The following article was first written for a Magazine called "Renovare" produced and read by a small group of my friends. The goal of the Renovare was to foster intellectual writing and discussion beyond the classroom. It also afforded us the opportunity to write on subjects beyond the scope of any individual class and draw from all that we had learned instead of just showing what we had learned for a specific subject. This magazine mostly dissolved after I left seminary allow there have been occasional attempts to revive it.
“In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and
the Word was God.” John 1: 1
The question has been asked of me if Renovare should be set
up like a blog. I answer, No.
Words are very powerful and
delicate. In the beginning Adam named the creatures. He gave audio symbols to
the objects of the word. Words have become the symbols of people, places,
things, ideas and actions. They are used for conveying ideas, specifying,
constructing and anything else we think. And the words themselves are
combinations of other symbols, either letters or characters, depending on the
language.
Words are greater then just symbols.
Take the instance of a yellow sign with a black arrow bending to the left. This
symbol indicates that the road curves to the left. This sign, while fulfilling
its function, does not transcend itself, but rather remains as its own image in
one’s mind totally apart from the road and the curve. Words transcend the
symbols of which they are constructed. If I were to write, “He came to the
point where the road curved left.” Anyone who knew the meaning of those words
would have an image of that scene without visualizing in that image any of the
symbols used in the sentence. Instead he would pull from his universal ideas of
road, curve, and left to create the image.
I have even heard speculation
combining Plato’s idea of remembrance (as opposed to learning) and the time
before Babel. The argument followed that if two people separately encountered
the same unnamed object they would remember it to have the same name. A second
theory I find more satisfying and equally improvable is that the first language
of man, the language spoken in the Garden, was perfectly fitting between symbol
and object, thus achieving a similar naming of objects as the first theory.
There have been people throughout
history who have sought similar perfection between symbol and object; in
English, Shakespeare and Tolkien; in Spanish, St. John of the Cross; in
Italian, Dante Alighieri, in Latin, Virgil; and in Greek, Homer (and this just
names a few), and all poets. I will take the example of J.R.R. Tolkien, as I am
most familiar with his works. When he wrote, and in particularly when he chose
names, he sought names that described the person simply by the sound of the
word. The elves for instance all have tall sounding names; Elrond, Galadriel,
Celeborn, and Legolas. The ‘el’, ‘ele’, and the ‘le’ all have a tall feeling as
the sound seems to move upward off the tongue and slow the pronunciation down
to give them an elevated tone in the way they are spoken (note the ‘ele’ of
elevated). Even the shorter elf names such as Elrond sound longer and taller
then the dwarf names: Gimili, Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin,
Gloin,Bifur, Bofur, Bombur and Thorin. There are lots of ‘i’ and ‘or’ and none
of the names are longer than two syllables. Notice that the longest name to
pronounce is Thorin who is also the dwarf of the most importance in The
Hobbit. I would continue with other
examples such as Tom Bombadil, Aragon, and Treebeard (Fangorn in Elvish) except
I fear none of the readers would continue on with me.
What the reader is probably
wondering is what the fantastic symbols conveyed by words and sounds has to do
with whether or not this publication should be a blog? The answer is in the
symbolism of conveying words. The Jewish people wrote their scriptures without
vowels and thus part of the male coming of age was the memorization of the
scriptures. They did this because they believed the scripture to belong to the
whole people. They were not allowed or able to read scripture correctly alone,
but rather only in public where the pronunciation and proper meaning of the
words could be corrected by the others. Also, their scriptures, originally and
still for liturgical purposes, were written on scrolls. This is done so that no
part can be skipped like in a book were one can flip to the last chapter, or an
article were he can browse to the concluding paragraph.
In all illiterate cultures stories
are told to children. They are stories of heroes and villains, the history of
their people. They are the stories more enlightened cultures call fairy tales,
myths, and religious legends. The village elders, the priests, the shamans, the
medicine men, the Rabbis, the philosophers, the poets, the judges, the bards
(who in Ireland held more power then the kings), the prophets, the padrinos and
the fathers retell these stories. It is these stories that become the cultural
identity of the youth and foster in them their sense of nation, village, tribe,
and family. As men became more and more literate they wrote down those stories
until our present times. Now the best to be hoped for is a mother or a teacher
reading those stories to the child. Frequently the child is simply given the
book and left to discover the stories by himself but the book simply goes on
the shelf with other books in immaculate condition he has been given and the
television is turned on to some Disney soft-core pornography with a story so
unlike the tale it is name after that there remains no similarity except some
of the characters names (I cite specifically, The Little Mermaid, great story, read it). All the national identity,
psychological lessons on what it means to be human, knowledge of the good of
the tribe and the family are left unfilled. They are unfilled not because the
story is unfamiliar but rather because of the medium in which they encounter
the story. A story told by a father has a far greater effect on the mind of the
child than even a story read aloud, and is certainly far more profound the a
televised complete image. That unfilled space then gets filled as life goes by
with pulp fiction, romance novals, technological garble or worse, the gossip of
actors and sportstars in Entertainment Weekly and Us
magazines.
There are still places where words
seek to convey their meaning in the method of telling. Like the Jewish scrolls
of the Torah, we Catholics have a special book for the Gospels (although
frequently attacked by hideous 70’s minimalist designs). The Priest announces
the readings in special way, and in some strange places candles and incense
might even accompany the reading. All these symbols are attempting to set apart
and herald as important the words and reading of the Gospel.
Most other areas of culture abuse
words. Advertisements use profound words such as “awesome”, “best”, and
“perfect” to describe rather lame products. The news media uses words to
frighten or shock people in an attempt to increase their viewers. The modern anti-poet
chooses words to un-rhythm, un-love and un-beautify the universe. On computer
and portable device screens men pour through thousands of words a minute,
simply searching out the phrase or word desired. Blogs pour out in reaction to
the latest news and are read and replaced by other news stories and blogs or
lewd pictures.
Of course there are numerous counter
examples; Zenit, Life Site News and even Snow White (who says her prayers in
the original Disney production). Likewise, illiteracy has many problems of its
own, the least of which is an English speaker trying to play a Japanese
computer game. Our own times hold many good blogs, movies, books, magazines,
and possibly even a good advertisement (the Jamison’s commercial featuring the
Latin scholar comes to mind).
Renovare should continue as a
publication for several reasons. The first is to give it a sense of permanence
as a connection to the Church that it is written for, as that Church shall
prevail against the gates of Hell. The second is to give us a chance for
contemplation. Any article I’ve read on the computer that I’ve desired to
contemplate, I have printed. Third, the discussion we seek to foster is not the
discussion in the comments at the bottom of a blog which frequently result in
YELLING and calling names, but rather it should be the discussion of
intelligent men in a respectful fashion (with perhaps an occasional name being
called if it is done in a lighthearted manner between friends). Fourth (and
last for the purposes of this article), by using higher quality papers and
thoughtful formats it draws the reader to remember that he is an incarnate
being who has flesh as well as the mind and that the flesh was important enough
for God to take on a body Himself and be put to death to redeem us as incarnate
beings of soul and flesh.
