The Want of Language: the desire to, the lack of, and the search for completeness

            Of late, when I hear myself about to use the word spiritual, I feel trapped. It would be bad enough if it was only that I found the word inadequate as was once the case, but it has taken on an odor of repulsiveness and danger. The actual dictionary meaning is characterized by that which is distinguished from the corporeal. It use to be more inclusive of some of what we now relegate to the intellect, which seems to have become a function of the brain. And amidst all the divisiveness of what we are, whatever we are, somehow spiritual has gotten to be better or nicer, more important or more refined. I feel under attack. I do not want to be a second-class citizen to being an ethereal energy lost in sacred rapture. Why not? Because that WANTING means I cannot be what I fully AM; a human, a man, 58 years old. I have good days and bad days. Death awaits me.

            What I do want is spiritual growth to be a guiding principle among others in my life. What I wish for is a word that is inclusive, one that doesn’t have negative connotations toward my body or daily activities. Is there some way to speak and think without getting tangled up in the inadequacy of language to convey multiple meanings simultaneously? I feel stuck in a two-dimensional world trying to describe a box. All I can do is draw one rectangle after another and none of them can stand alone, literally or figuratively.

            What I suspect is that I won’t find what I’m looking for except in dialogue. If you and I were to dialogue, we might begin to recreate language with an understanding of our limitations, we might be able to use that which has been a source of entrapment as a source of expression and growth. It could be as if we took all the little drawings of rectangles, each from a different point of view, put them on cards and flicked through them quickly. Have you ever done that? Hah, look, a box!

            That’s why we need each other. That’s why we need each other in order to be that larger being and greater understanding that we already are. It is one more reason why we shouldn’t waste our lives competing with each other. But I have journeyed a long way from where I started, writing about the word ‘spiritual,’ and it still sticks in my throat. Can you help me? Please?

be well and thank you