THE BREATH OF LIFE ILLUMINATES THE UNIVERSE, OUR WORDS AND MANUCRIPTS SHOULD ILLUMINATE THE UNIVERSE AS WELL
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Is a university a practical undertaking or simply a way for wealthy people to while away their time in an ivory tower?
this could be a merely speculative inquiry, or it could be the difference between life and death, as it was for Socrates.
(ASIDE: At one point the leopard was teaching in a community college beset by scandal and embezzlement, and invited a fellow teacher with more time on the job to a staff meeting.
Let's go find out whats going on, she suggested.
Oh, they dont want us there, replied the colleague.
but we're staff!
nevertheless, they don't want us to know their business.)
Did the Athenians pay Socrates to justify their wealth by his eloquence,then murder him when he refused?
Is this what happened to Thomas Beckett?
is this what happened to Savonarola?
The first US universities were set up to disprove the thesis of the Catholic Universities, like Oxford and Bologna, which were dedicated to Uriel and to the Mother of God.
and now, Harvard whose original and specific misison was to debunk popery, is the richest universtiy in the planet.
At nearly 40 billion, their endowment if invested at 5% will generate close to two billion a year to pay university expenses.
VERITAS.
Volcanic eruptions on earth are specific to a particular geographic locale and a particular point in time; that is, if you are not in the vicinity at the time of the eruption, you will not hear it, nor see it, nor feel it.
Only through deliberate and continual study does our knowledge of volcanos grow.
Despite this, the effects produced by a volcano are tremendous and earth-changing.
The same is true of volcanic eruptions in human lives that are the driving force behind ideas and projects such as a university.
The evidence is there, but can only be understood if we listen and reflect.
This page is for those who are curious about words and their connection to life, and the manner and motive by which certain truths are revealed.
For those who acknowledge that Jesus was a good teacher, Jesus said to fear nothing and to acknowledge Him before God.
But when he was 12 and began to fearlessly reveal his identity in the Temple, his mother and father were terrified.
Would herod hear of the boy wonder and come back to finish the job?
They frantically found him and brought him back to obscurity.
THe light of his teaching was obscured for many years while he labored in a carpentry shop.
Meanwhile, his mother "pondered all these things in her heart."
According to this tale, illumination does not come all at once.
A university is a form of communication between human beings.
Like a lighthouse showing the way to shore, the great effort and expenditure involved in creating a university is justified because the intent is to illuminate our minds, and accordingly, the universe with love and hope of joy.
These days we could say there are far, far too many words.
Much of our communication is not loving, but "a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing."--a reiteration of the ancient tower of Babel, which destroyed human unity and gave its name to babylon, proud builder of Ziggurats and towers to the sun.
we take the process of formning words for granted, we have forgotten the joy and power of drawing in breath and exhaling it as a word, we have left behind the spontaneous bursts of song commonly found in illiterate cultures, and we have forgotten what the ancient idea of LOGOS is.
At the same time, we automatically associate higher learning with words being written on a page or screen, but this was not always the case: Socrates never wrote anything down, Plato followed him around and transcribed his lectures.
There was a time when every scroll was sacred; unique and precious, the product of incalcuable human labor and the repository of invaluable information often believed by scribe and reader to have been revealed by God.
Illuminated manuscript usually refers to a type of writing that was widespread before the printing press was invented.
As manuscripts were ardously copied by hand, the scribes added beautiful decorations, often making a whole page out of a single letter.
This technique can be viewed under glass in protective chambers in such surviving works as the "BOOK OF KELLS" and the "LINDISFARNE GOSPEL."
The advent of the printing press and now the internet has radically changed human communication.
The important thing has not changed, however: what we say to each other can either bring life or death, and we form words out of the air around us.
we use air to live and nourish our bodies, and we use words to understand life and nourish our minds.