Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Deep Symbols & Our Naming

The Diminishment of Self Through Words

The act of naming is a non-negotiable in life. Thought is involuntary. Thus, we may regard the naming and acknowledgement of experience as involuntary as well. Naming is also less an intellectual exercise and much more a narrative device we embody in everyday conversations. Once again, we often ignore or pay little attention to the words and phrases we use to describe or explain our experience. Is it possible that our lack of attention may render much of life boring, ugly or uneventful or merely misnamed?

One of the most powerful experiences I have had in my men’s group (New Adam) is to be privy to another man's renaming of an experience. The past is something that, by its very nature, forces us to name. We are hearkening back to memory as source of reflection and description. We are looking for the "right" words. Our memory is the Thesaurus and dictionary if you will of our lives. It is out of that collection of words, phrases, and stories that our very life is animated and we grow into a sense of being. To name life is to live.

This is why we need each other. The naming of life as an isolated story without community is a sad one at best. In truth, it is a dangerously overpowering one as well. I have found that my wife and friends have a much more nuanced awareness of how I might want to describe myself. Maybe it is the by product of my fallenness but it appears that my own ability to see, hear, and feel my self into reality is limited. This limitation is due to the fact that I am somehow connected to others as a source for meaning. I cannot offer up my own meaning on my own. Ironic isn't it?

Without the rich offering of another's words and encouragements and blessings, I cannot sustain my place in this world. I have nervous breakdowns, I get depressed, I attempt to find myself in some obsessive hobby, work, or isolated relationship, or I look for a name I think I deserve and cling to it out of my ego. I am young, I am beautiful. I am smart. I am clever. Conversely...I am ugly. I am old. I am worthless.

Each Monday or Thursday night at my men’s group I offer up my heart's Thesaurus and dump out what words I have to date. As rich and alive as my words may be, it is always the case that a brother offers up a deepening and broadening of my sense of self. Each night I engage in this “work” of naming I leave the time with a much more grounded sense of my presence in this world.

I am PRESENT.

I am!

Being alive to the true beauty of our creation is to submit ourselves to others so they can deepen and bring to life our ultimate naming.

Let us fill in today the names we might call each other.

We are forgiven
We are sons & daughters of the most High God
We are blessing
We are gift
We are beauty
We are truth
and on and on...

To the naming!!!!!!!!!