u/PhilosophyOfLanguage

When Pippin used the word “hill” for a mountain in the Common Tongue, Treebeard was puzzled. Why such a short name?

“Treebeard repeated the words thoughtfully. ‘Hill. Yes, that was it. But it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped.’”

For the most part, contractions are “hasty” words. Cutting words short means we don’t want to hear their story. Hastiness in words, just like hastiness in movement, annihilates one of the most precious gifts we have been given — the gift of depth.

C.S. Lewis once noted something similar about the gift of distance:

“The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it ‘annihilates space.’ It does. It annihilates one of the most glorious gifts we have been given. It is a vile inflation which lowers the value of distance, so that a modern boy travels a hundred miles with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from traveling ten.’” — Surprised by Joy.

Hastiness in travel dulls one’s sense of liberation and pilgrimage. When we rush along in a car, we miss the gift of the Tao — the Way that changes us from the inside out. We return to ourselves only by walking the Way.

There is a time and place for rushing under the sun, but when we are always rushed, we cease to experience the Way. We become wayward.

Similarly, hastiness in words dulls our sense of depth. We scrape the surface. We receive the calories of data but not the nutrition of Speech. We gain knowledge but not transformation. We are fed more and more information, yet become famished for meaning. We say LA instead of Los Angeles to save time — but we can no longer hear the angels singing.

In our fast-moving world, we have created a shorthand language without realizing what it has cut us off from. We write bc for because, plz for please, w/o for without, IMHO for in my humble opinion — and then wonder why life grows noisier and less musical.

By contracting words, we cut ourselves off from the music of language. FOMO, IDK, FYI, TBD are maimed, limping words. They do not sound. They fall from the mouth and drop dead on the floor without stirring the soul.

At the dawn of the Soviet era, in post-revolution Russia, a whole corpus of abbreviations and contractions was imposed by the Bolshevicks. According to Pavel Florensky, the new language sounded “like a splinter in the tongue.” He called this practice “linguistic deformity,” the “mangling of words through deliberate disfigurement.”

What is annihilated in our hasty contractions? The gift of sound. Its power to transform. The less Sound we hear, the less we are moved.

Interestingly, the word sound comes from the Proto–Indo-European root swen- / swon-, from which we also derive song and swan.

True sound is a bird — a singing bird. True sound flies and calls. IDK and TBD do not fly. In The Silver Trumpet by Owen Barfield, the heroes encounter true sound every time the Silver Trumpet is played.

Each time, they are stunned — and called. Called where? To return to the Music from which the world came.

The sound of the Silver Trumpet is a metaphor for true Speech — a performative, Logos-infused language that effects what it names.

“And at the very first note of the trumpet, Princess Violet forgot the Prince and the garden and Princess Gamboy and Mountainy Castle and the sky above her and dreamed she was afloat beneath tons and tons of clear green water near the bottom of the sea, and — oh, yes — far away someone was booming a huge bell.” — The Silver Trumpet

The more rushed we are in our language, the more our world shrinks. As Treebeard said to Pippin about fair Lothlórien:

Do not risk getting entangled in the woods of Laurelindórenan! That is what the Elves used to call it, but now they make the name shorter: Lothlórien they call it. Perhaps they are right: maybe it is fading, not growing.”

In this episode, Shari and I keep talking about J.R.R. Tolkien's essay On Fairy-Stories.

In this one, we explore the inner consistency of true Secondary Worlds, the laws that govern imagination, humanity's need for a penetrating Gaze from beyond itself, and the essential difference between the Art of the Elves and the Machine.

https://www.youtube.com/live/BZy5EYltkmE?is=ivG9PLHATIDQIZAp

Tolkien once wrote to his friend Father Robert Murrey:

“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world.”

This seems to be the only way to create something intrinsically religious — cut out all references to religion. Paradoxically, the surest and quickest way to ruin religion is to mention it. True religion has very little to do with cults or practices. It has everything to do with one’s state of being.

When religion is spoken of, it usually disappears; when it remains unuttered, it always transpires. No wonder there is no temple in the New Jerusalem: “And I saw no temple in the city” (Revelation 21:22). When God is all in all, everything is a temple. The temple is not a place but Divine Being present in all things.

When God is all in all, you no longer need a source of light — neither the sun nor the moon. Since God shines through everything, everything becomes a source of light.

C.S. Lewis once called this phenomenon donegality. During his visit to County Donegal in Ireland, he was struck by the unique feel of its landscape. He coined the term to describe the distinctive atmosphere or mood that gives a place — or a narrative — its unmistakable feel.

