Blessedly Undefinable

Some words are small words like “table” or “chair.”

They point to a thing that has a reasonably confined parameter and definition.  I just looked up the word “table.” A table is defined as “a piece of furniture consisting of a smooth flat slab fixed on legs.”

This is a case of reasonable success in the use of words to convey meaning. 

“Do not sit on the table. Please, sit on the chair.” 

We understand.

And then there are larger words.

Words which fail miserably to capture even a molecule of what they try to represent.  Words like Love, Compassion, Grace and God.

They at best become like a small sign in the ground that attempt to point upwards at the universe and say “universe, that-a-way.”

Words are only words.  Some even carry with then a history of misuse, like the words God and Love.  So that when these words are used, they carry energy in that is not in alignment with what it points to. 

When we use words like “God” or “Love” that come with baggage, people can be confused.  They might argue with us.  “What do you mean God?”  “What do you mean Love?”  

And you may not be able to answer them.  

In these cases of complex words and those that have been misused, even using the word may not be useful.

Useful or not, a word is not what it seeks to name. 

The word “God” is not God.  The word “Love” is not Love.  Artists and writers try to use creativity to better point at these ... “complex subjects.”  But even that depends on the witness as to whether the content is closely translated.  

Words will never really be able to help us.  Someone else’s experience no matter how poetic is still the experience of another.  Love is rich and deep and unfathomable.  God is as well, unfathomable.  

Thank goodness.

I was wondering last night as I looked up to see the stars in a cloudy night sky and could only see a dark grey carpet above me, what if we saw no sky nor stars ever?  What if we did not live where there is one reality in our immediate world that defies explanation?  Above us is a sky that goes on and on into infinity.  At night, above us is a twinkle show of the infinite.  It does not end.  The universe has no sign post that says “you are now exiting the universe step carefully” 

Try to fathom the universe.  

You can’t.  

The mind starts to self destruct. 

Try to describe it in words to someone.  You will give up eventually using words like a “trillion” a “gazilion” or “forever and ever” and waving your arms wildly in the air.  

Thank God for the Sky.  

Thank God for this Earth - where we are constantly reminded of infinity when we look up.

Thank God for the Stars - reminding us of indescribable experiences, where the rational mind can not go.  

Without this we might think that who we are could be described.  

We might think that who we are has limits.  

We might think that how deeply we can love has a signpost.

Thank goodness for the stars that go on and on.  Thank Goodness for you and me, for us, ... that like the stars ... are blessedly undefinable.