Domesticated Words & Feral Emotions Part 1
A quandary, a muddling, an interrogation, a shifting of paradigm
Warning: The following excursion contains more questions than answers, a walkabout of many syllables, might want to pack a lunch and a water bottle…
“Domesticated words cover a multitude of feral emotions in the same way that love covers a multitude of sins”-Abarim Publications
I couldn’t breathe for a moment. I felt slightly nauseous as a whole paradigm of belief tilted on it’s axis. This concept of language, communication and the power of intent became an invitation to another world. I accepted. I packed my ruck sack and headed out.
The sages teach that the whole cosmos is represented in the language of the Torah. Our origin story is filled with syllables that contain microcosms and macrocosms. From the very first sentence uttered in scripture there is a deep hint at the container words would become.
“Bereshit” The Hebrew word that begins Genesis:1 means quite literally, in a beginning. But when you peer into the pictures the characters of the letters reveal, a story that would take millennium to unfold appears. The hint is something like : In the beginning, the end is revealed. A story of the Father who makes a house for his son who will be sent forth bringing redemption through the way of the cross, ending separation forever.
These first utterances from The Sacred Heart sing of desire for a place in the space of time, where the deep longings for intimacy and fellowship are met. Here, in this cavernous depth, speech gives birth to light, stars, worlds, crawling things and creeping things, and graceful leaping things. Raises from the ocean depths fish, whales and microscopic plankton. Plows the earth with worms, and beasts and fills the skies with birds, and gnats.
Wild speech gushes forth. Creative, free, life bearing cosmic seeds of thought and purpose leaping from Father’s heart. Each syllable reproducing again and again the intent of his will. It was his lips forming around them that bridled them into precision, curbing their pounding stride until purpose was sure and then: “LIGHT BE!” and light was.
And GOD saw everything he had made, and it was very good-Genesis 1:31
I have climbed this precipice of thought. With my heart beating wildly in my chest I contemplate a universe in complete union with the perfect heart of love. All things good, that is to say, properly aligned according to each of their design and function. Assembled through language. Raw, powerful, creative, cosmic, life bearing syllables. What was language before it was tamed? What does origin of sound feel like when it comes into your ears ? Did God speak the words or sing them or chant them or shout them into being? Is this why the tongue is likened unto a fire?
5And so the tongue is a small part of the body yet it carries great power! Just think of how a small flame can set a huge forest ablaze. 6And the tongue is a fire! It can be compared to the sum total of wickedness and is the most dangerous part of our human body. It corrupts the entire body and is a hellish flame! It releases a fire that can burn throughout the course of human existence.
7For every wild animal on earth including birds, creeping reptiles, and creatures of the sea and land have all been overpowered and tamed by humans, 8but the tongue is not able to be tamed. It’s a fickle, unrestrained evil that spews out words full of toxic poison! 9We use our tongue to praise God our Father and then turn around and curse a person who was made in his very image! 10Out of the same mouth we pour out words of praise one minute and curses the next. -James 3:3-10 TPT
Was that the real crippling of man? Not the eating of the fruit, but the poisoning of the tongue? The one member of our being that holds dominion ,dictating our ability to exist according to the Imago Dei. The organ given to articulate the murmuring deep from which we come.
“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; Psalm 42:7
We are told that at the very beginning in the presence of a deep of darkness, the Spirit of God hovered over the rolling waters. In the Hebrew the word for deep, “tehom” is not a quiet and silent deep, but it is a murmuring deep. A deep whose sound is not cohesive, not uniform in its purpose. A deep that is chaotic in its churning and whirling. A deep of undomesticated sound, filled with the potential to BE something…quarks of intent waiting to take shape. This unformed substance is the source of the rumble that brings an unrest, an uneasy push to be more, do more , feel more…the place that unless it is bridled , will rule from darkness, driving us to tear down our very essence and call it success.
I scramble back from this rocky ledge as pebbles scatter to the bottom. I know this place. I feel the panic in the face of the power of potential and I shrink away further from the edge. What was it like to walk in a paradise before the darkened words of hatred shaped doubt in the hearts of men? What was it like to be a container of thought so powerful that anything dream able could be dreamed and those dreams were only of light, and beauty and glory and good?
What did it sound like for Adam to speak to his ishah, (woman) before he doubted her nature? How did “I love you” sound in the mouth of a man who knew he could perform the words that flew from his tongue? How did it feel to receive the power of those words? How did it make her feel to stand in the vortex of being perfectly known, and from that place deeply desired?