Donegality is when a mystery becomes lucid by remaining unspoken. It cannot be pointed to directly, yet it permeates everything. It is never the subject of the story but some ineffable mood in which the story is soaked.

When dogmas speak, donegality remains silent. When dogmas fall silent, true religion speaks the unutterable.

For example, Eru Ilúvatar is never spoken of in The Lord of the Rings, yet the Music of Ilúvatar is heard in all things. In Lothlórien, this transcendence becomes almost palpable:

“Frodo felt that he was in a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness. When he had gone and passed again into the outer world, still Frodo the wanderer from the Shire would walk there, upon the grass among elanor and niphredil in fair Lothlórien.”

Lothlórien was permeated with the Music of Ilúvatar — the unspoken, ineffable harmony that made all things alive. There is no temple, because worship is not something the Elves do; it is something they are.

By attuning themselves with this ineffable Music, they become “it” — part of it. They become keenly aware of its presence in all things, and worship unfolds of itself, ceaselessly. Whatever they touch, begins singing with the primordial Chant.

That’s why all they make becomes “magical.” As the leader of the Elves explained to Pippin who asked him whether the cloaks they received were magical:

“They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.’”

In other words, whatever the Elves do becomes “magical” by virtue of the land’s unending Worship and their love of it. Explicit religion would shatter this invisible yet all-pervasive Chant that makes all things enchanting.

In On Fairy Stories, Tolkien explains that the art of the Elves is Enchantment — not magic proper, for that is the domain of the Enemy.

“…the more potent and specially elvish craft I will, for lack of a less debatable word, call Enchantment.”

The true religion of heaven is unspoken — yet, it is heard, seen, smelled, tasted, and touched in all things because all things exist “in Chanting.” It is in this Chanting that they have their being.

When the Elves participate in the Chanting, whatever they do becomes Enchantment. And Enchantment is true Art that the Enemy has no power over.

Often, we fail to recognize the extent to which our language shapes our thinking. For example, what happens when we habitually call people human resources?

Heidegger writes in The Question Concerning Technology:

“...he [man] comes to the brink of a precipitous fall; that is, he comes to the point where he himself will have to be taken as standing-reserve.”

Those who work in HR habitually refer to people as “resources.” Yet the moment someone views us as a resource, we immediately cringe. We instinctively sense that we are being degraded.

Heidegger argues that in our age, being reduced to mere standing-reserve is almost inescapable. Whether we recognize it or not, this reduction is embedded in the very language we use. But where does this language – and the thinking behind it – come from?

In his exploration of technology, Heidegger concludes that modern technology is no longer a tool, even though it is presented as one.

“The essence of technology is by no means anything technological.”

Modern technology is a Gestell – Enframing – a conceptual framework that we cast upon reality. Technology is a way of thinking. It reveals how we see everything. Heidegger illustrates this with the example of the Rhine.

Before the twentieth century, numerous watermills stood along the river, each built into the natural flow. In the twentieth century, however, a power plant was constructed at that very site, and the river was locked into it. Now the river is built into the power plant.

This illustrates what has happened to technology. In the past, technology was built into nature. Today, nature is built into technology. In fact, almost everything is built into technology. The question is: Who serves whom?

Gradually, we have shifted from using tools to being used by them. According to Heidegger, one consequence of such a shift is that we tend to view everything as standing-reserve. Humanity stands “on the brink of a precipitous fall” because we are unconsciously turning ourselves into fuel for the Machine.

No one likes being reduced to standing-reserve, yet we continue to use the very language that produces such reductionist thinking.

As a translator, I see more and more agencies replacing personal communication with automated systems. In the past, project managers contacted me directly to offer work. Now I simply receive a notification that a job has appeared on an online platform, and I have to claim it immediately because hundreds of other translators are competing for the same assignment.

I understand why agencies do this. They have built a vast Machine, and everything – including people – must serve it. Yet there are still companies, usually smaller ones, that prefer talking to people. Those are the companies I prefer to work with.

They may sacrifice some profit, but they refuse to treat people as standing-reserve, and they refuse to become it themselves.

Modern technology enframes us to think of everything as a resource. It gives us a language that reduces both nature and humans to fuel for the Machine. We use this language almost unconsciously, yet we still recoil when a boss treats us as an expendable resource.

What is the alternative? Refuse to build our lives into technology! We must have a full and rich life without it. Only then can we build technology into the mainstream of our lives. When we use it less, we can use it some. When we use it all the time, it uses us.

