Sensitivity to Words

One of the major symptoms of the general crisis existent in our world today is our lack of sensitivity to words. We use words as tools. We forget that words are a repository of the spirit. The tragedy of our times is that the vessels of the spirit are broken. We cannot approach the spirit unless we repair the vessels. Reverence for words - an awareness of the wonder of words, of the mystery of words - is an essential prerequisite for prayer. By the word of God the world was created.

—Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

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In a class on Buddhism, one of the teachers was a Jōdo Shinshū pastor. He explained that when teaching the children the First Noble Truth, they expressed it as "Life is a bumpy road." Several years later I read that the literal translation of the Pali word dukkha, usually translated as suffering or dissatisfaction is "bad hole," referring to a poorly made cart wheel. What a fascinating metaphor.

Compassion is Latin for "to suffer with," or as Bill Clinton said it, “I feel your pain.”

Coleman Barks, in a recorded reading of his translations of Rumi, told about an English teacher who, on the first day of class, jumped up on his desk and said, "Young men, I love words." I also love words, sometimes for their roots or
original meaning, or sometimes just for their sounds. The German word for auto exhaust tailpipe is auspuff.

In English, a windfall is a tree blown over by the wind, bringing the fruit (and wood) within easy reach. The Japanese equivalent is a duck that walks in the door, a meal that does not have to be hunted down. A great windfall is a duck that walks in the door with a green onion over its shoulder. The most popular way in Japan to cook duck is with green onions.

Spirit in Greek and Hebrew is the same word as breath or wind, and it's feminine. In English, the feminine has been lost from the Divinity.

In India, the Bodhisattva of Compassion is male. In China, it was initially male but soon an existing Chinese female deity (Kwan Yin) was co-opted. Is this a transgendered deity?

Rumi says God's first language is silence; all else is poor translation.

Zen claims to be a teaching beyond scripture and words and has the largest body of written works of any religion.

Words are wonderful, powerful, and at the same time, limited. They must be respected for all three.

—Jeff Taylor

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Sounds of Trees

Can you tell
the species from
the sighs of
the pines, the
rustle of hardwoods?

Does it matter to anyone,
except a botanist,
an academic, the arrogant
know-it-alls?

The poet struggles
to find the words
for what
is wordless.

—Jeff Taylor

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Reverberate the
Ethers
Verifying
Elemental
Respect
Emmitting
Non-Judgement with
Compassion is
Equity exhuberantly expressed.
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Wonderous
Order
Responding to the
Divine with devotion
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Verifiable
Earth-Wear
Syntactic
Symbols
Eliciting
Love
Simply & sanely
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Suprise
Piety
Is
Really
Innocent
Thinking

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In The Beginning

In the beginning was the Word
and I am told the Word was
God/is God.
How is this verifiable? I can observe
that I recover from wounds inflicted
by sticks and stones.
But words can be used to pierce
my very soul, can lead me to the
loss of meaning. And, well there
you are, plowshares bent into
swords, crushing my vessel asunder.

Viktor Frankl wrote words, "Man's
Search for Meaning,"I can use to
guide my return.
To the root of Word which is Love,
As it was in the beginning and
It always will be....
Once the carnage is ended, and
I caringly lift away weighted thoughts
of hate, cease it in all its forms within
myself. My recovery, rediscovery
of the Word may be the revival of a
Loving World without End. Amen.

—Martha Ward