The Measure of the Universe

In Genesis, God spoke the world into being. In the New Testament, we have, “In the beginning was the Word.” We are given these imaginative truths that speech or sound has formative power,  bringing form/substance into being and that, “The Word,” or “Logos” has always been. We also find in Shelley's epic play, Prometheus Unbound, that Prometheus, a demigod who stole fire from the gods, a “gave man speech, and speech created thought, which is the measure of the universe” (II.iv.72-73). What these two sources suggest is that language is a mediator between humanity and divinity.

Language is what separates humans from other sentient beings in our ability to communicate not just informtion or feelings through sound, but also intentions, plans, logic in precisce, as well as subtle, nuanced layers of thought and meaning. Language creates meaning and, thus, thought. In this way, language builds and expands consciousness and conscience.

Although I am not a member of an organized religion, I was brought up in Catholicism. I am grateful for those early experiences, not the dogma, indoctriation, judgment I and others may have experienced, but all  which helped create a foundation for my inner life—experiences of seeing, hearing and feeling beauty. The interior of the church inspired awe and reverence: the reverence for the sacred experienced in the services, the gleaming red votives; the artwork and statues, and frangrance of flowers and incense; the images on and color and light streaming through the stained-glass windows.

I loved Saturday confessions, not for the act of confession itself, but before and after it, sitting quietly in an empty church. Each sound echoed through the space. In the presence of the figure on the cross, the somber saints on the side alters and silent angels in paintings on walls and ceiling, there was mystery. I felt at home in wonder, which the Greeks tell us is the beginning of wisdom.

I listened on Sundays, Holy Days and at funerals to the liturgies, prayers and hymns, first in Latin, which was beautiful and the meaning obscured also imparted ony the beauty and mystery of its sound. I recall my first apprehension of the spiritual—being lifted above the ordinary, although I couldn't have put that feeling into words back then. It came through words in one of the Latin prayers that was about the power of the word. Once heard, it reverberated through and in me (and still does): Dómine, non sum dignus, ut inters sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo et sanábitur anima mea. We also recited it in English:

Oh, Lord I am not worthy that thou should come under my roof. Only say the word and my soul will be healed. 

“Only say the word and my soul will be healed" was a revelation to me as a child, as it is now: that words can and do heal, that they both express and shape wisdom-filled thoughts and have a life which I cann breathe in! Such word-thoughts offer a sense of hope and renewal, are felt as light, and can be called upon again and again as a source of comfort, strength, and even of actions I might not otherwise take, had I not been inspired by them.

As an adult, I found a life inseparable from layers of language as an English teacher and writer, grounded in the “trinity” of language: power, beauty and meaning, which long ago planted a seed within me. 

I imagine that, if such a thing could be observed, the palest shade of green would have been seen through the thin shell of my young soul—ever so pale, but green, green and growing.