Why are we still talking? - Pessoa?
There seems to be a fear in us that compels us to repeat. However, we don't just repeat; we repeat with a difference. At every interval between a persona to the next (e.g. Alvin to Alvim), I often suspend my identity and find myself in a frivolous condition called anxiety by some. And that is when I am absolutely silent outwardly, but the rustle of language ensues within me. That is also when I speak in tongues. Only that, it is spoken within myself. You can't hear me.
If I pursue within myself the reason to speak in tongues within myself, it is really because I cannot speak properly outside. It is as if I have no proper voice which my alterity can manifest outwardly as. And I realise that this 'tongue' language, if spoken, only adds on as much as we feel as if it escapes. I can't take back my words. They fly up, and they fall in ears that may not necessarily understand them. Therefore, I choose not to speak in tongues, outwardly.
In part, because I fear that my words do not reach anywhere. To speak is not to repeat. It is exactly what that cannot be repeated. To speak out without reserve is really to confront myself and reveal the vulnerability of my identity and how ignorant I am with respect to my soul. I cannot understand myself if I should speak out. I cannot just say something and not hear myself speak. I am speaking and hearing myself speak at the same time. I cannot ignore the fact that I do not understand my tongue - this gibberish, foreign tongue that is not my own.
There is something more profound here when we speak about tongues. To speak in tongues, in the contemporary sense, or glossolalia, is really to not speak at all. It signifies nothing. It means nothing. It is, in a pure sense, a voice, devoid of actual meaning. It is difference in itself because it only flees and never comes back, even if you hear the trace of the voice. It is gibberish. Glossolalia is an empty speech. It is this strange voice that has no material addressee to whom the voice is spoken to. In fact, one wonders if this dialogue with one self could in anyway return back to us.
That is precisely its meaning - its reason for its existence. It alienates me.
For God's silence has left within us a void. A empty signified that in the Lacanian sense has to be replaced by the signifier that attempts to fly away from the stage that it came from. The stage, or the psyche cannot reconcile the fact that there is actually no voice from God that truly speaks in a voice (the God of Eden, the God on Mount Sinai, or Lord who spoke his sermon on the mount). It must then mirror (an empty image!) and simulate the presence of a voice. In this case, one believes that the spoken tongue came from the Spirit, the most silent of trinue God. One can then live in the comfort of his or her tongue that we can conjure up the spirit.
So in a sense, glossolalia does speak something: It speaks its silence in a noisy way. Each time I hear glossolalia, I hear silence. I hear the silence of God. I hear the noise that is ourselves trying desperately to mediate God and manifest Him in some material presence. Instead, why can't we find God in places more obvious and straightforward?
This empty signification has an even more profound reason for existence. It welcomes what is to come - the cutting of the tongues and the temple that will no longer exist; our corporeal presence that utters the human language will be replaced by light. For there is something about light (look straight at the burning sun) that makes possible a reading of glossolalia as utter nonsense. We do not have to remind ourselves, via our senseless tongues, that we have a spirit that dwells in us. Instead, it is nature that speak a language so profound and yet so simple that we always almost certainly miss hearing it. We dare not hear this language as much as we dare not stare at the face of this world that produces this language. Does a loud voice scream that the sun and the earth should move? (Instead, it silently blinds us if we should stare at the process of renewal and end of the day) We stare at an imperative that finds pleasure in the repetition of the day; the dawn or dusk of the day - ah! our existence to cease, repeated by the silent imperative. We cannot hear this imperative but there is no need to.
When we speak (our languages) we pretend that it comes from us. There is an egoistical projection in this human endeavour.
But when we gaze upon nature that repeats with or without your existence, we are humbled by the silent imperative.
So think again when you speak in tongues and Paul's warning that it only edifies yourself. One's own alterity is not encountered through an inward projection to the outside. That is a Narcissistic project. Our own alterity is encountered when we come face to face what we cannot face - the blinding light and lightning of God's glory and grace that makes possible a shift from a persecutor to the persecuted. And that also makes possible, the voice of God to reside in the mouthpieces of His children, with clarity and precision, dreamt, written and spoken.
