Tag: Parable of the Sower

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Harmony and Language

In the documentary film “Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision” being released on Friday, His Majesty King Charles III makes the point that we should be living as a part of nature, and not apart from it. We should not see nature as something out there to be exploited, rather we should see ourselves as being interconnected with the rest of nature and reliant on it for our well-being (both physical and emotional). In this short piece, I would like to suggest that language agrees with him.

Let us start by looking at where the idea of separation comes from. You can only see something, such as the environment, as being there to be exploited if you view it as being separate from yourself. If it is a part of you, you won’t want to exploit it. Separation comes from our ability to count. To count something, you must draw a line around it, otherwise you cannot count it. This is why we have uncountable and countable nouns. Uncountable nouns tend to be concepts, things that are too large or woolly for us to comprehend (to draw a line around). Countable nouns are things we can contain – in our imagination, or literally, in a bag or a bottle – and they are preceded by the indefinite article a or an. So, we might have rice and a bag of rice, or milk and a bottle of milk. The first is something that flows constantly, it seems to have no beginning or end; the second is contained (and note that it is the container, the bag or the bottle, that causes so many problems to our environment, it is our drawing a line around something in order to trade in it – in order to count it – that causes pollution).

God is uncountable. He is without limits. He is too large for us to comprehend. In the Creation, recounted in the opening two chapters of the Book of Genesis, what he did in effect was make himself countable. He made individual creatures and a planet for us to live on. Creation is the act of making the uncountable countable.

The name of God in Exodus 3:14 (the name he reveals to Moses at the burning bush) is AM. If we apply the phonetic pair m-n to AM, we get an. Language here – with a simple change brought about by applying a phonetic pair – is showing us how God made himself countable, because the indefinite article precedes countable nouns. Read these two words, AM and an, differently, and you get a man.

Man’s purpose was not to create. That is God’s job. We cannot create out of nothing, we can only give meaning to what already exists. We are not authors, we are translators, since nothing begins or ends with us, things pass through us (and we pass through them).

Read the word man in reverse and add a final e (very common in English), and you get name. This was man’s purpose: to name the creatures (Genesis 2:19). By naming them, he gave them meaning, he said amen to God’s will. All three words – name, mean, amen – have the same letters.

But we can go a different way. If I take a step in the alphabet, from m to l, and add the letter d, from man I get land. This is where man lives (hence the importance of nature). If I apply the phonetic pair d-t and add the letter p, from land I get plant, because this is what man must do in order to eat something, he is reliant on nature in order to survive. And if I add the letter e, I get planet. This is what the planet is for – for man to plant crops. God has given him a home.

But whereas God made us countable in order that we might have free will and make our own choices, we have taken this countability to mean that we can do with other people and things whatever we like. We have abused the relationship. We have put the ego first (not God). This is the relationship that we need to repair.

Exploitation is a result of countability (you cannot exploit something unless it is separate). So, we need to repair this breach, or at least to view it in a different light (as something to be respected, for example).

King Charles III explains how nature works in cycles; language also demonstrates this. We start with a seed. The first thing a seed does is sleep. I have rotated the letter d and added the straight line represented by the letter l. This is what we do in our lives when we are oblivious to our surroundings. That straight line represents the ego (it doesn’t matter whether it is written with a capital I or a lowercase l). Once it is in the ground, the seed dies (front vowels e-i). But it dies in order to bear fruit, to become something bigger (a tree). Nature is showing us the path to be taken by the ego – it must die to itself, to its selfish desires and fears, in order to grow in stature.

The seed puts out first a root and then a shoot. These words are connected (mid-vowels e-o, phonetic pair d-t, alphabetical pair r-s, addition of h). The root divides into two, while the shoot – which, as it appears above ground, looks remarkably like a tooth – becomes a tree and divides into three. The tree puts out branches (it doesn’t remain as a straight line), it grows leaves (to harness the power of the sun) and flowers (to attract insects), and the flowers give way to fruit. Fruit is just root with an f on it, and so we return to the beginning… Language is showing how nature is cyclical (in fact, the word return is in nature).

I think this is what His Majesty, with his attention to the importance of the environment, is encouraging us to do – to return to nature. Not to see ourselves as being cut off from it, but as a part of it, reliant on it not only for our physical needs, but also for our peace of soul. It’s like a neighbour – if you are at odds with your neighbour, how can you live peacefully?

