PARISH BULLETIN: MORAL ISSUES

The Limits of Language
James F. Keenan |  Summer 2009

There are some words so evocative they can call us to a place, an experience, or a personal relationship.

As an undergraduate at Fordham, I went to see Julie Harris in The Belle of Amherst. The terrific one-woman show brilliantly captured one of America's greatest poets, Emily Dickinson, a woman who was very much in her own home and her own world.

Throughout the play, Dickinson is on the lookout for wonderful words.; She notes them down in a pad that she carries with her.; If she hears or thinks of a word that expresses it own power and purpose, she writes it down.; "Now that's a good word," she often says.

For Dickinson, one word could trigger a poem.; For each of us, words can prompt memories, images, or insights.

I learned a lot more about words when I taught English to eleventh-grade boys at Canisius High School in Buffalo, N.Y.; There I had the privilege of working with fellow Jesuit Paul Naumann, a brilliant teacher and great adviser.

Most of our classes were divided between writing composition and reading great literature.; In the latter, we always included a play by Shakespeare, which we read line by line.; For the juniors it was Anthony and Cleopatra.

We also called on the students each day to recite poetry from memory.; This exercise was to help them internalize poetry by learning each poem "by heart."; At the beginning of every class I would call on several students to recite the lines from the assigned poem and afterward I would write the next two lines of the poem on the blackboard for the following day's exercises.; Needless to say, the students liked briefer poems.

Naumann was frustrated with the way they recited.; There was nothing from the heart in their recitation.; They appreciated nothing of the beauty of the poem or, for that matter, its words.; In fact they seemed to just string the words together, without any appreciation for why the poet wrote in the first place.; Since they were just repeating words, Naumann arrived in his class one day and wrote in Latin the opening lines from the Aeneid.; Each morning for two weeks he added the next two lines.; The students were astonished, with many pleading that they knew no Latin.; "Too bad. You were only memorizing words.; You didn't memorize the poems.; What does it matter if it is in English or Latin?; By the way, if next week I give you an English poem and you recite it that the way you have been, you'll be reciting Greek the rest of the semester."; Their skills in recitation improved dramatically.

A Variety of Good Words

I learned from Naumann as I had from The Belle of Amherst the beauty, power, and purpose of words.; I learned how words work.; Uttering a word with only six or seven letters can unleash a variety of memories or expectations and can lead a listener to a new place or an old one.; We can hear a particular word and somehow it immediately evokes an image: the one word captures a whole entire picture.; Think of the word, "trickle": can't you see it?; There it is, the water trickling down from a leaf or from someone's back.; Now as Dickinson would say, "Trickle is a good word."

I mentioned this to a Jesuit here who just defended his doctoral dissertation in philosophy.; A native of Chad, he asked what I was writing.; I told him.; "Give me a word."; I said, "trickle," and he extended his right arm above his head and with his fingers imitated in a downward motion the movement of "trickle."

Some of these words are very effective.; They quickly prompt us to conjure up images.; "Plunge"—now that's a word with a wide array of images.; We can think of the stock market on some bad days last year.; “Plunge" you say?; "Tanked" is more like it.; But we can also plunge into the ocean or the pool.; More robust than jump or dive, plunge is about a quick and total immersion; it goes deep and is often shocking, like plunging a knife into someone or taking the plunge oneself.

Some words do not evoke pictures but sounds.; Words like "quack," "bark," "moo," "meow," and "chirp" have very specific references.; "Quack" makes us think not of any animal, but only ducks.; "Quack" not only prompts us to imagine a billed, web-footed, white-bellied, downy, waddling animal, it also helps us to hear it.; Just imagine a group of kindergarten children taught the word "quack."; Listen to the crowd of them imitating ducks.; They love to make noise, but they love imitation as well.; Quack and you’re a duck; bark and you are a dog.

