Once more, you have: Once more, you have demonstrated your very formidable powers of poetic compression and concision. The number is more than a mere number: does that suggest it is transcendent, like Pi? It is more than a mere identifier. So by the second line, we are seeing an evolutionary process. By the third line, the number has necome a distinguishing figure; and this is a human, a sentient, aspect---as only the human and the sentient can distinguish something from something else. And in the fourth line, we have the triumphant burst into a living existence, as a scar betrays (I take that as a disclosure) its suture. Only a living beiing can produce a scar, from a flesh injury that has been sutured.
Thank you. The French: Thank you. The French Poet/diplomat, Paul Claudel, once remarked that Q had inspired a tremendous amount of scholarly activity considering it was a book no one had ever seen. Its existence is totally speculative, and its content is derived from this formula: those sayings of Christ that are common to Matthew and Luke, with any materal found in Mark deleted.
About twenty years ago, I exchanged several emails with Burton Mack, a prominent theologian and scholar, who has written extensively about Q. In my undergraduate training, the concept of Occam's Razor---that the explanation with the least amount of assumptions was probably the most correct one---dominated the department in which I pursued my major, History. Burton Mack has put forth an explanation requiring, if I recall correctly, four or five assumptions---which, as I pointed out to him, was a vulnerability when viewed through Occam's Razor. I submitted that, accoring to Occam, an explanation with a single assumption would defeat the one with four or five. My explanation, and its one assumption, was that Q consists of notes (written or mental), taken by the Seventy in preparation to carry out their mission as recorded in Luke 10. And, if I recall correctly, after presenting that explanation with the suggestion that it defeated Doctor Mack's, I found my follow-up emails blocked. In saying all this, I do not mean any disrespect to Doctor Mack, whose accomplishment (with most of which I do disagree) is formidable, and whose reputation in the scholarly community is deservedly massive. I was grateful that he, holder of a PhD, would deign to correspond with a failed historian wannabe who held only a BA.
Hope Not Hype: One day reason and logic based problem solving will replace the three fingered discount. Fund what works (ends the problem) what lasts. Its a dream I have. :D
Amazing insight. What calms: Amazing insight. What calms my querying is that little note from John the Evangelist at the end of his Gospel that the whole world itself could not contain the books that would be written if they be written, as if to say, what makes its way to us today if enough and suited to our need and plenty enough to fill our thoughts and longings. But that's just me. Thanks for sharing. /Rik.
I don't think I could improve: I don't think I could improve upon Starward's well-deserved review (and any recognition by this fine poet and scholar is high praise), but I feel the need to add my impressions:
There are, very rarely, words that crystallize a life-altering moment that seems inexpressible with human language, but here they are, so pure and precise and immaculate that it's mystifying. How did they come to you? Perhaps I don't need to know.
All I know is that I felt something miraculous when I was seized by that last line . . . a simple line that lingered and blazed for a while, because it was that precious. Out of all the words to express love's indelible touch, its transformative power, you chose:
"that is how I came to be."
Love created you. Sigh . . .
Perfection. Perfection.