Can You Say What It Really Means?
Taking It For Granted
Do you take anything in life for granted? When’s the last time you thought about the food you eat, the water you drink, or even the air that you breathe? Often, the importance of such things is appreciated only by those forced to go without. Is air important? Ask someone suffering from asthma. Is food & water important? Ask those suffering from hunger or thirst.
Now, I’m not talking about your mid-morning tummy-rumbles. Ask someone who has been forced by circumstances to go several days or more without a meal. Many of us don’t often think about the things that are absolutely essential to our existence. We can’t live without them, yet we still take them for granted.
Do you take Love for granted? An easier question may be: “do we take each other for granted?” Again, those going without can best answer the question. How important is love? Ask a widow or orphan. Ask a parent who has lost their child. Ask a betrayed husband or wife. Ask an offended friend who waited too long on a loved one to make the first-move in mending a relationship, and then lost all hope of reconciliation when their estranged friend died.
When love has been lost or broken, it seems like it’s all that really matters in the world. That's because It Is!
The Life-Dance
Meaning & Community
How did the words that we use every day get their meaning? Since most of us simply take meaning for granted, notice this carefully. You are reading my words and receiving my intended message (I hope). This is called communication, and it’s a big part of what makes community possible. Right now, you and I share a relationship. I am a writer giving you my thoughts, and you are a reader receiving them.
For our relationship to function, we both have to know what the words mean. Who decides? If I say “chicken,” should you think “fish?” If I say “now,” should you think “next-year.” No, of course not. If our relationship is to function in the real world, we'll have to share our meaning together. And our meaning will have to be objective.
Whoa! Some pretty smart people say there’s no such thing as objective meaning.
Alright, let's say you're out to an expensive dinner with one of these "smart-people." The server is showing off, and doesn't write down your food orders. A while later they set a chicken-breast in front of your friend instead of the salmon-filet that they ordered with specific preparation instructions.
Now, is our progressive thinker going to accept “their order” from this server without a comment, and then leave them a big tip? I seriously doubt it. Indeed, I'd wager big that the chicken is going right back! Why?
Because meaning is real, and the server got it wrong. They didn't receive your friend's meaning. They made a mistake. They failed in their duty as a server by not doing their part in a functioning community.
The Cornerstone
Failures like the one just described are called misunderstandings, and they always result from an instance of confusion. While confusion is a common problem (and a rapidly growing one), it’s the exception not the rule. Our embarrassed server will understand when your enlightened friend rejects their plate and says: “I ordered the salmon—remember?!” They will even perceive: “you ought to have written it down!” from the hungry & frustrated look “written” on your friend's face.
Notice this carefully. Meaning gets lost in the absence of a functioning relationship. Think hard. Is there anything in the world that doesn’t depend on something else to make it work. I dare you to find one. Whether physical, psychological, or spiritual, meaning describes functioning relationships—or it describes the absence of one.
Now, a First-Fact or Ultimate-Object has to stand beneath all objective meaning. Indeed, we could never function in a community without it. So of course, we all take it for granted. An axiom is meaning that is so basic that it can't be reduced. Axioms are the "Ideas beneath ideas." They make meaning possible. And there is a Chief-Axiom that functions as a Cornerstone, ordering meaning, and binding it together so that thinkers like you and me can understand reality and share it together.
This "Idea of ideas" is Perfect-Community.
The Life-Dance
Think for a second about each letter used in this project so far. The English alphabet has 26 letters. These join together to form at least 700,000 different words. And by ordering them “just-so,” meaning is able to move from one person into another—and then be received and returned. For instance: "I love you" is normally followed by "I love you too."
Look closely. Meaning is a Dance. From the starry heavens above us, to the molecules “joining hands” to form us—all of reality is a dance. Life Itself is a Dance! At the bottom of your physical being, your DNA is written from a four-letter chemical alphabet (adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine). These join together to form more than 3 billion genetic words called base-pairs. By ordering them “just-so” bio-sentences called genes are written. And when these are ordered, bound, and “moving in step together”—you result!
So who started the dance? That's the big question, isn't it. You come from the dance of your parents. They came from the dance of theirs—and back and back to humanity’s beginning. Notice carefully that life isn’t something you constructed on your own. It has been given to you by Life.
We aren't accidents. Every one of us is supposed to be part of a moving masterpiece. We all have a due-perfection and a proper-function—to join in the dance.
God Is!
Alright, so what do life, dancing, community, meaning—and our taking it all for granted have to do with Love? Everything!
Love is the free gift of oneself to and for another. When a beloved receives the gift and offers themself to their lover in return, miracles can happen. Each lover completes the other, and together they become more than the sum of themselves. Every child born of love is a potential addition to this ongoing life-dance.
Whether love is found in the innocent trust of childhood, in the faithfulness of parenthood, in the passions of marriage, or in the easy comfort of true friendship—to love is to truly live. Because true-love unites us to the Life of God. Indeed, His True-Love is the perfection intended for each and every human person.
So notice carefully that love can't happen by yourself. It is not good to be alone. To be alone is to lack a community. So don't sit stubbornly off to the side and watch everyone else experience the joys of Life.
God is the Perfect-Being. Therefore, "He Is" the Perfect Headwaters of every goodness a person can know. He Is Meaning. He Is Community. He Is Life. He Is Love! (1 John 4)
Beloved—God Is the Dance!