"To Name is to Learn the Language of Paradise" (Voice Part II)
To Name is to learn the Language of Paradise --A. Voskamp If you hang around me for long, you will know how much I love language. How much I believe in finding words that name, call out, define, explain. There is a mysterious alchemy (change) that happens when we pull something out of our cloud of hurt, name it, give it dimensions and proportions. That thing that was lurking undefined in the corner is brought out into the light. The alchemy is that what was dark, wispy and undefined thing becomes malleable-- you can get your hands in it, work with it, make it different. "Naming is Edenic...This naming is how the first emptiness of space fills: the naming of light and land and sky. The first man's first task is to name. Adam completes creation with his Maker through the act of naming creatures, releasing the land from chaos, from the teeming, unidentifiable mass. " (Voskamp, 2010) That fuzzy cloud of "ick" that wraps and covers looses i...