Oh, I can feel that one. That echo of ache. The instinctual knowing of a deep in me that longs to be spoken to, to be called out from. A desire to stand in front of the frail fig leaves of my masking and demand to be seen. That there is SO MUCH MORE to me, than even I know. And, yet. The fear of stepping forward in true form and nature, and being met with blindness at my unveiling holds the leafy garment in place. So, like the bubbling of the lava as it cools there is a crusting over and slow return downward to a murmuring silence.
Silence, the beginning of sound. I love that four hundred years of prophetic silence was broken at the birth of Christ. A triumphant song rang out reminding the world of the original intent of the burning heart of GOD.
“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” Luke 2:14 KNJV
Lately, as I have been reading the gospel encounters with Jesus, the WORD made flesh… I get the sense that he walked this earth as a man with his eyes open. The true way of seeing. That he was his own volcano of creative force and on those rare occasions at weddings, and wells and tombs where eyes lost veils and spirits collided, real miracles appeared. The miracle of interconnection, and deep soul listening. Primordial light entered the darkness and dreamers awakened from their slumber unafraid, daring to dream they could be whole.
“the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”Mathew 4:16
I head back down the mountain as I consider how Jesus demonstrated his love as this great undomesticated light. Showing up in unexpected places refusing to be leash trained and caged. Through his life and interactions with others we see that this super nova of creative energy is the very essence of The Father’s being. Love is not something that GOD has, or contains, it is what he is. His being is the wildly fierce prowling essence of goodness that seeks transformation wherever fullness is lacking. All things that are not functioning according to perfect love’s design MUST change when HE is near. So, is true evil when the full potential of goodness refuses to be?
Jesus filled his flesh tent completely with himself and I feel like that is the real mystery of the incarnation. GOD dwelling perfectly in the flesh able to do and to be all that his will desires. He walked in communion and perfect peace. Peace within, peace without. There was no rattling of his identity in the face of harsh relational encounters. He lived IN the identity that HE IS the beloved son. A love poured out on him from above. Syllables showering down on him dove like resting on the droplets of his baptism. He walked daily in the pronouncement of his acceptance.
Then suddenly the voice of the Father shouted from the sky, saying, “This is my Son—the Beloved! My greatest delight is in him.”Mathew 3:17 TPT
This makes me churn. I have no language for the depth of the idea of living a truly in-dwelt life full of the delight of GOD. The mystery of the wonder of his presence at home, in me, causes a breathlessness. It is a beautiful meditation where adoration flows and I yield to awe. Perhaps that is the real sound behind the first glance of ‘truth’ love. Breathless adoration. A love that sees all that is and all that can be and all that should be and holds creative transforming space. A perfect love, that kicks out fear.
If sin is the inability, or unwillingness to become transformed into the perfect image of divine goodness, then really is it a vision problem and not an image problem? Do we not transfrom as we behold?
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,[a] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.[b] For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18
I have come to a fork in the road, and I must wrestle with the question of how I see the one in front of me. I must acknowledge that the lens I gaze out from is one of my own interpretation of self. Can I hold steady in the space in front of us not retreating backward into the fig leaves of my own making? What does it really mean to bring the burning heart to the hearth stones of another? To roll balls of lava on my tongue and breathe upon them until they are coals, able to be touched and full of the power to ignite heat and warmth. Tamed firebrands that sound like forgiveness, mercy, forbearance-grace.
Here at the edge of this forest of trees I set my pack down. I feel the internal weight of desire forcing me to pause. The atmosphere is electrical and charged with expectation. I hear my spirit ask the healing question:
What do you want?
The answer rises slowly to the surface. I want to believe in the exchanged life. One where I lay down the weaponized words of my failures and faults, my striving ambitions to take the throne of GOD as my own. I want a curated life that is filled with the waterfall sounds of eternity and the radical reality that GOD is living, in all of his being, through my shape and my form. I desire a life marked by authentic daily acknowledgments that every good work, every potential of love, every healing of fragmented space, in every soul encounter is being accomplished, one vibrant syllable at a time. I want a life covered by love.
I think I need to rest here a bit. Sit easy a while under the shade of this great oak and perhaps enjoy a snack, and a nap. There is room here, for you too if you like. Shall we take off our shoes and feel the cool grass under our feet? Do you think perhaps this desire for a truly vibrant life was in the mind of the great mystic Lewis as he considered a GOD who is not tame, but is oh so very good?
“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.” -C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe