“How do you describe moonlight?
How do you describe candlelight?
How do you count the bubbles in a glass of champagne?I don’t know.
I just know when I see it, it’s bloody beautiful.”
– Ray Hudson, when asked to talk about how Lamine Yamal is so good
You could hardly do better than using this as a way of thinking about each place in your life where words fail you. Those things entwined in you. Those things you’re caught up in.
And I hope you find those places.
The other day I heard someone say that Christianity was “an important part” in the life of a friend of theirs.
That’s not that strange. Or, at least I very well understood what this person was saying:
> He has many things about him. Each of them can be reduced to parts. Parts of a whole. And I know that part is important to him.
But I had a feeling hearing this this time that it’s just.. a weird way to talk about something something so big and mysterious.
I try and inspect why I think it’s weird. The best I’ve come up with so far is that it’s an attempt to turn something very “everywhere” and “everything” (love embodied through Christ in the world (no description of what I mean here is sufficient, which is looping to the weirdness of this)) into something like “data”.
Into an About bio.
“God. Family. Freedom.” type Twitter bio of an account that’s probably a psyop.
I don’t mean to be mean in all this. I have empathy for the expression. And I very much understand it. I’ve done it.
But, it’s like trying to describe candlelight. Or moonlight.
Why would you even try? There it is, right in front of you. You don’t need words, certainly from me, to tell you what it is.
If I could try, I’d stand up and hold out both of my arms with a desperate look about me and some version of “AhhhhhhIdon’tKnoww!!” would come out.
“I know it’s an important part of his life.”
Ahh!! It’s everywhere. It’s all him. All in him. Just everything. What do you mean?
If touched by The Creator, held in some Light-beyond-light, all attempts to relate that to where or how it fits into your life will fail. And thank goodness.
It doesn’t relate to your life.
I want to say it (God, Christian faith, fill-in-your-religion) “is your life.” But it’s not even that!
“It’s” ‘you’.
“When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.””
– Kahlil Gibran, On Love (read this at our wedding)
That’s it. That’s what I mean.
Many times I’ve recited the bio. To be quick to qualify yourself, to be understood, is very tempting. It’s very what-we-do.
But with something so both you and about-you, be careful with how you offer that up.
Hold out your arms with it. Be tender. Be desperate. Be exasperated.
Be confused by the question.
“How important is God in your life?”
“How important is your family, your wife your kids?”
“What role does friendship play in your life?”
> “I’m sorry. I.. I don’t understand the question.”
How do you count the bubbles in a glass of champagne