I came across a quote by E.O. Wilson who suggested, in his book, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, that scientists ought to “offer the hand of friendship” to religious leaders because “science and religion are two of the most potent forces on Earth and they should come together to save the creation.” I was almost hopeful that Wilson was suggesting a possible détente and that the Church had been forgiven by at least one secular humanist for its imprisonment of Galileo and the execution of Giordano Bruno Continue reading “The Near Side of the Road”
Do Metaphors Really Resonate?
What do we mean when we say that a metaphor resonates. Is it as simple as saying that a connection between two disparate domains takes on a special meaning, intersects with, maps into or ‘highly resonates’ on a Likert-like scale of ‘I get It’? Ask a hundred people if their life is a journey and I will wager that on a scale of ‘does not resonate’ to ‘highly resonates’, their responses would measure off the scale. Ask if our roads begin with a ‘shush’ and the rating would bottom out. No one else but me, a few fellow travelers, my mom, a Talmudist sage, folks from any shtetl in Central or Eastern Europe and the guy who wrote the screenplay for Key Largo would get it. Cultural differences concerning the Journey tip the scale in one direction or another depending upon the different narratives that follow us from one generation to the next. But the Journey metaphor transcends most cultural divides. The Journey is central to family life, flows from one generation to the next; it is the cultural glue that binds us together.
From the Talmudic tradition, the Midrash tells us that:
While a child is still in the uterus… an angel teaches it all of the Torah. When the child passes into the world, the angel touches the child just above the lips, creating the vertical groove between the upper lip and the nose (philtrum), and the child forgets everything he/she had known… [ed note: in the Talmud Niddah (30b) an angel slaps the fetus in the mouth]
…In this way, when a person is confronted with emet, with truth, emanating from the Torah, he/she will be more likely to recognize it and be drawn to it. An example: the mitzvah not to steal. Your average person will feel that this is just an obvious law. But it is obvious only because it is something that was learned years before in that “mysterious” time just before we entered the world.
http://www.jewishtreats.org/2010/08/touched-by-angel.html
What are the chances that a screenwriter, a son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, would pen the ‘shush into Key Largo (1948) where it became part of cinematic history?
McCloud: Three days and three nights he stayed awake directing our fire. Most of that time I was on the other end of the line. To keep himself awake, he talked into the phone. Talked and talked . . . Most of his talk was about you two. You’d be surprised how much I know about you both. For instance, inside your wedding ring there’s an inscription: “Evermore.”
Nora Temple: That’s right.
Frank McCloud: And you, Mr. Temple. Remember telling George what this hollow is above the upper lip? Before he was born, you said, he knew all the secrets of life and death. And then at his birth, an angel came and put his finger right here [touching his upper lip] and sealed his lips.
James Temple: I remember that! Yep. He couldn’t have been more than seven years old when I told him that fairy story.
https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1715/how-the-baby-got-its-philtrum/:
Metaphoric variants of life is a journey like on the straight and narrow, changed course, stuck in the middle of the road, took a detour, lost my way, hit some bumps in the road, and got stuck in a rut would probably ‘highly resonate’ if resonating were all about assigning some level of meaning or a probability mapping between source and target.
But what if metaphors really do resonate?
Involution-Evolution
I am fascinated by the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit priest, poet, geologist and anthropologist who found himself in hot water with the Church and with many in the scientific establishment for building a case where the organic and the cosmic complexify along an evolutive axis fashioned by Christ’s love for and supremacy over Creation. What Teilhard did, much to the chagrin of his superiors and scientific colleagues, was reconceptualize the traditional imagery of the redemption through Christ into a redemptive convergence toward a ‘Cosmic Christ’. Continue reading “Involution-Evolution”
Metaphors-They Are Everywhere!!
I’ve been thinking recently about how it is that metaphor has become so central to my thinking. I see metaphor everywhere. I see metaphor when I read. I use metaphor when I teach. I see metaphor hidden in the flow of conversation that washes over me every day. I see metaphor when science wishes to explain itself. I see metaphor as the language God uses to speak to us when we don’t understand his math. If there is such a thing as the soul then it is the soul that resonates in the presence of metaphor. Metaphor is the still small voice.
When I returned to graduate school after having worked in the pharmaceutical industry for ten years, my intention was to pick up on my studies in developmental biology; not to study metaphor. Like most everyone else, I got the idea of metaphor; two disparate domains that intersect to create new and symbolicly meaningful connections, the road is a snake, the man is a bulldozer, the atom is an onion. Sales brochures are drenched in metaphor; such and such a drug declares open war on bacteria, this or that drug attacks viruses, something or another oral mediation seeks out and targets mucus.
I recall that the company I worked for had developed a very effective antibiotic, Amikin (™ Bristol-Squibb), which was particularly useful in compromised patients whose infections had become drug resistant to antibiotics that had been around of awhile.
After having extolled the advantages of using an antibiotic that can work against drug-resistant bacteria I would end my presentation, When the Others Can’t, AMI KIN, which every now and then would get a rise. I made little business cards that said, When the Others Can’t, AMI KIN . I handed out pencils embossed with When the Others can’t, ‘ AMI KIN . I even invested in a license plate, AMI KIN, which was eventually lifted by someone who perhaps thought it was cute; maybe it was the competition.
I’m not sure I can argue that this little turn of phrase is metaphoric; an intersection between the domain of broad spectrum’ antibiotics with the domain of the can do spirit? But I can tell you that When the Others Can’t AMI KIN resonated with some of the doctors. I really don’t think this little word play ever translated into increased sales. Can you imagine a patient asking her doctor why her mediationwas being changed and the doctor saying, “When the others can’t AMI KIN?”
That said, I do recall giving myself a pat on the back for coming up with the idea.
As for having encountered life-changing metaphors that end up impacting my life’s journey by forcing a change in direction, I vivedly recall a metaphoric detour sign. I’m not talking about the ‘cute’ metaphors, the road is a snake or the Yankees are red hot this year – I’m talking about journey-making/changing intercepts between two categorically different domains.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
…I was, sitting on a folding chair in a small rented-out room of an Albuquerque strip mall listening to someone trying to explain the Omega-Point.
My Mother Smiled and Said…
…then the LORD pressed his finger over your lips and said ‘shush ”
…and when she finished the story, she pressed her index finger over my upper lip and said, “Shush.” Continue reading “My Mother Smiled and Said…”
What’s a Meta For?
While the deepest imaginative and emotive dimensions of the journey metaphor are probably resistant to empirical analysis, the linguistic surfaces of this metaphor draw directly from our contact with the world and can be mapped with a good deal of precision.
As for what goes on beneath the surface…that’s another story.
Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
The Journey Metaphor
I find myself always returning to the journey as the central metaphor for the human condition. While one might suggest that the journey is overused and like other dead metaphors has lost its luster, I would argue that we are continually re-imagining the journey narrative. God may have created the world in six days; we re-create the world with every breath we take. Continue reading “The Journey Metaphor”
Life's Lessons on a Road Less Travelled 