When we build our life and work into technology, it invariably reduces us to standing-reserve. When we build technology into OUR life and work, we reduce it back to a tool. Ultimately, there is only one state of mind that is powerful enough to turn technology back into a tool.

Heidegger concludes,

“Essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it. Such a realm is art.”

Often, we fail to recognize the extent to which our language shapes our thinking. For example, what happens when we habitually call people human resources?

Heidegger writes in The Question Concerning Technology:

“...he [man] comes to the brink of a precipitous fall; that is, he comes to the point where he himself will have to be taken as standing-reserve.”

Those who work in HR habitually refer to people as “resources.” Yet the moment someone views us as a resource, we immediately cringe. We instinctively sense that we are being degraded.

Heidegger argues that in our age, being reduced to mere standing-reserve is almost inescapable. Whether we recognize it or not, this reduction is embedded in the very language we use. But where does this language – and the thinking behind it – come from?

In his exploration of technology, Heidegger concludes that modern technology is no longer a tool, even though it is presented as one.

“The essence of technology is by no means anything technological.”

Modern technology is a Gestell – Enframing – a conceptual framework that we cast upon reality. Technology is a way of thinking. It reveals how we see everything. Heidegger illustrates this with the example of the Rhine.

Before the twentieth century, numerous watermills stood along the river, each built into the natural flow. In the twentieth century, however, a power plant was constructed at that very site, and the river was locked into it. Now the river is built into the power plant.

This illustrates what has happened to technology. In the past, technology was built into nature. Today, nature is built into technology. In fact, almost everything is built into technology. The question is: Who serves whom?

Gradually, we have shifted from using tools to being used by them. According to Heidegger, one consequence of such a shift is that we tend to view everything as standing-reserve. Humanity stands “on the brink of a precipitous fall” because we are unconsciously turning ourselves into fuel for the Machine.

No one likes being reduced to standing-reserve, yet we continue to use the very language that produces such reductionist thinking.

As a translator, I see more and more agencies replacing personal communication with automated systems. In the past, project managers contacted me directly to offer work. Now I simply receive a notification that a job has appeared on an online platform, and I have to claim it immediately because hundreds of other translators are competing for the same assignment.

I understand why agencies do this. They have built a vast Machine, and everything – including people – must serve it. Yet there are still companies, usually smaller ones, that prefer talking to people. Those are the companies I prefer to work with.

They may sacrifice some profit, but they refuse to treat people as standing-reserve, and they refuse to become it themselves.

Modern technology enframes us to think of everything as a resource. It gives us a language that reduces both nature and humans to fuel for the Machine. We use this language almost unconsciously, yet we still recoil when a boss treats us as an expendable resource.

What is the alternative? Refuse to build our lives into technology! We must have a full and rich life without it. Only then can we build technology into the mainstream of our lives. When we use it less, we can use it some. When we use it all the time, it uses us.

When we build our life and work into technology, it invariably reduces us to standing-reserve. When we build technology into OUR life and work, we reduce it back to a tool. Ultimately, there is only one state of mind that is powerful enough to turn technology back into a tool.

Heidegger concludes,

“Essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it. Such a realm is art.”

The closer Dante draws to Paradise, the more his speech is marked by pauses — he invokes higher powers.

He understands that the loftier the subject, the more you become aware of your inadequacy to speak about it. But what will change if, before speaking, I invoke the Muses?

“But here let dead poetry rise again,
O holy Muses, since I am yours;
and let Calliope rise somewhat here...”

In our day and age, we rarely think of how we speak. We simply open our mouth — regardless of the subject. We are rarely aware that in any conversation between two there is always the third.

We never speak merely on the horizontal plane, from one person to another. Whenever we speak horizontally, we also speak vertically. Heaven is our witness.

The closer Dante draws to Paradiso, the less he assumes that he can find the right words. He doesn’t rely on himself to speak.

The ancients were deeply aware of the dangers of simply blurting things out. To speak without invoking a higher power was an act of presumption.

According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Pierides were the nine daughters of Pierus, king of Emathia. In their pride, they challenged the nine Muses to a contest of song. As punishment, they were transformed into magpies and condemned to endless chattering.

They presumed upon a voice that was not their own and, as a result, lost even the voice they possessed. This is a recurring theme in myth: unless we become aware of our inadequacy to speak, we lose our voice.

So Dante invokes the Muses, Calliope, Apollo, Beatrice, Mary, and God. What changes as he does so?

He opens the door of his mind to true inspiration.

