A Lasting Song


Dear Eugene,

What speaks to you?  Who shaped you the most?

I asked my friends last week.

The generation(s) before us, our background, culture, tradition--all these must be some of the most obvious answers, for good or for bad.

For me, it also has to do with spoken words, literature in particular.  For others, it could be the language of science.  God the Spirit speaks to us in different ways.

The vision we lack, as I said yesterday, is one that puts everything together, a Way that brings wholeness, not only restores our memory of how things used to be, but also makes true our dream of how things ought to be.

That's why, the more I read science and theology, the more I've come to realize people who say science and theology cannot and should not be spoken in the same breath probably do not understand enough about either.

There, a periodic table, an account of everything that there is in a breath.
There, lovers kissing, breathing life into each other,
souls rising beyond the realm of "everyday elements"
yet grounds them firmer still to the materiality of life
and their lives together,
on earth,
here and now,
two pasts formlessly entwined,
visioning a collective future from here to eternity.
Meanwhile the periodic table looks on,
unmoved.

We speak words, but not all words.  Science speaks some truths.  Fairy tales speak true words deeper still, not in spite of science, but assuming her glorious legitimacy.

All true words leave themselves wide open to the contingency on the one True Word.

God guard me from the thoughts men think
in the mind alone
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in the marrow bone

Singing the Song, Alex

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