Never say “Love” as a word with no weight
Sacred words should stir from your soul
Nor should you ever speak dark words of hate
As dark words of hate take their toll.

When you claim “Love” in describing possessions
You diminish the meaning of your word
So when you say, “I Love” it may lead to questions
And your true passion may never be heard.

Such is the way of the tricksters
To diminish the truths you would speak
To confuse all your brothers and sisters
And to hide the truth you would seek.

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For the next few blogs I will be moving on from excerpts on the poetic parable on Love (see previous blogs) and offer some insights into the interpretation of stanzas VI through X regarding the poetic parable on Truth and Honesty.

Again, the literary device of a poetic parable is to provide an easy story upfront, but offer the opportunity for personal introspection into deeper meaning.  Each reader may interpret something different.  What follows is only the interpretation of the author.  And fair warning, there are many different interpretations of the stanza's which follow.  Your own personal interpretation may differ.

For today's blog I am specifically going to look at stanza VI of Truth and Honesty.

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Stanza VI, Truth and Honesty - Line I : Never say “Love” as a word with no weight

It is important to recognize  the word Love is again capitalized.  This provides it the literary value of a proper noun; such as the name of a person or place.  It is not used as an adjective.  As discussed in the previous blogs on Love, the visitor sees Love as an entity.  In this use of the proper noun, the visitor is really using the word Love in the form of a "name".

The word "never" is a strong word.  The visitor is not saying, "try not to use the word Love loosely" such as in describing something mundane - for example; "I love chocolate or I love wine or love how cute that puppy is".  He is saying "Never" use the word Love carelessly. This is again a consistent message shared by the visitor.  Love is an entity, not only deserving respect, but crossing the line to "sacred".  Therefore, understand the "weight" or the seriousness of using that word.

How do we know the visitor regards the word as sacred?  Simply by the second line immediately following this first one.

Stanza VI, Truth and Honesty - Line II : Sacred words should stir from your soul

Here the reader is left with no doubt that the visitor sees the word "Love" as sacred.  So even though talking about Truth and Honesty the visitor is again delivering a message using a continued story of "Love" as the answer.  Love being more than an adjective, but being a "noun or name to represent something sacred".  As such, the word when used should be motivated (stir from) your soul.  This concept is nothing new.  From Jewish tradition, the name Yahweh is sacred and is described as being both unpronounceable and incommunicable.  It is a word spoke more from the heart or the soul rather than from the lips.  As such it is often represented by the tetragrammaton (four letter word/symbol) YHWH.

For those following the blogs to date or reading The Visitor and understanding the influence of Thomas Merton, it should come as no surprise to see another reference which bridges inter-faith understanding.  

This practice of sacred words that cannot be spoken actually was recently reintroduced into the Catholic Church when the Vatican reiterated a directive that the name of God as revealed in the tetragrammaton YHWH is not to be said in liturgy or music. (http://www.catholic.org/news/ae/music/story.php?id=29022) 

"As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, (the name) was held to be unpronounceable and hence was replaced during the reading of sacred Scripture by means of the use of an alternate name: 'Adonai,' which means 'Lord,'...Invoking a Vatican document from 2001, the Congregation reminded bishops that the name "Yahweh" in Catholic worship should be replaced by the Latin "Dominus" (Lord) or a word "equivalent in meaning" in the local language.

The concept itself has even made it into popular literature in J.K. Rowling's books regarding Harry Potter.  In this case however, it is portrayed as the villian and symbol of evil in the character of Lorde Voldemort as "he who cannot be named".  Incidentally,  in Danish "volde" means "to cause" and in French "morte" means death...so it can be argued the character name of the villain (he who cannot be named) actually translates into "cause death".  

So be it historical, or pop culture, the idea of "sacred words" should stir from your soul and that there are words that should not be said lightly is nothing new.

Stanza VI, Truth and Honesty - Line III : Nor should you ever speak dark words of hate

The reader should easily note how the word Love is capitalized while the word "hate" is not.  That is the first clue.  The word hate is not from the sacred realm.  However, just like the popular culture of Lorde Voldemort the visitor would agree such words should still not be spoken.   This becomes more apparent in stanza VII of the poetic parable on Good and Evil.  In that specific parable the visitor states:

For where Love is absent darkness takes root
Where darkness takes hold, anger thrives.
And where anger grows, there hate may be born
And where hate lives - Love can’t survive.

Again, the reader should easily see the clue of how Love is capitalized and words like hate, anger and darkness are not.  This line when taken into the full context of the visitor's words re-emphasizes why you should never speak dark words of hate.  Simply put, Love and hate cannot co-exist.  Where hate lives - Love can't survive.

Stanza VI, Truth and Honesty - Line IV : As dark words of hate take their toll.

A couple of things are clear in the last line of stanza IV.  The dualistic black and white nature of the visitor, when describing words of hate as dark, and the idea that the words "take their toll".  Literally, "to take their toll" means their is a price, as in payment for crossing a toll booth or road or section of your own personal journey.  The connotation of "take their toll" is even more direct, meaning "causes damage".

So summed up, Stanza VI on Truth and Honesty is a strong warning.  Love is a sacred word with heavy meaning, and should not be used carelessly.  However, even dark words which are the exact opposite such as hate should not be used, as they are damaging.  This stanza illustrates again both the extreme dualistic nature of the visitor, and his consistent message regarding "Love".

Until next time, Journey In Love - Michael Paul

Never say “Love” as a word with no weight
Sacred words should stir from your soul
Nor should you ever speak dark words of hate
As dark words of hate take their toll.