He knows that inspiration cannot be manufactured. The Pierides imagined themselves to be the source of inspiration rather than its recipients. As a result, they croaked, rattled, and squawked.

When we become aware of the vertical dimension of speech, we become aware of the sacred — that which cannot be touched without permission. Language is not ours to possess. It comes — or it does not. Unless I am aware of the Source of Language, all I say will be croaking.

Humility is not self-abasement; it is self-knowledge. The Pierides suffer only until they learn what the Muses already know: The Song is not created by the singer — it simply comes through them.

“We do not merely speak the language — we speak by way of it. We can do so solely because we always have already listened to the language. What do we hear there? We hear language speaking.” ― Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language

Until I hear Language speaking, I have nothing to say.

Unless I hear the Muses singing, I will croak and squawk.

Unless my thinking is thanking, I do not truly think.

Unless I am aware of the third, I cannot truly reach the second.

Until I invoke Heaven, I cannot truly dwell on earth.

If I presume that I can arrive at an understanding with another person merely on the horizontal plane, without awareness of the Witness, I will create an unbridgeable gap between us.

The great disconnect we see in the world is not due to a lack of communication but to a lack of awareness of the Third. If I think my communication is between the two, I am turned into a magpie, and all I say will be croaking.

I was in the process of translating a book from Russian into English when the client wrote and said that he had run my translation through Microsoft Copilot as a quality check. He asked me to implement the changes based on the feedback.

As I worked through the recommendations, I realized that some of them simply could not be adopted. So I called him and said:

“The author quotes 1 Corinthians 13:12: ‘Now we see through a glass, darkly.’ He then alludes to this ‘seeing darkly’ throughout the chapter using the exact same expression. Copilot claims that the word darkly here means gloomily and recommends replacing it with ‘we live in the world by guesswork.’

But if I make this change, the allusion will disappear. Readers will no longer recognize Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians behind the phrase ‘we live in the world by guesswork.’ Are you willing to sacrifice the allusion?”

He replied: “My goodness, no! The entire chapter is hinged upon the reader catching this subtle hint. Without it, the meaning falls apart. Thank you for catching it!”

I thought to myself: “But why didn’t Copilot spot it in the first place?” So I opened my laptop and asked directly: “When you determine the meaning of a text, how do you do it? Do you ‘feel’ what the author is trying to say?”

The answer was illuminating:

“When I interpret a text, I don’t feel where the author is coming from. I don’t experience empathy or emotional resonance. What I do is recognize patterns in language… I detect textual signals.”

Understanding without empathy is misunderstanding. If I wish to understand another person, I must attend to more than textual signals. I must empathize. I must resonate. I must sense how the words reverberate within the living context from which they emerged.

Had I not felt what the author was doing, I might never have noticed this all-important allusion.

Interestingly, the French word nuance means “shade, slight difference, subtlety.” It is derived from nuer, which in turn comes from nue meaning “cloud” (hence nebula). The paradox of nuance is that it reveals by shading and obscuring — unveiling by making something more nebulous.

A nuance is a shade, a cloud that overshadows the visible. When you look at this cloud, you don’t see clearly in the ordinary sense — but you see all the more for it. You understand by sensing what the cloud hides.

A nuance disrupts the straightforward flow of thought and creates in you this nebulous feeling: “Wait a minute. The text does not put it clearly, but I clearly feel that something is hidden behind this.”

A nuance causes us to “unknow” what we thought we knew — so we can pause and sense the subtle resonances arising from behind the nebula. And then, suddenly, the cloud parts, and the sun breaks through. We see.

Paradoxically, no vision is entirely clear without a nebula. Textual clues are not enough to arrive at meaning. There’s more to communication than markings on a page or sound waves in the air. Copilot cannot empathize and therefore cannot catch the author’s feeling. What the author feels is more important than what the author says.

For meaning does not reside only in what is said. It resides mainly in what is unsaid — hinted at in between the words.

The article you are reading right now contains countless textual clues to what I am trying to say, but what I am actually saying cannot be deduced from the textual clues alone. One must feel what lies behind those clues. Textual clues don’t create clarity; they create a veil — a nebula of nuances to be seen through.

That’s how humans communicate; we speak in words, but we create nebulas. We speak not to make things clear but to point to something that cannot be spoken. Every word, ultimately, leads us into the cloud. As Asaph says in Psalm 78: “I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old…”

Why does he call his sayings dark? Because every saying is a cloud; it reveals by hiding. It invites us to feel, empathize, recognize — penetrating the veil and participating in the meaning.

