition of h), but it can be misdirected and turned into LOVE for MONEY (l-m-n in the alphabet, physical pair – pair of letters that look alike – v-y) or POWER (phonetic pairs l-r and v-w, addition of p). This is love with a view to the senses, the material world and our place in it.

 

I would like to finish with two astonishing word connections for LOVE.

 

If you remember no other word connection, remember this one: LOVE is connected to WORD by the phonetic pairs l-r and v-w and the alphabetical pair d-e. Now we know that God is love (1 Jn 4:8) and God is the Word, so there is confirmation for you because the two words are intimately connected. I would suggest that the connections LOVE-OTHER-THEOS and LOVE-WORD are central to the Gospel message and to our existence. God spoke the world into being – he did this through love. God sent his only-begotten Son, the Word, to redeem us from our sins, to call us back to the straight path – he did this through love. God can be found all around us when we act with love. You should have seen the look of this puppy when it came into my son’s arms – it was a look of pure love. And they had only just met!

 

Everything else falls away – the structures that we have invented, the scaffolding with which we have surrounded our lives, the lies we have been told ever since we were children. They are not important anymore. The only thing that matters now is love (those two words are surely connected).

 

And then we come to an extraordinary conclusion because, if I apply the ‘eighth’ phonetic pair b-v-w (again!) and the physical pair i-l, I find that ‘I owe’ is replaced by ‘love’. There is no debt. DEBT, as a word, is connected to DEATH (as it should be). Our debt melts away in a tide of love, and the promissory note – the IOU – becomes an exclamation of recognition: I, O You!

 

We recognize ourselves in the other. We caress them. And thank them for giving us back our life – our real life, this time.

 

Jonathan Dunne, http://www.stonesofithaca.com