A
long running cosmological theory is that the Creator spoke the
physical world using the Hebrew alphabet. The old Testament does begin
with the Lord saying “Let there be light” in Hebrew. The proponents of
this idea also believe that each moment still depends on His speech to
exist. This cosmology introduces the idea of life being linked to
language. The basic structure of language is grammar. The primary
component of grammar is the sentence consisting of a subject, object
and verb as in “I love you” or “I eat food” or “I lost my gloves.”
If you look at grammar and religion, the similarity comes more into focus. The essence of Christianity is the Holy Trinity: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Eastern religions believe that life’s duality is an illusion (maya) and that all is one. Judaism is also based on this premise: “Adenoi echad” - G-d is one.
So Christianity believes in the subject, object and verb. The Father, the Creator, is the subject and his creation - his son - is the object and the Holy Ghost is the verb, the act or process of creating.
Some of the Eastern religions believe that while there appears to be a subject and object, an I and Thou, there is just the one. Zen, however, suggests that while there is only one there are also two, hence the Koan “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” or “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” There is the subject who has consciousness and the object that cannot be said to exist without an awareness of its presence. A clap cannot occur without both hands - a subject and an object.
So when asked “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” the answer is “consciousness.”
We insert our own punctuation marks in the grammar of our lives.
If we work Monday through Friday, then the weekend provides our period (.) after the end of our Friday work-day sentence. If we work days, evenings supply us with commas and occasional semi-colons to get us through the week.
If we are students, our semester breaks are like new paragraphs, our year-end final exams mark the end of one chapter and the predictable beginning of the next.
Then there are vacations, holidays, illness, and daily lunch hours to break up our living sentences. We also have our other meal times, rest periods and favorite T.V. shows to further divide up our daily labors (the way parentheses and “quotation marks” do in sentences).
If nights and weekends are commas, semi colons and periods, holidays might be highlighting, italics or underlining. So when we celebrate a birthday, we are highlighting the importance that person is to us. We appreciate the person every day, but on this one day a year we want to emphasize that inclination. Legal holidays are the macro version of birthdays.
While we are, or should be, grateful for our lives every day, this feeling is put in italics on the fourth Thursday in November. While we love one another as the reflections of ourselves at almost every moment of our waking hours, we feel it especially underlined on the 25th of December. The same goes for our daily patriotism on July 4, May 31st, June 14th and best of all on the 11th day of the 11th month; our daily renewal on the first day of the first month of the year ( Jewish Chinese Americans can celebrate the new year three times a year); our unquestionable respect and adoration for our parents on the days set aside to honor them and our perpetual respect for our founding fathers on President’s Day and Columbus Day (now known as something else to some) and on Martin Luther King Day, commemorating the founding father of civil rights..
For those of us born on a holiday, that day is highlighted, italicized and underlined.
When we retire we find that we have and need fewer punctuation marks in our daily lives. What are evenings, week-ends and holidays off when you have nothing to be off from? (Though we still have mealtimes, our T.V shows [for those of us who admittedly watch it], daily walks, bathing and eliminating waste products to break up our daily sentences.)
Our retirement should give us much more time to insert commas, semi colons, exclamation points, question marks and periods whenever we want to and to highlight, italicize and underline all of our celebrated feelings every day and then, at every moment of every day, so that each single sentence that we experience will be pregnant with our constant awareness and appreciation.
If you look at grammar and religion, the similarity comes more into focus. The essence of Christianity is the Holy Trinity: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Eastern religions believe that life’s duality is an illusion (maya) and that all is one. Judaism is also based on this premise: “Adenoi echad” - G-d is one.
So Christianity believes in the subject, object and verb. The Father, the Creator, is the subject and his creation - his son - is the object and the Holy Ghost is the verb, the act or process of creating.
Some of the Eastern religions believe that while there appears to be a subject and object, an I and Thou, there is just the one. Zen, however, suggests that while there is only one there are also two, hence the Koan “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” or “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” There is the subject who has consciousness and the object that cannot be said to exist without an awareness of its presence. A clap cannot occur without both hands - a subject and an object.
So when asked “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” the answer is “consciousness.”
We insert our own punctuation marks in the grammar of our lives.
If we work Monday through Friday, then the weekend provides our period (.) after the end of our Friday work-day sentence. If we work days, evenings supply us with commas and occasional semi-colons to get us through the week.
If we are students, our semester breaks are like new paragraphs, our year-end final exams mark the end of one chapter and the predictable beginning of the next.
Then there are vacations, holidays, illness, and daily lunch hours to break up our living sentences. We also have our other meal times, rest periods and favorite T.V. shows to further divide up our daily labors (the way parentheses and “quotation marks” do in sentences).
If nights and weekends are commas, semi colons and periods, holidays might be highlighting, italics or underlining. So when we celebrate a birthday, we are highlighting the importance that person is to us. We appreciate the person every day, but on this one day a year we want to emphasize that inclination. Legal holidays are the macro version of birthdays.
While we are, or should be, grateful for our lives every day, this feeling is put in italics on the fourth Thursday in November. While we love one another as the reflections of ourselves at almost every moment of our waking hours, we feel it especially underlined on the 25th of December. The same goes for our daily patriotism on July 4, May 31st, June 14th and best of all on the 11th day of the 11th month; our daily renewal on the first day of the first month of the year ( Jewish Chinese Americans can celebrate the new year three times a year); our unquestionable respect and adoration for our parents on the days set aside to honor them and our perpetual respect for our founding fathers on President’s Day and Columbus Day (now known as something else to some) and on Martin Luther King Day, commemorating the founding father of civil rights..
For those of us born on a holiday, that day is highlighted, italicized and underlined.
When we retire we find that we have and need fewer punctuation marks in our daily lives. What are evenings, week-ends and holidays off when you have nothing to be off from? (Though we still have mealtimes, our T.V shows [for those of us who admittedly watch it], daily walks, bathing and eliminating waste products to break up our daily sentences.)
Our retirement should give us much more time to insert commas, semi colons, exclamation points, question marks and periods whenever we want to and to highlight, italicize and underline all of our celebrated feelings every day and then, at every moment of every day, so that each single sentence that we experience will be pregnant with our constant awareness and appreciation.
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