Meaning can only be found on the other side of the nebula — when the veil is suddenly lifted, and we hear the unutterable.

There is a curious episode in Dante’s Paradiso in which Pope Gregory the Great admits that Dionysius the Areopagite’s description of the nine orders of angels was correct, while his own understanding had been mistaken.

Beatrice, who explains this to Dante, adds that when Gregory entered Heaven and saw the true order for himself, he laughed at his own error:

But Gregory afterwards dissented from him (Dionysius);
Wherefore, as soon as he unclosed his eyes
Within this heaven, he at himself did smile.
— Paradiso, Canto 28

The ability to smile at your own mistakes when you finally see the fuller picture of reality is a true mark of Heaven. There is joy in embracing a reality greater than the one you previously inhabited. In Heaven, you delight in discovering that you were wrong, because the completeness of vision is so irresistible that self-consciousness simply dissipates.

The more clearly we perceive the gap between our views and ultimate reality, the more joy we are capable of holding. So what filled Gregory with such delight? What was it in Dionysius’ celestial hierarchy that struck him as more beautiful than all the views he had ever espoused?

In Dionysian angelology, the circle of angels closest to God — the Seraphim — burns with divine love. They overflow with that love and pour it into the lower orders. Those lower orders, in turn, pass it further downward, creating an endless cascade, a river of love flowing through the whole of creation.

Each higher order becomes the cause of the one below it. In Dionysius’ De Coelesti Hierarchia, celestial hierarchy is not a matter of rank, status, or power. It is an interior reality. An angel’s place in the hierarchy is determined by how much divine light it is capable of contemplating and transmitting.

In Heaven, the cause loves its effect and seeks its glory. It does not exist for itself but to transmit the divine light it has received. Every angelic order seeks to elevate the one below it, much like a father lifting a child onto his shoulders so that the child may see farther than he can.

The higher your position in the hierarchy, the more you exist to elevate others. The entire celestial hierarchy is an ever-descending river of illumination flowing from God through the highest to the lowest.

A child delights in being picked up and set on the father’s shoulders just as the father delights in picking up the child. The child perceives their lowliness as pure joy — they know they will be picked up and set on the shoulders. The father perceives his height as pure joy — he longs to elevate the low.

The unmistakable mark of heavenly hierarchy is that the lowest are made to feel the highest, while the highest stoop down to make themselves the lowest. The joy of the highest is to elevate; the joy of the lowest is to be elevated.

That is why Beatrice leaves Dante just before his beatific vision of the Celestial Rose. She has lifted him as high as she can, but she does not yet possess sufficient light to lead him any farther. So she entrusts him to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux — the great Contemplator, as Dante presents him — who will guide him to the final vision of the Divine Light.

What do you do when someone lifts you up and shows you a reality of which you had previously seen only a fragment? You smile — even laugh — at your error. You are delighted to discover that reality is far greater, deeper, and more beautiful than you had ever imagined.

Gladly, you allow yourself to be carried onward to still greater heights.

 

There is a curious episode in Dante’s Paradiso in which Pope Gregory the Great admits that Dionysius the Areopagite’s description of the nine orders of angels was correct, while his own understanding had been mistaken.

Beatrice, who explains this to Dante, adds that when Gregory entered Heaven and saw the true order for himself, he laughed at his own error:

But Gregory afterwards dissented from him (Dionysius);
Wherefore, as soon as he unclosed his eyes
Within this heaven, he at himself did smile.
— Paradiso, Canto 28

The ability to smile at your own mistakes when you finally see the fuller picture of reality is a true mark of Heaven. There is joy in embracing a reality greater than the one you previously inhabited. In Heaven, you delight in discovering that you were wrong, because the completeness of vision is so irresistible that self-consciousness simply dissipates.

The more clearly we perceive the gap between our views and ultimate reality, the more joy we are capable of holding. So what filled Gregory with such delight? What was it in Dionysius’ celestial hierarchy that struck him as more beautiful than all the views he had ever espoused?

In Dionysian angelology, the circle of angels closest to God — the Seraphim — burns with divine love. They overflow with that love and pour it into the lower orders. Those lower orders, in turn, pass it further downward, creating an endless cascade, a river of love flowing through the whole of creation.

Each higher order becomes the cause of the one below it. In Dionysius’ De Coelesti Hierarchia, celestial hierarchy is not a matter of rank, status, or power. It is an interior reality. An angel’s place in the hierarchy is determined by how much divine light it is capable of contemplating and transmitting.

