A Conversation with Logos

A Conversation with Logos

I

The Greeks described logos as the living

substance that enlivened, animated

all things, they said it inhabited the world like

honey inhabits the honeycomb-- logos

saturates all that we are, is associated with fire

and light.

The Hebrews understood

logos as the great mysterious inter-

cessor between God and humanity… they named it

Torah. But Torah was not simply written

word; the rabbis claimed, When G-d began

to create the world, He consulted Torah… Torah,

logos, the Word that preexists speech, writing,

art, earth, sky, universe.

The gospel of John begins, In the beginning

was logos, and logos was with God

and logos was God, he was with God

in the beginning, and through logos all was made,

without logos nothing that is

could have been, and logos was life, and that

life was light, and that light

shines into darkness…and darkness cannot

overcome…

light, word, life,

warmth, logos…

Darkness cannot over-

come, darkness cannot overcome,

darkness cannot overcome

light.

II

The irony of

the Word

preceding all speaking,

the warmth

preceding all fire,

the life

preceding all bodies,

the light

preceding all creation,

is that

all talk must be

silenced, all lamps

extinguished, all

movement

stilled,

all work ceased

in order for

the most important conversation

to begin,

the most brilliant illumination

to be seen,

the most savored breath

to be taken,

and the vocation of living to start.

III

There is a voice that is mine

that is heard always

though rarely listened to,

and though this voice is mine,

it is one I am just beginning

to recognize—

not mine because I have shaped

its reflections or phrasings, I did not

speak it,

but mine because this voice,

in gentleness and wisdom, is always trying to speak

me.

It knows my true name—the one I'm sure

I knew best only hours after birth, now mostly

forgotten.

While other voices try to speak me into shapes

they've schemed, the shapes that serve them

best,

this voice is sighing gently, the form

called me—the form I had before I was—the form that

serves best.

Only silence parts the lips and moves the breath,

articulates the tongue, my tongue, my breath, my lips praying my

one true voice.