The first flag I plant as cartographer and tour guide of the terrain of God’s being, dear fellow tourist, refers to that great feature I presented in my very first and most favorite (if you remember) diagram of God’s consciousness. It was here in the primordial region of experience that I undertook my first sortie into the depths of the knowledge of God, and from here that I developed my first finding. That finding is used to caption Flag#1 and reads as follows:
The primary aspect of invisible-self in the Godhead that makes God God is consciousness.
How did I arrive upon this finding, someone asked? I know you did, astute tourist.
Well, therein resides our story for the day.
Consciousness was such a resonant word for me when I first began my journey of discovery of all things God, way back when! I frequently asked myself, what could I say that I even really knew about this word that I embraced both then (and now) with such energy and verve?
I tell you, I found myself embarrassed back then, embarrassed that as a well-educated English-speaking person interested in words (after all, I had spent several years as an Honors Student in Liberal Arts, majoring in English), I really couldn’t bring much to mind about the background of the word consciousness. And immediately it loomed vital, imperative even, to revisit the origins of Modern English.
Go ahead, patient reader, laugh! But I concluded without a moment’s deliberation that clues to the mystery of the ramifications of consciousness were mandatory and certain to lie there in the past.
Don’t you agree this had to be the Holy Spirit energizing me?
I assure you no airhead debutante goes around spontaneously thinking, why not revisit the origins of Modern English?
Well, answer yes or no as you will but, nonetheless, I did think and do just that. I decided to revisit those origins and see where they led! In the process of my revisitation, I recovered information of which I am sure I must have once been aware but of which I had certainly, at the very least, lost track. And simultaneously, and undoubtedly for the first time, and though a little late not too late (by now a not unfamiliar pattern for me as you must have noted, insightful reader), I began to grasp how important it was to remember that Modern English came from Middle English (ME) and ME from Old English (OE) which came from Germanic origins, and before that, Indo European origins.
There was obviously a great flow of history coursing well-cloaked behind modern-day vocabulary!
Amazing, don’t you think?
And as you can well imagine by now, as a result of rediscovering this cataract of history propelling the emergence of the English language, I then divined the compelling truth that our narrow English base had become infiltrated over time with an overabundance of brand new words. (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, p. X)
And suddenly I realized (and thanked God greatly concerning) that if it weren’t for the breathed word of the Bible, the authoritative, Holy, breathed word that has been preserved in its original languages over time and spread without change, remaining with us to steer us through our modern-day profusion of wordiness, we could be lost in a sea of meaningless terms. Because, you see, it is inevitable that we are going to have to discuss God in Modern English terms. We are a Modern English immersed people. And that’s okay. The Holy Spirit will elucidate all our thinking if we just stay in the Word.
Ponder these developments we have just discussed a bit, dear reader—over 2000 years the English language has emerged vastly changed by the influence of ancient peoples of all kinds and we are left to deal with a multiplicity of relevant and irrelevant terms--that is, if it were not for the pure-flowing river of God’s Word that has and is and will be with us until the conclusion of time.
Rejoice in this provision by God! I sure did!
And let’s stop here for today. Tomorrow we will take up right where I now leave off and I will share a fascinating quote I happened upon that will explain a lot about words . . . and eventually about God’s consciousness.
To be continued . . .
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