In Heaven, the cause loves its effect and seeks its glory. It does not exist for itself but to transmit the divine light it has received. Every angelic order seeks to elevate the one below it, much like a father lifting a child onto his shoulders so that the child may see farther than he can.

The higher your position in the hierarchy, the more you exist to elevate others. The entire celestial hierarchy is an ever-descending river of illumination flowing from God through the highest to the lowest.

A child delights in being picked up and set on the father’s shoulders just as the father delights in picking up the child. The child perceives their lowliness as pure joy — they know they will be picked up and set on the shoulders. The father perceives his height as pure joy — he longs to elevate the low.

The unmistakable mark of heavenly hierarchy is that the lowest are made to feel the highest, while the highest stoop down to make themselves the lowest. The joy of the highest is to elevate; the joy of the lowest is to be elevated.

That is why Beatrice leaves Dante just before his beatific vision of the Celestial Rose. She has lifted him as high as she can, but she does not yet possess sufficient light to lead him any farther. So she entrusts him to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux — the great Contemplator, as Dante presents him — who will guide him to the final vision of the Divine Light.

What do you do when someone lifts you up and shows you a reality of which you had previously seen only a fragment? You smile — even laugh — at your error. You are delighted to discover that reality is far greater, deeper, and more beautiful than you had ever imagined.

Gladly, you allow yourself to be carried onward to still greater heights.

https://preview.redd.it/m57vw3ajsb7h1.jpg?width=1077&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=81674e036eaa624f2158b389f84c17f619697385

For the ancients, writing was never something abstract; it was always tangible — engraved in living matter like bark, wood, clay, or stone.

They saw writings in the very phenomena of the world. The idea of using letters to record thought arose from observing the writings already “engraved” in creation. All things are letters — messages inscribed by the divine hand. They contain invisible script.

Interestingly, the word book is etymologically rooted in the Proto-Germanic bōk, which in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European bhāg(ó) or bhōg, which means beech tree.

In essence, a book is a tree. Why such an association? Is it because the first writing tablets in Europe were made from thin slices of beechwood? Or it is because the ancients intuited a spiritual kinship between the book and the tree?

When you see a message etched into matter, you begin to associate the matter with the message — the visible with the invisible, the word with the wood that bears it.

The entire concept of literacy was born from reading the “letters” written upon every part of the universe. You see divine letters in a beech tree, and the letters become the beech tree.

The Russian word for beech tree (бук) sounds like the English “book.” The etymology of this word is, surprisingly, similar to the English book.

Moreover, the Russian word for letter — буква — is etymologically related to бук, the beech tree. Letters, writings, and books are all trees. And books, like trees, have leaves — leaves that tell our story.

In Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle, Niggle the painter spent his life working on a single leaf. That leaf was the story of his life; it embodied his life. Little did he know that somewhere there was a Tree — and his leaf was part of it. The story of his life literally rustled in the leaves of an invisible Tree. One day, beyond death, Niggle finally saw it — his Tree.

While he worked on his leaf — his story — that story was quietly becoming a Tree. Every brushstroke, every hesitation, every inspiration was mysteriously linked to the leaves of his own Tree — the Book of His Life. We all have such Trees — our stories whispering in the unseen forest of heaven. Whether written in a book or not, the leaves of our lives already rustle on an invisible Tree that we shall one day behold.

To live in the world means to walk upon letters. Letters are everywhere, whether we notice them or not. Every stone bears its Ten Commandments — whether we can read them or not. Every beech tree is etched with the message of the Ultimate Mystery. It cries: “Under me!”

In The Silver Chair, Jill and Eustace came to a wall of rock where, cut in great letters, were the words UNDER ME. It was a sign — a message of Aslan clad in stone — calling them, as every letter of the world still calls us, to look beneath the surface and find that which lives under the visible.

As the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians:

“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.” — 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

We are letters. We are walking books — and walking trees. We embody a message. We are beech trees etched with divine inscriptions. Our leaves tell a story — our story. Our stories wave and rustle in the wind of the Spirit, who keeps writing His tale upon us.

When we look into one another’s eyes, we are reading — and being read. People are books, and books are trees. In every gaze, we hear the whispering leaves of the Book of Life.

Scripture and Nature are not two separate revelations; they are one. Nature is Scripture written in living matter. Just look underneath — and you will see a book of divine letters unfolding before our eyes, where every tree, every face, every breath becomes divine Speech.

