Primal Words: Self, Love, God, Jesus

SELF. Not the observing self, not the self-serving-others self. But SELF that wills SELF. Ego-SELF. SELF-against-selves. SUPERSELF. SELF over all! Love. The most critical relationship in life is not as St. Augustine claimed between the human soul and God, but between SELF and Love. God. First encounter? Sitting next to grandmother when I was eight years old in the big Quaker Meeting room in Atlantic City... Finally the squirming drifted away and I became aware of stillness around me and I knew God wasn't in the big fan overhead... but God was in the stillness. Not just silence but stillness that came out of the silence. Jesus. We speak of Jesus as a primal word. We make a clearing in the forest of words for the Word who was flesh. We leave Love and God to one side to walk into the mystery of a new primal Word.