Braden post #4: The Limit of Language in the Realm of the Divine

Blog #4

            Is it possible to communicate spiritual encounters with the divine via language? In fullness, I doubt it. Words are futile devices in the realm of articulating such a thing. But mystics and prophets and poets and saints throughout the ages have attempted it, with some success.

            What is interesting to note in this is that the primary form, (from what I’ve seen), in which such people attempt to communicate and articulate the sacred is via poetry or visual art—generally creative endeavors. There are, however, examples of folks who have written on the topic in both a poetic and prosaic form. Santa Teresa de Ávila and San Juan de la Cruz are examples of this. Each wrote mystical poetry as well as commentaries on their poems or general commentaries on spiritual growth in prosaic form. Lewis, too did this, and I think most lovers of God do. But it all seems to start as these lovely little poetic fragments that come out of us in a space like our journals or letters to friends, then full on poems and songs, then a more direct attempt of articulation. Maybe all of it occurs at once, but I believe the former is the foundation.

            At this point, though, it appears that in order to talk straightforwardly or rationally about God for instance, it is best that one take in a steady diet of experience of the secondary world. By that I mean instead of a person spending all one’s time attempting to articulate deep truths of the world, it is probably better for everyone that the person be quiet for a bit in order to know these truths.

            I have experienced this in my own life. Whenever this Spirit is teaching me something in my life, I quickly attempt to teach people the same lesson before I have actually fully taken it to heart (and I use that phrase intentionally.) I suppose it is an attempt to control and make some sense of what in the world is going on in my life—this is particularly so when the season is downright uncomfortable or painful! But as I reflect on my own life, the seasons where I grow immensely are those in which I keep those thoughts at the heart-level with Christ and let the spirit groom me in that place; when I “sit on it.”

I say it’s better for everyone that a person sits in quiet in that space (shuts up!) because a majority of the time the result is this weird pseudo-wisdom that is only partially helpful. But what can we do? Sometimes I really just can’t help myself. Thank God that God still meets us in that space and “uses” it. Which makes me wonder if I’ve every uttered a word that God hasn’t used for good.