He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” — Mark 8:24

In his book Anatheism: Returning to God After God, Richard Kearney writes:

“The only Messiah still credible after the death camps would be one who wanted to come but could not because humans failed to invite the sacred stranger into existence.”

Anatheism literally means “a return to God after God”—from the Greek ana- (again) and theos (God). It describes a kind of post-atheistic return to faith or re-engagement with the sacred after going through atheism or profound doubt.

Nietzsche insightfully marked the 20th century as the century of the “death of God” — a death that naturally culminated in death camps. When God is dead, not only in our worldview but also in our experience, what is left to believe in?

And yet, paradoxically, it is precisely when we are engulfed by doubt that we begin to desperately search for transcendence.

Anatheism is encountering the divine anew — after deep disbelief or disenchantment. But how can one believe in God after the experience of the “death of God”?

Richard Kearney answers: in recognizing the divine in the stranger, the Other, the Unexpected. True theophany happens only when we are ready to embrace a “sacred stranger.”

“God after God” is not the same as the God before God. The God before God made sense. The God after doesn’t. The God we meet after the death of God is always a total stranger — a sacred stranger. In other words, we never realize Whom we have encountered until we have.

We never look for such an encounter. All we do is desperately search for meaning and transcendence, while the Meaning is desperately searching for us. Anatheism is discovering the sacred after profound disillusionment. The deeper the disillusionment, the stronger the urge to rediscover the sacred.

The ultimate irony is this: disillusioned people often believe they are walking away from God in their search for meaning and transcendence, yet they end up bumping into Him in the most unexpected places.

Silenced by doubt for too long, they open their mouths and begin speaking — and what they utter are stories of astonishing beauty and unbelievable transcendence.

Strictly speaking, anatheism is not our return to God; it’s a sudden and unexpected discovery that, while you thought you were going away yourself from a “dead God,” you were, in fact, getting closer to the One-Who-is-Alive — in your experience of the sacred.

With anatheism, we don’t move toward God; we move away but, somehow, find Him present where we thought He was absent.

The word irony comes from the Greek “to play the fool.” God allows us to drink the cup of atheism to the dregs — to the point of killing God — only to find that we are searching for Him in every nook and cranny. After an age of death camps we can no longer believe in the Messiah as before — only in a Messiah who comes to us as a total stranger.

In his youth, Oscar Wilde flirted with irreverence and skepticism and believed in “art for art’s sake,” but in his later years, he wrote beautiful fairy tales for his children that captured the spirit of the Evangelium — without realizing what he was doing.

Many Soviet authors and film directors were atheists, and yet they created literature and movies of Gospel-like transcendence without knowing it — thinking they were simply pursuing truth and beauty.

What happens after we bury God? He resurrects right out of the ashes of our disbelief — and in the body of a total stranger — someone we don’t recognize.

Who is this total stranger? We don’t know. All we know is that our hearts burn as he speaks. We don’t know his name or recognize his face, but his every word falls into our soul like quickening drops of living water. We recognize the sacred — God after God.

We are those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking the path of despair. Our hopes have collapsed — God died before our eyes.

We no longer know how to live; we only know how to survive. And then we meet a stranger on the road. He walks with us, speaks to us, and our hearts begin to melt. We don’t know who he is. We only know that we are communing with something sacred. And sacred is enough. We know — somehow — that something good is just round the corner.

“The ana of anatheism makes sure that the God who has already come is always still to come.” Richard Kearney

In his book Anatheism: Returning to God After God, Richard Kearney writes*:*

“The only Messiah still credible after the death camps would be one who wanted to come but could not because humans failed to invite the sacred stranger into existence.”

Anatheism literally means “a return to God after God”—from the Greek ana- (again) and theos (God). It describes a kind of post-atheistic return to faith or re-engagement with the sacred after going through atheism or profound doubt.

Nietzsche insightfully marked the 20th century as the century of the “death of God” — a death that naturally culminated in death camps. When God is dead, not only in our worldview but also in our experience, what is left to believe in?

And yet, paradoxically, it is precisely when we are engulfed by doubt that we begin to desperately search for transcendence.

Anatheism is encountering the divine anew — after deep disbelief or disenchantment. But how can one believe in God after the experience of the “death of God”?

Richard Kearney answers: in recognizing the divine in the stranger, the Other, the Unexpected. True theophany happens only when we are ready to embrace a “sacred stranger.”

“God after God” is not the same as the God before God. The God before God made sense. The God after doesn’t. The God we meet after the death of God is always a total stranger — a sacred stranger. In other words, we never realize Whom we have encountered until we have.

