The beginning of
all utterance is the worship of God, and this followeth upon His recognition.
Sanctified must be the eye if it is to truly recognize Him, and sanctified must
be the tongue if it is to befittingly utter His praise.
(Baha'u'llah,
The Pen of Glory: 154)
Kerygmatic
language, the language which proclaims God, sees words as spiritually creative,
because it sees words in their proper station as related to the Word. Kerygmatic language is the first language, born
from the Word and learned from the gods, to lift humanity out from nature, to achieve
their human nature, and now to bring forth their divine nature. That the first language is praise of God and
His divine Word is brought out in the Scriptures, starting with the opening
quote above. But there are others:
“It
is clear and evident, therefore, that the first bestowal of God is the Word,
and its discoverer and recipient is the power of understanding. This Word is
the foremost instructor in the school of existence and the revealer of Him Who
is the Almighty. All that is seen is visible only through the light of its
wisdom. All that is manifest is but a token of its knowledge. All names are but
its name, and the beginning and end of all matters must needs depend upon it.”(Baha'u'llah,
The Pen of Glory: 94)
"The
God of mercy hath taught the Qur'án, hath created man, hath taught him
articulate speech." (Qur'án 55:1-3)
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (King James Bible, John 1:1)
Yet
it also the last language, not just the Alpha but also the Omega of speech,
both the origin and highest expression, seed and fruit. And to say that it is the first language is,
of course, not to assert anything as simpleminded as that the first word spoken
is God, followed by Prophets, angels and saints. No, it is, as in all things human, a process
of discovering an essence as that essence is coming forth into more complex
manifestation. It is, then, the glue joining and knitting together the beginning when: “And the whole earth
was of one language, and of one speech", (King James Bible, Genesis 11:1) and
the end when God promised: “For then will I turn to the people a pure language,
that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one
consent.” (King James Bible, Zephaniah 3:9)
Thus
the kerygmatic is, as stated before, and in regards to human utterance, also an
example of: “in truth there is a return and resurrection for every created
thing” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah:
186-187); “that which hath been in existence had existed before, but not in the
form thou seest today” (Tablets of
Baha'u'llah: 140); and: “The highest essence and most perfect expression of
whatsoever the peoples of old have either said or written hath, through this
most potent Revelation, been sent down from the heaven of the Will of the
All-Possessing, the Ever-Abiding God.” (Tablets
of Baha'u'llah: 87)
This
is not to say that other modes of language are no longer useful or
meaningful. We don’t throw away
arithmetic when we learn algebra, as if it was some sort of now useless
scaffolding. Rather we learn more complex rules for the manipulation of number
and quantity to bring forth what arithmetic cannot. But we still use arithmetic to balance the
bank statement. But in mature kerygmatic
speech an added religious dimension (religious in the etymological
sense of reuniting all things) is reintroduced into language. The language of the Word is heard in the
heart, and when truly heard faith is enkindled, as stated by Paul: “So then
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (The Book of Romans
10:17)
Faith perfects the natural reason by virtue of
the supernatural light of Revelation being received into the heart, allowing
the intellect to assent to Revelation’s supernatural truths. Faith is, as Saint Paul says in the Letter to
the Hebrews, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen." (Hebrews 11:1). It is, in other words, a form of knowledge
that extends beyond the natural limits of our intellect, to help us grasp the
truths of divine revelation, truths that we cannot arrive at purely by the
means of the human natural reason.
The Bab adds: “Man’s highest station, however, is attained through faith in
God in every Dispensation and by acceptance of what hath been revealed by Him,
and not through learning; inasmuch as in every nation there are learned men who
are versed in divers sciences.” (Selections From
the Writings of the Báb: 88)
Because
of its spiritual power and religious origin, the kerygmatic, or what I am
calling the proclamation mode of language, and not just the more or less
isolated proclamation (kerygma) of and about the Word itself, carries a moral
authority that separates it from the purely metaphorical that is poetry and
myth, making its metaphors more existential than literary, an ethical dimension
that distinguishes it from the merely aesthetic and beautiful, a polysemous
meaning that expands and resonates out from the more literal prosaic, and a
transformative power that elevates it above the descriptive and
discursive. Yet it is, too, permeated
with joy and punctuated with laughter.
It
is, as I said before, revelatory. But by
revelatory here I mean not a revelation from God, but a revelation of God,
insofar as human speech can do that, a bringing forth of what God has deposited
of His Being in His creation. It
describes God in His attributes, evokes His Presence, understands and
explicates His purpose, and calls on His aid to accomplish these. With this mode of language we may see that,
in truth: “This is the Day whereon naught can be seen except the splendors of
the Light that shineth from the face of Thy Lord, the Gracious, the Most
Bountiful. Verily, We have caused every soul to expire by virtue of Our
irresistible and all-subduing sovereignty. We have, then, called into being a
new creation, as a token of Our grace unto men.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 29)
Let’s
examine in greater depth the relation of the kerygmatic to the Word itself and
to the expression of the divine nature latent within the human reality in order
to bring forth that nature.