Other words are about human communication.; "Giggle," can you hear it?; There's something childlike, playful, and innocent about giggling, no?; Doesn't a giggle make you smile?; Or doesn't "whisper" make you strain to hear those words being uttered, softly yet closely from one's lips to another's ear.; "Sigh" conveys a whole spectrum, eliciting sometimes sympathy, other times consternation, but in every instance we hear that breath tiredly leaving another's own body.

Titles and categories convey a great deal: you hear "Chick flix" and you think Beaches or the "Lifetime channel." I hear "talk radio" and a chill goes down my spine.; And the word "melodrama" in a movie review is just about as damnable a word as one can get.

Finally, some words are so simple in their beauty that they are unparalleled in significance.; While embracing their simplicity, we can nonetheless write volumes on their meaning.; Just meditate on the word love.; Or consider another: the nineteenth-century New York state senator Chauncey Depew, when he was ninety-two, was asked, "What is the most beautiful word in the language?" The elderly lawyer quickly replied, "Home."

Jesus, the Good Word

The early church knew the power of words, especially as they sought to express their understanding of Jesus of Nazareth.; The great struggle of the early church leaders was trying to understand the divinity and the humanity of Jesus.; Rather than making the concepts mutually exclusive, the early leaders put them together.; We may have understood who he was, but then what should Jesus be called?; Messiah?

The ignominious death of Jesus made the question all the more challenging.; How could Jesus be Messiah if he died on a cross?; The death of Jesus became such a stumbling block that he became known as the stumbling block (a wonderfully suggestive phrase).; The stumbling block is precisely the Messiah.

Despite an array of titles and references, three other titles are especially significant.; "Son of God" captures an entire relationship between God and humanity in Jesus Christ.; In the epiphanies, in the river Jordan or the Transfiguration, the witness to Jesus is God, who calls him Son.; Others do the same: Nathanael calls Jesus the Son of God (Jn 1: 49), and Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God."; (Mt 16:15-16).; Clearly, Son of God refers to the divine intimacy between Jesus and God.

"Son of Man" is the title Jesus uses for himself, repeatedly, more than eighty times.; No one else uses it but Stephen, and then as a vision of the great eschatological delivery (Acts 7:55).; Though the title refers to the vision of Dn 7:13, Jesus seems to use it to refer to the fullness of his own humanity.

The titles Son of God and Son of Man are like the divinity and humanity of Christ.; In themselves they are insufficient; together they express Jesus Christ.

No word is more beautiful than "Lord," because that one word captures all our hopes.; Derived from the Hebrew title for God, "Adonai," in the Christian Bible it often refers to the effective glory of Jesus Christ.; The title appears often in Easter time:; After hearing the command of Jesus to cast the nets off the right side, John informs Peter, "It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7).; After Peter arrives on the shore Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" and each time, Peter says, "Lord, you know that I love you."; And it is the witness of Thomas, "My Lord and my God" (Jn 20:28).; Even when not explicitly tied to the resurrection, the use of the title is hard to separate from salvation: the Lord saves.; As they are fearful of perishing during the storm on the sea, the disciples cry out: "Lord, save us" (Mt 8: 25).

The salutations in the beginning of New Testament epistles often start with Paul's greeting in the Lord Jesus Christ (1Tm 1:2; Rom 1:3), marking our fellowship with one another.; The hymn of Philippians (2: 6) celebrates that "Jesus Christ is Lord!";; Paul's entire hope and confidence is in the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 2:15, 16; Rom 8:10).; He considers everything as a loss "because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil 3: 8).; In sum, in the Lord we are saved, find our hope, and are friends with one another.

Like the words “love” and “home,” “Lord” is beautiful because it embodies the horizon of all our expectations.; In fact, it is by the Lord that we find our home and live in love.; It is by the Lord that each and all of us are called to be holy, "with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (1Cor. 1:2).

James F. Keenan, SJ, is Founders Professor in Theology at Boston College, Massachusetts.