We never look for such an encounter. All we do is desperately search for meaning and transcendence, while the Meaning is desperately searching for us. Anatheism is discovering the sacred after profound disillusionment. The deeper the disillusionment, the stronger the urge to rediscover the sacred.

The ultimate irony is this: disillusioned people often believe they are walking away from God in their search for meaning and transcendence, yet they end up bumping into Him in the most unexpected places.

Silenced by doubt for too long, they open their mouths and begin speaking — and what they utter are stories of astonishing beauty and unbelievable transcendence.

Strictly speaking, anatheism is not our return to God; it’s a sudden and unexpected discovery that, while you thought you were going away yourself from a “dead God,” you were, in fact, getting closer to the One-Who-is-Alive — in your experience of the sacred.

With anatheism, we don’t move toward God; we move away but, somehow, find Him present where we thought He was absent.

The word irony comes from the Greek “to play the fool.” God allows us to drink the cup of atheism to the dregs — to the point of killing God — only to find that we are searching for Him in every nook and cranny. After an age of death camps we can no longer believe in the Messiah as before — only in a Messiah who comes to us as a total stranger.

In his youth, Oscar Wilde flirted with irreverence and skepticism and believed in “art for art’s sake,” but in his later years, he wrote beautiful fairy tales for his children that captured the spirit of the Evangelium — without realizing what he was doing.

Many Soviet authors and film directors were atheists, and yet they created literature and movies of Gospel-like transcendence without knowing it — thinking they were simply pursuing truth and beauty.

What happens after we bury God? He resurrects right out of the ashes of our disbelief — and in the body of a total stranger — someone we don’t recognize.

Who is this total stranger? We don’t know. All we know is that our hearts burn as he speaks. We don’t know his name or recognize his face, but his every word falls into our soul like quickening drops of living water. We recognize the sacred — God after God.

We are those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking the path of despair. Our hopes have collapsed — God died before our eyes.

We no longer know how to live; we only know how to survive. And then we meet a stranger on the road. He walks with us, speaks to us, and our hearts begin to melt. We don’t know who he is. We only know that we are communing with something sacred. And sacred is enough. We know — somehow — that something good is just round the corner.

“The ana of anatheism makes sure that the God who has already come is always still to come.” Richard Kearney

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The story of Lot’s wife is telling. They say there is still a pillar of salt in the desert near the place where they fled from Sodom.

“Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” (Genesis 19:17)

They were told not to look back. We all know what happens when we look back at something we have lost. Whether it is money, a job, a reputation, possessions, people, a country, dreams, or anything else, the moment we look back with regret, we become transfixed. We turn into a statue, unable to move. All we can do is gaze at what is lost.

The more we look at the past, the less we move. Eventually, all movement is arrested — and we turn into a pillar of salt. It’s a dangerous business to dwell on our losses.

Soren Kierkegaard said in Fear and Trembling:

“If anyone on the way out of Sodom looked around, as Lot’s wife did, that person would stand still in a moment, transfixed in their gaze.”

When we dwell on the past, we turn into stone. Whether literally or metaphorically, we become transfixed in our gaze and miss out on God’s presence in the moment. When on the way out of Sodom — a symbol of a huge earthly loss — always look forward. Don’t stare at your failures — they will transfix you and paralyze you.

Keep moving; don’t stop anywhere in the plain. The temptation to look back is strong. Thoughts like “I wish I had...” or “I wish I hadn’t...” sweep over us. Where we look is the all-important thing. Our thoughts come and tell us, “The Kingdom of God is there, or there, or there.” Don’t believe them.

“The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Luke 21:20-21.

The Kingdom is already here, but it cannot be observed. It must be discerned. It is not in what is lost; it is in what remains. It is not in the million-dollar business we have lost; it is in the one dollar that remains in our pocket. It is not in the country we have lost; it is in the relationships we have now.

It’s in the new thing, not in the old thing:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:18

Where is it now? Do I perceive it?

It’s in all those tremendous trifles of life scattered before my eyes. It’s in this empty screen I am filling with words right now. It’s in the first light of dawn slowly creeping over the horizon. It’s in the conversation with a friend I will have this morning when I am done typing.

It is in the aroma of fresh bread wafting from the kitchen. It is in the cardinal pausing on my window ledge. It is in the sound of rain on the rooftop. It is springing up before me right now. It is where the soul finds its Spring — its Eternal Spring.

Oh soul, beware of looking back! It will turn you into stone. Look at what’s happening in your midst right now, and you will enter your Father’s joy this very moment.