"See to it, friend, that you have not lighted upon those who merely follow, and collect, and rest satisfied with what another has furnished: with them you will never find the spirit of the art: to the discoverers you must go, on whom it surely rests."
This quote by Schleiermacher seems to me to fit perfectly with Honors. I am no longer content to hear something from someone else- I want the source, the "discoverer." We are on a journey to find truth, as the title of this blog conveys, and the only way we can do that is to go to the literature itself and work through what it means. This week that meant picking apart a peice of a poem line by line, word by word. Through this process I learned the importance of words. That sounds silly, but words have so many different meanings when you examine them, and simply the context and time period in which they are said can change the meaning. I had several lightbulb moments when writing my paper, because I would read the word in the poem, then look it up in the dictionary, and see a whole new meaning that tied in a previous idea to the current movement. I know I'm a nerd for getting excited about something like that, but I was just happy it made sense to me and I could expound on it! However, my roommate probably thought I was crazy when I started jumping up and down said "It's the Eye!!!!" Fun times. But thinking back to the importance of words makes me think of the importance of the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1 NIV) How cool is that? Words are what we use to communicate, to understand each other, and to shed light on what is not understood. John 1:4 says, "In him was life, and that life was the light of man." So, the Word (which is God) brings life and light. On a much smaller scale, our language brings life- think how boring and lifeless we would be if we didn't communicate because words are what relationships are built on. When we finally understand something we didn't get before we say the "lightbulb" came on, because we saw what was previously hidden. Anyway, this was just something I had been thinking about...
P.S. commented on Danielle's "too busy to title this"
I also learned the importance of words through this paper. Like you said, it makes me think of how important each word is, but it also reminds me of how important our words are as we speak to others. We are not merely saying things "in vain" but our words can have so much more meaning behind them. They can impact people in how they feel and what they do. We should use them to lift people up to bring God glory. I like how it made you think of the Bible because everytime I learn and study more literature, I feel like it can help me better understand God's Word.
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