Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Living beyond words

This is a segue from the previous post. I really can’t explain it better, yet; I don’t even fully know what I’m talking about. I’m seeing sculpting, rather than speaking; forms, whose reason for being is the pure, simple joy of holding flowers. Ultimately, breaking this life open and being nothing but “thank you.”

I know what I mean, but not how to convey it.

I am so verbal. And I'm in a place where words don't live. I need to learn to translate the absence of words into the presence of life (other forms of expression), and I don't know how to.

That may be what this summer is for... hmmm. It's like transsubstantiation, only without bread. With, being.

"Living a Eucharistic life," and all that. I would have thought that I was doing it. Like so much else since the diagnosis, I didn't have any idea.

Responses?

6 comments:

Paul said...

Welcome to the apophatic path where words are not only useless, they get in the way. We in the West have, for the most part, been blithely unaware of it, distrust it, fear it. It thus constitutes a enormous growing edge for us and offers us immeasurable gifts. If we are willing to take that risk, which most of us, most of the time, are not.

You seem to have been plunged into it by the Spirit, and there you are, willy nilly. And you look around in wonder and awe and confusion, savoring, wanting more, not yet knowing what to do with it or how to be with it.

Omigod, an adventure! Just when you might have wanted some down time to absorb and process and rest.

Hugs!

Journeying with you transcends an E-ticket ride.

Katy V. said...

Sometimes when the Spirit moves, we can do nothing but babble! Thank you for sharing your inward movements.

June Butler said...

Tell me you love me and you’re praying for me. - from your previous post.

Kirstin, I love you, and I am praying for you.

I pray for healing of body, mind, and spirit. I pray for you just to "be" in the Spirit, as you live your Eucharistic life.

Caminante said...

"Welcome to the apophatic path where words are not only useless, they get in the way."

Maggie Ross, an Anglican solitary, writes about the apophatic path in The Fountain and the Furnace: The Way of Tears and Fire.

'Tears are a mark of having touched reality, or having been touched by Reality, on integration and regeneration. They are a sign of the reunifying of the person, the healing of fragmentation. Tears are the body's participation in God's indwelling life in the person. Tears are fire.'

Perhaps your wordlessness is something akin to holy tears.

Fran said...

Love you and praying for you?

Oh yes. Oh yes.

And I love what Caminante said about wordlessness and holy tears.

Anonymous said...

Why would you want to translate wordlessness into anything? I mean, maybe you can just let it be what it is. It doesn't have to be expressed and it seems like it would be futile to try. For me, anyway. you may be more creative than I am. In any event, I am not encouraging expressions... But, do what you will. Good luck.