Meaning – Why Language?

The Importance of Language and where resides meaning.

Language,

In the beginning when God began creating the sky and the land, heavenly conversation gave the task to the Eternal Word to utter the Universe. God the Father saw that the Universe was very good, creation joined eternity in converse with its Maker.

So Language is the predicate of existence; 1 the Holy Word has given us everything there is. We might say that when sin entered into the world that humanity sent God to Coventry; then the Eternal Word became flesh to draw our world back into the conversation…

Over the millennia God has spoken to us many times and we have filtered his words through the understanding of our times and with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit have filled many books with heavenly conversation.

The written word

In the writings of Francis we read the written record of his conversations with his Lord. I seek to understand those words that I might better keep his Rule. That I might learn to walk between the Gospel and Life, between Jesus and our little father Francis; to rejoin the conversation of the spheres.

The threads between Heaven and earth　

Meaning

Jacques Derrida once said that ‘the meaning is in the gap’ 2

Rather than provide a summary here about concepts of sense reference and meaning I will  just say this:

Beyond the straightforward understanding of the  association between words and their meaning or thoughts and actions there is a spiritual realm to these which resides in the place between.

In the Gap between the sense and reference of a word or between a thought and its action. In this place is the place where the double-edged sword discerns all!

For the Future

I have Latin versions of Francis’ psalms, from the Franciscan Archives, so that I can make a comparison regarding the English we have here. This matters to me because, among other things, I am a Philosopher of language and desire to reach the meaning of Francis prayers from between the ‘gap’ within the original works.

Prior to this rests the question: If Francis composed his psalms in Italian, as we know the Canticle of the Creatures to have been, then have we forever lost the sense and reference of his words and therefore their true meaning?