Wordplays (22.4.07)

People often complain that church/pastors don´t preach about important things. Why don´t you hear words such as sin, grace, salvation, redemption from the pulpit? Why don´t pastors´ say “Jesus is Lord” often enough? Vice versa, if you find someone who drops these key words once a while in a sermon, people seem content and pleased: finally someone, who is truly a spiritual person.

I am deeply bothered by this kind of wordplays. This is mostly because these words are meant, without exemption, for the insiders, the churchgoers themselves. They are meant for people who have grown into certain phraseology, which functions as a code language: this is my people talking, my world, my faith. Psychologically, it is about affirmation, I suppose: search for certainty and safety. However, it definitely sets the boundaries to the outer world, sharpens the contrast to “those outside us”. Even if “out there” were someone who would be vaguely interested in what people are teaching in churches, this kind of inside language almost certainly turns one off. You must be extremely persistent to be able to break through this code language.

Of course, we can not manage without words, if we want to explain something. Although I sometimes doubt whether “explanations” are the right method to convey information about something that can not be put into words. I am thinking of e.g. an experience of sacredness, that short moment when suddenly and totally unexpectedly the “other world” becomes intertwined into “this world”, when two realities are merged together for a second. That kind of experience reveals the limitations of language – and shows, how especially we Westerners are too bound by our intellect and rationalism when we try to understand spirituality. Our approach most often is dominated by “the head”, which is the place of intellect, explanations, doctrine, knowledge, words and so on.

In a spiritual journey, we are given hints towards other “places” (or faculties) than “head” only, namely “heart” and “stomach”. Heart would be a place of emotions, feeling, charisma, and even extacy. I am, however, more drawn towards “stomach”, though, than “heart” – because I have learnt that if “head” has its limitations, also “heart” can become a problem – because it can turn out to be quite unreliable!

What is “stomach”, then? It is the dwelling place of soul, instinct, mystery, the “unexplainable”. It is the way of “watching with the third eye” (concept of Asian theology), by which you can see the invisible. It is the place of silence, solitude, place where you are invited to spend time in seeing the mysteries of God. It is the way of contemplation and meditation, prayer without words. It is a place rather than “method” – a place where to step into, like you would step into garden in the expectation of meeting someone very important there.