This is Part 1 written by Alvina
There seems to be a fear in us that compels us to repeat. However, we don't just repeat; we repeat with a difference. At every interval between a persona to the next (e.g. Alvin to Alvim), I often suspend my identity and find myself in a frivolous condition called anxiety by some. And that is when I am absolutely silent outwardly, but the rustle of language ensues within me. That is also when I speak in tongues. Only that, it is spoken within myself. You can't hear me.
If I pursue within myself the reason to speak in tongues within myself, it is really because I cannot speak properly outside. It is as if I have no proper voice which my alterity can manifest outwardly as. And I realise that this 'tongue' language, if spoken, only adds on as much as we feel as if it escapes. I can't take back my words. They fly up, and they fall in ears that may not necessarily understand them. Therefore, I choose not to speak in tongues, outwardly.
In part, because I fear that my words do not reach anywhere. To speak is not to repeat. It is exactly what that cannot be repeated. To speak out without reserve is really to confront myself and reveal the vulnerability of my identity and how ignorant I am with respect to my soul. I cannot understand myself if I should speak out. I cannot just say something and not hear myself speak. I am speaking and hearing myself speak at the same time. I cannot ignore the fact that I do not understand my tongue - this gibberish, foreign tongue that is not my own.
There is something more profound here when we speak about tongues. To speak in tongues, in the contemporary sense, or glossolalia, is really to not speak at all. It signifies nothing. It means nothing. It is, in a pure sense, a voice, devoid of actual meaning. It is difference in itself because it only flees and never comes back, even if you hear the trace of the voice. It is gibberish. Glossolalia is an empty speech. It is this strange voice that has no material addressee to whom the voice is spoken to. In fact, one wonders if this dialogue with one self could in anyway return back to us.
That is precisely its meaning - its reason for its existence. It alienates me.
For God's silence has left within us a void. A empty signified that in the Lacanian sense has to be replaced by the signifier that attempts to fly away from the stage that it came from. The stage, or the psyche cannot reconcile the fact that there is actually no voice from God that truly speaks in a voice (the God of Eden, the God on Mount Sinai, or Lord who spoke his sermon on the mount). It must then mirror (an empty image!) and simulate the presence of a voice. In this case, one believes that the spoken tongue came from the Spirit, the most silent of trinue God. One can then live in the comfort of his or her tongue that we can conjure up the spirit.
So in a sense, glossolalia does speak something: It speaks its silence in a noisy way. Each time I hear glossolalia, I hear silence. I hear the silence of God. I hear the noise that is ourselves trying desperately to mediate God and manifest Him in some material presence. Instead, why can't we find God in places more obvious and straightforward?
This empty signification has an even more profound reason for existence. It welcomes what is to come - the cutting of the tongues and the temple that will no longer exist; our corporeal presence that utters the human language will be replaced by light. For there is something about light (look straight at the burning sun) that makes possible a reading of glossolalia as utter nonsense. We do not have to remind ourselves, via our senseless tongues, that we have a spirit that dwells in us. Instead, it is nature that speak a language so profound and yet so simple that we always almost certainly miss hearing it. We dare not hear this language as much as we dare not stare at the face of this world that produces this language. Does a loud voice scream that the sun and the earth should move? (Instead, it silently blinds us if we should stare at the process of renewal and end of the day) We stare at an imperative that finds pleasure in the repetition of the day; the dawn or dusk of the day - ah! our existence to cease, repeated by the silent imperative. We cannot hear this imperative but there is no need to.
When we speak (our languages) we pretend that it comes from us. There is an egoistical projection in this human endeavour.
But when we gaze upon nature that repeats with or without your existence, we are humbled by the silent imperative.
So think again when you speak in tongues and Paul's warning that it only edifies yourself. One's own alterity is not encountered through an inward projection to the outside. That is a Narcissistic project. Our own alterity is encountered when we come face to face what we cannot face - the blinding light and lightning of God's glory and grace that makes possible a shift from a persecutor to the persecuted. And that also makes possible, the voice of God to reside in the mouthpieces of His children, with clarity and precision, dreamt, written and spoken.
This is Part 1 written by Alvina
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