The environment attends to our physical needs (without it, we will not be able to eat and we will die). It is beautiful to look at and it gives us peace. But this is not its ultimate purpose. I believe that nature, the environment, is an example out there for what should be happening in us. We also need to bear fruit, not just nature. We also need to die to our selfish impulses for the greater good, just as a seed does when it sprouts in the ground.

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, there are two parables that teach us about this. One is the Parable of the Sower. This also is a metaphor out there for something that should be happening in here. A sower goes out to sow. Depending on the ground’s receptivity, the seed takes root or it doesn’t. This is really about our ability to hear the word of the kingdom and, having heard it, to bear fruit in God’s name.

If the earth is a metaphor out there for what should be happening in here, then what is our earth? The answer is very simple. Take the last letter of earth and tack it on the front. You have heart. The heart is the earth where the seed of God’s word has to take root and bear fruit. That is the message – of Jesus in the Gospels, but also of nature.

We have to be able to see and hear in order to bear fruit in God’s name – Jesus places great emphasis on our ability to see and hear – and for this we need to learn humility. The humility to admit that our sight has been imperfect, which ironically is what then enables us to see.

I mentioned the phonetic pair d-t earlier. Add this pair to see and hear. What two words do you get? Seed and heart. Language is telling us that when we see and hear the message of the kingdom, a seed is planted in the earth of our heart and we are enabled, through the intervention of the Holy Spirit, to bear fruit. Nature is a lesson out there for what should be happening in here. When we become spiritually healthy, then we will treat the environment as it deserves.

And just in case we were in any doubt, Jesus provides another example: the Parable of the Tares (again, in Matthew 13). Someone sows good seed – the wheat, the children of the kingdom – but an enemy comes in the night and sows weeds – evildoers. The slaves of the householder ask whether they should remove the weeds, but the householder says to wait until the harvest (the end of time), in case they uproot the wheat as well.

Weed and wheat are connected (phonetic pair d-t, addition of h). They look alike, just as people in society look alike and we cannot always be sure of their intentions. But there is one fundamental difference. There is something that wheat has that a weed doesn’t, and that is ears. Wheat is able to listen.

Nature is an example out there for what should be happening inside us. The seed is the word of the kingdom – to love the Lord your God, to love your neighbour – and that seed should be sown in our heart, just as a physical seed is sown in a field. When this happens, we learn how misguided we have been, we learn humility, and we redirect our priorities towards the kingdom (this is the meaning of repentance, metanoia in Greek). We also bear fruit, just as a tree does. And once we can see, the rest of creation rejoices. It recognizes us for the first time. We establish a relationship that is one of love and care, which is King Charles’s message in his film “Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision”.

Jonathan Dunne

http://www.stonesofithaca.com

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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6. Heart

When we see and hear – that is, when we acquire spiritual vision – a seed is planted in the earth of our heart. This is why see and hear, with the addition of the phonetic pair d-t, give seed and heart. We need our eyes and ears to be opened.

Seed is also the past tense of see – or it would be, if see was a regular verb. And the past tense of hear would be heart.

This is because the past tense in English, which is written -ed, is pronounced d or t, depending on whether the previous sound is voiced or not. If the previous sound is voiced, for example b, then the pronunciation of -ed is d (mobbed); if, however, the previous sound is voiceless, for example p, then the pronunciation of -ed is t (stopped). It is only if the previous sound is d or t that the sounds have to be separated by a vowel sound and the pronunciation is id (decided).

An inordinate amount of importance is placed on the ability to see and hear in the Gospels. Christ is always crying out, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” (Mt 11:15, Mk 4:9). In Matthew 13:16, he tells the disciples, “Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” He is referring to spiritual vision, which unfortunately is not the kind of vision that is usually taught in schools, because in schools children are taught to label and count, to analyze, to think, to rely on reason, on effort (“work hard, and you’ll get good marks”), and this creates a certain distance between us and the things that surround us, leading to the idea that we can do something with them, such as deal, trade, buy and sell because they are somehow alien to us, external (we adopt the same attitude towards language).

It also encourages the idea that in order to achieve something in this life we must act (do something to something or someone else). If you teach a child to count up from 1 (never from 0), you are encouraging them to think in terms of profit and loss, quantity, what comes in and what goes out, you are encouraging them to trade in the things of this world, which is the whole basis of the dominant system, capitalism (counting up). You are not encouraging them to truly see the things of this world for what they are worth and to rejoice in them. This comes to us naturally, but in the hurly-burly of classrooms it is often extracted. A good example would be a friend of mine’s ability to draw. Before he attended school, he drew beautifully (several of his drawings were published in National Geographic Kids). Once he started attending school and went to art lessons, where he was taught the names of artists and encouraged to remember them, his drawing became analytical, predictable, uninspired. He had lost that innocency of vision that Christ wants us to reclaim because he began to analyze, to do the exercises that he was set, to put everything in boxes, to learn not in order to appreciate, but to pass exams (to achieve a certain mark).

