To the extent I can touch the more basic, the better to converse across time spans. My words may no longer carry the meaning I assign to them. What was the thing the Indian Papunehang said to John Woolman? “I love to feel where words come from.” From Woolman’s Journal:
On the evening of the 18th I was at their meeting, where pure gospel love was felt, to the tendering of some of our hearts. The interpreters endeavored to acquaint the people with what I said, in short sentences, but found some difficulty, as none of them were quite perfect in the English and Delaware tongues, so they helped one another, and we labored along, Divine love attending. Afterwards, feeling my mind covered with the spirit of prayer, I told the interpreters that I found it in my heart to pray to God, and believed, if I prayed aright, he would hear me; and I expressed my willingness for them to omit interpreting; so our meeting ended with a degree of Divine love. Before the people went out, I observed Papunehang (the man who had been zealous in laboring for a reformation in that town, being then very tender) speaking to one of the interpreters, and I was afterwards told that he said in substance as follows: “I love to feel where words come from.”
That perhaps is my watch word. I want my reader to feel where words come from. Feel and source.
That is how to converse.
:- Doug.
