Volume 6, Issue 5, January 1997

SACRED WORDS

Sacred words are those that a culture or a society regards as conveyors of its fundamental truths and values. They embody that which lies in and under and behind a constantly changing world. They are distillations of world views, incarnations of spiritual wisdom sometimes attained over countless aeons of human experience, and sometimes, incredibly, in a moment of insight or inspiration. They are found in nearly every oral and literary form known - poetry, proverbs, moral and law codes, parables and riddles, stories, and many others, all of which find their way into scriptures.

Of course, verbal formulations that we regard as sacred are composed mostly of ordinary words, drawn from normal human discourse. Their potential to become extraordinary, to bring vistas of eternity into the commonplace, to bring within reach that which is infinite, is what makes them "sacred."

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.