This idea of effort being rewarded is very dangerous, because it leads to the notion that we must always be doing something, and that implies doing something to something, not just letting it be. I have a neighbour who is always cutting down trees and bushes. This morning, another bush had disappeared. I noticed its absence. He obviously feels the need to be busy, but I can’t quite understand why he doesn’t leave them alone. After all, trees provide food, warmth, oxygen, shade, and homes (somewhere to hide) for the sparrows and great tits that populate the local area.

And what do we see with? Our eyes (addition of y). What do we use to hear? The ear (addition of h). So, we have: eyes-see-seed and ear-hear-heart, with the addition of the phonetic pair d-t in the final word of each triplet. This is because in order for the spiritual seed to take root in the earth of our heart, and to effect a change, we must be able to see/hear the message. Otherwise, the words will fall on deaf ears. This is the message of the Parable of the Sower that precedes the passage in Matthew I quoted earlier.

In the first of the Parables of the Kingdom that follow this passage, the Parable of the Tares, there is one who sows good seed in the field of the world – Christ himself – and the enemy (the devil) who comes at night to sow weeds among the wheat. “The good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one” (Mt 13:38). Weed and wheat are, of course, connected (phonetic pair d-t, addition of h). They are planted in the same field until the time of the harvest, when an angel will come to glean – language here is predicting the future, it is telling us what will happen, just as, in the case of creation, it tells us how the world came into being.

And isn’t it interesting that, of the two, weed and wheat, it is only the second that has ears? It is also, ironically, only the second that leads to true wealth (addition of l) – which is not having more of something, but seeing the wonder in people and things, without the need to possess or exploit them.

Jonathan Dunne

Heart of Language 6/15

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4. Earth

Our bodies mimic the physical environment – our heart is the earth, our soul the soil, where spiritual seeds can be planted.

Father also contains earth. And heart.

In Genesis 1:9-13, we read that the earth was created on day three, together with the sea, seed and tree (words with which it is connected).

We have seen that the vowels emerge from the throat, where language originates, in a different order from that in the alphabet. The back vowels are u and o, the central vowel is a, and the front vowels are e and i; u and i are close vowels, o and e are mid vowels, while a is an open vowel (this is why a doctor asks you to pronounce this vowel when she wants to look down your throat, because it is the most open vowel there is). So the vowels as they proceed from the throat form an inverted pyramid, according to where in the mouth they are produced:

u                                             i

o                      e

a

Now, vowels are fluid. I have already explained that they equate to water (water forms in the mouth when you hold one for long enough). This is why a vowel can be said to flow (phonetic pair f-v, addition of e). Languages like Arabic and Hebrew don’t even write them down, they only list the consonants. This means it is fairly easy to change a vowel in a word connection, especially if they are pronounced next to each other, such as a and e.

If we maintain the digraph th, then we can see that earth in reverse gives three, the day on which it was created. It also happens to be the third planet in order of increasing distance from the sun. And, in Christian theology, it was created by the Trinity (God in three persons) – the Father (the origin of breath, from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds), the Son (Christ the Word, begotten of the Father) and the Holy Spirit (breath or wind, pneuma in Greek, the basis of all speech). So we can understand why the number three might be so important for earth.

While a seed is planted in the earth in order for it to grow, a spiritual seed has to be planted in another kind of earth – our heart. This is why the two words are connected. It is not enough for us to hear a spiritual message, we have to take the message on board, to let it into our hearts, where the seed of an idea can grow and bear fruit.

We might then remember the layer of something that surrounds the earth like a shell or a circumference: soil. We cannot place the seed on a rock or among thorns if we want it to grow. We must place it in the soil.

Again, when it is a question of a spiritual seed, there is another kind of soil where we must plant it – our soul. This is where the spiritual seed will bear fruit.

So, earth-heart, soil-soul (containing the close vowels, u and i).

Language is drawing a comparison between the physical environment and our own bodies, in which the heart takes precedence (and where the soul is perhaps a layer around it, as soil is a layer around the earth).

Jonathan Dunne

Heart of Language 4/15

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