“The
Word of God is the king of words and its pervasive influence is incalculable.
It hath ever dominated and will continue to dominate the realm of being. The
Great Being saith: The Word is the master key for the whole world, inasmuch as
through its potency the doors of the hearts of men, which in reality are the
doors of heaven, are unlocked.” (Tablets
of Baha'u'llah: 173)
What
is human utterance? “Human utterance is
an essence which aspireth to exert its influence and needeth moderation.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah: 143) So we have
these two powers and influences in relation.
First is the pervasive influence of the Word, the dominant force in creation,
the master key for the whole world BECAUSE its potency can unlock the doors of
hearts of human beings. These doors of
the heart lead not outwardly to earth or sky or society, but inwardly to
heaven, the eternal realm of spirit. And,
secondly, we have human utterance which is “an essence” that aspires to exert
its influence outwardly and needs moderating, else it will exert a pernicious
influence.
The
idea of moderation as a balancing, harmonizing power, leads of course to the
image of the balance as the leitmotif of justice, the builder of civilization,
the discerner of truth, the expression of courtesy, and the “best-beloved of
all things” in His sight. As Baha’u’llah says about moderation in a social
context: “Whoso cleaveth to justice, can, under no circumstances, transgress
the limits of moderation. He discerneth the truth in all things, through the
guidance of Him Who is the All-Seeing. The civilization, so often vaunted by
the learned exponents of arts and sciences, will, if allowed to overleap the
bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men. Thus warneth you He Who is the
All-Knowing. If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source
of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of
moderation.” (Gleanings from the Writings
of Baha'u'llah: 342)
Balanced
or moderated speech, then, is just speech; what we call in the public arena,
“civil discourse.” To be clear, just
speech is, I believe, more than polite, mannered, cultivated speech. Rather, it
is the result of a harmonizing into a creative tension of two of the most
powerful forces in the universe, the all-pervasive Word of God, the king of
Words, and that essence which is human speech that at all times seeks to exert
its influence. The question is: How does one both tap the universal power of
the Word of God to unlock the hearts of people to turn them toward the vastness
of the spiritual realm, and also harness the powerful urge of human utterance
so as to exert its influence in a non-egoistic and beneficent way, so that one
does not cross over moderation into bombast, derogatory speech, or
self-righteousness, or worse? How, in
short, to achieve that state He mentions:
sanctified must be the tongue if it is to befittingly utter His praise?
Baha’u’llah
outlines some conditions and issues a warning in a celebrated passage often
called the Tablet of the True Seeker.
We’ll get to that in a minute.
But let’s first pause and reflect that this essence called human
utterance is a powerful drug, one that can miraculously heal or calamitously
damage the heart and soul. To assist those reflections let us see what is the
purpose of the organs of speech communication? For example, Baha’u’llah speaks about the
purpose of our sense of hearing, saying: “This lowly one entreateth the people
of the world to observe fairness, that their tender, their delicate and
precious hearing which hath been created to hearken unto the words of wisdom
may be freed from impediments and from such allusions, idle fancies or vain
imaginings as 'cannot fatten nor appease the hunger', so that the true
Counsellor may be graciously inclined to set forth that which is the source of
blessing for mankind and of the highest good for all nations.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 170) That is, not until we have prepared the soil
of the heart to receive the divine speech will He speak forth, else the Message
will be drowned in the noise and clamor of ordinary egoistic chatter. On the other side, He stated the spiritual
purpose of the tongue: “Verily I say, the tongue is for mentioning what is
good, defile it not with unseemly talk. God hath forgiven what is past.
Henceforward everyone should utter that which is meet and seemly, and should
refrain from slander, abuse and whatever causeth sadness in men.” (Baha'u'llah,
Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 219-220)
To both prepare the heart and to reinforce His
warnings about the creative/destructive power of words, He states that the
seeker: “must never seek to exalt himself above any one, must wash away from the
tablet of his heart every trace of pride and vainglory, must cling unto
patience and resignation, observe silence, and refrain from idle talk. For the
tongue is a smouldering fire, and excess of speech (like the excess of civilization
quoted above) a deadly poison. Material fire consumeth the body, whereas the
fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and soul. The force of the former
lasteth but for a time, whilst the effects of the latter endure a century.
“That
seeker should also regard backbiting as grievous error, and keep himself aloof
from its dominion, inasmuch as backbiting quencheth the light of the heart, and
extinguisheth the life of the soul.” (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan: 193)
More
conditions in next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment