List of Ancient Words (universal)

LIST OF ANCIENT WORDS

Paleo-Philologists have accumulated a list of ultra-conserved words, projecting an ancestral language, extended well into 15,000 years of usage.  

Certain core concepts have been with us, always: Resonant, blunt, unadorned, concrete, descriptive. And see if you are surprised by any of them, especially the last one.

I,

not,

That,

We,

To give,

Who,

This,

What,

Man/male,

Ye /you

old,

mother,

To hear,

Hand,

Fire,

to pull,

Black,

To flow,

Bark,

Ashes,

To spit,

Worm  - surprised? Clue that we used to eat them.

Grubs are more delicious than beetles

Which are abundant and everywhere.

EXERCISE: 

Write poem, using these 23 words.

EXAMPLE:

Who gives not to old Mother,

That hears the hand of fire

Pulled black flowing from the flame

That men spit into?

Feel free to post your "Religious Autobiography" in the Comments

 Religious Autobiography.  

[Reflect on your past religious experience, including the most significant spiritual event/influence in your life, the role of a redeemer/Christ in your religious experience, your involvement in service, and your reason(s) for attending your church/temple/mosque/forest/desert. (minimum 250 words; maximum 500 words]

Religious Autobiography

Christian Experience

Born again.  In beginning was Word.  And translation issues.  Not born with language.  Baby picks up used tongue and puts in mouth[TK2] . Was third child of missionaries living in Aztec village about 60 miles and 400 years outside Mexico City.  Spoke Spanish, Nahuatl, and English, and none of them.  Father said learn to speak by Grace.  Mother said learn to read by Bible.  Experience constant miracles.

Moved to Bolivia, grew up in tropical jungle of Amazon delta. Visits to  Andes, Pampas, and flights to Mexico City, Guatemala, United States.  Intermittent attendance in public schools of Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas and California.  Sunday schools in synod–approved Presbyterian Bible Schools. Eagle Scout. Music for worship in over 100 Churches. Music creates ecumenical outlook. 

Spiritual experience

Every thought. Thoughts are God to a child always in His Hand.  Could not separate from His Presence, and never so inclined. Listening to others.  Began to understand Power of Prayer.

Learned of Ancient Egyptian civilization.  Now-lost lineages of Pharaoh took up Trinitarian God. Sons of women claimed to be Sons of God, prepared for Eternal Life.  Pharaohs believed Thoughts constituted evidence of divinity: “I think, therefore I am”.

When 17 years old in 1968, traveled  States, living off kindness of strangers and playing music.  Found little “chaos” and rebellion often described now of then.  Found constant generosity and kindness.  Huddled against cold nights, experienced ecstasies and out-of-body visions. (Recently, during hospitalization, saw “Heaven” clearly).  Hard-wired.

Drafted in last month of Vietnam era Draft. (Mexico and US universal Draft). Found, repeatedly, importance of Chapel to Soldiers.  So often facing displacement, boredom and death.

Role of Christ

Limned clearly in earliest Joban literature, great crying need for Redeemer, leitmotif of Whole Story. Christ, exemplar and Numen. Transgression against Name of Iesus Christo brings tear to eye. Message of love, is clear. Why rejected?

Involvement in Christian Service

Led Bible Studies in Claremont College. Before graduating from University of San Diego, began to build Church. Struggled for decades in Ramona.  Supported by farming, soldiering (300^th Armor, National Guard), music, and construction. Passed Bar Exam, became Director of law firm with 29 employees.  Service-connected injury lit up deterioration and partial disability.  Led counseling programs for Veterans and their families. Lobbied in Washington DC.

With wife, tried to adopt orphans.  When political economy collapsed in Summer of 2008, clients gone. And Church still not built.  Lost health, peers, property, pride and hopes for family.

Failed so many ways, feels like success. Failure made us free.  Wife close, still have garden home with library. Continuing quietly “in service”.

Reason(s) for attending your Church

This Light beams me toward Unitarian Universalism:  Its creed adopts Christic exemplar.

---

 [TK2]OR We must pick up a tongue before we crawl.  

Quote: Goethe - words have been exchanged, now take action!

Der Worte sind genug gewechselt,
lasst mich auch endlich Taten sehn!

  The words are exchanged,
now at last show me what you can do! (Goethe, Faust I)

Climbing - vocabulary

Definitions / words to help keep the climb in perspective. Note that climbing or exploring, like culinary activities, is dominated by French words:


Apparel - Outside, a durable, breathable, alpine soft shell with moisture-shedding doubleweave polyester, glued seams and stretch. Inside, wool, with layers of cotton.

Ascension - Ideal term for describing the upward climb. Contrast with "the Fall".

Big Wall - said of climbing a rock face.

Bivouac / bivouacked - temporary pitching of tent, with an intention that it is a place of rest and protection in the course of an ordeal. What is usually abandoned in the "last ditch descent".

Bottleneck - a geological feature that limits passage to a tricky and dangerous passage. On the Abruzzi route on K2, the B. is a 60-degree couloir at 27,100 feet.

British Paratroopers on Mt.McKinley (qv) climb - On June 4, 1998, a 10-man team of British soldiers set out to climb Mt.McKinley. The rangers at Talkeetna recommended the West Buttress (Grade 2), because some team members had no experience with glacier crossings and ice climbing. The rangers also told them to acclimatize for several days at 16,200 feet. The team ignored the outsider advice (see Groupness qv). They chose to climb the West Rib (Grade 4), and attempted to summit after only one day, and split the group 7 times in rescues required in attempting a highly technical finish. Found themselves on the mountain for three weeks, partially exposed in wet bivouc bags during bad weather.

Climber's Elbow - tendinits of the Medial Epicondyle (qv). Can be prevented with stretching and strengthening of the forearm.

Couloir - a deep gorge, where a gorge is a deep gulley. The big drop.

Everest - [None of the local names were established before British scientists named it after one of their own who had himself made every effort to use local names -- but see also Sagarmatha (Nepali: सगरमाथा), Chomolungma or Qomolangma (Tibetan: ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ) or Zhumulangma (Chinese: 珠穆朗玛峰 Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng)]– the highest mountain on Earth, as measured by the height above sea level of its summit, 8,848 metres (29,029 ft - first established by theodolites, then in 1999 by GPS unit embedded in the rock). The mountain, which is part of the Himalaya range in High Asia, is located on the border between Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal, and Tibet, China. 3,681 aspirants have summitted, with a death toll of 210. Note K2 is 4 times more dangerous -- qv.

Fixed ropes - clip lines and rappels anchored to the rock or with ice screws left in place by previous teams.

Frostbite - with hypothermia, frozen body tissue. Usually to ears, nose, fingers/hands, legs and feet. Appendages may be visibly curled, dysfunctional. Regarding the 2006 David Sharp controversy, although still living, he was climbing solo and already suffering from severe frostbite when first located by other teams ascending Everest.

Groupness - the downfall of many a good corporation and climbing team. Study by MIT Sloan showing relationship between how long a group has been together and how well it communicates with outsiders. New groups perform better than older groups which become insular and technically dysfunctional over time. Example: 1998 British paratroopers set out to climb McKinley, Alaska (qv.)

Hard go - a difficult climb or descent; cf. the euphemism, "highly technical climb".

K2 - 28,250 feet, in Pakistan's Karakoram Range, a much harder and deadlier peak than Everest. August 1, 2008 saw 11 climbers killed on the Abruzzi Ridge. First ascent was in 1954. By 2007, only 284 climbers had summitted, while 66 died trying.

Medial Epicondyle - inside of the elbow. Used to describe flat ridge leading up to a rock face.

Motivator - The dangerous condition on the climb, such as an oncoming storm, or a geological feature such as an overhanging serac above a bottleneck.

Rappel - a descent of a vertical cliff or wall made by using a doubled rope that is fixed to a higher point and fastened to the body.

Road - "A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be, to where it is futile to go." - A. Bierce.

Prolotherapy Injections - Anti-anti-inflammatory: re-ignites the natural anti-inflammatory response with injection of glucose. Note that anti-inflammatory drugs reduce pain, but impede healing, by stifling the flow of regenerative proteins or even blood supply to damaged areas.

Serac - A pinnacle of ice among the crevasses of a glacier; also, one of the blocks into which a glacier breaks on a steep grade.

Sloughed off -- as when a serac that had hung in place for decades suddenly collapses off the mountain, and may cover the trail with freshly broken impedimenta. May refer to the natural removal of fixed ropes you counted on.

Summit - reach the top.

Technical - euphemism for a climbing difficulty.

Top out - reach the top.

Death in the Family, and the living Word undone

In the troubling history of our troubled peoples, many of the dead would return to speak to the living. We were not wanting for mediums and priests to describe the presciptions of the dead for our comforts and fears.

For whatever reason, with the advent of science the heretofore voluble dead fell silent; none speak. The faith-based mediums replaced by befuddling media. As if by strange coincidence, as the means of recording and verifying became available, all messages and voices across the barrier of death became unavailable.

Death now seals the lips of the dead. One suspects that this has always been the case. Yet there is the ancient residue left by tradition. And we long to hear what the dead have to say, perhaps with far more patience than we have for the words of the living.

Choice - choosing the Chooser

There are many perfectly helpful concepts for which we have no "word". There are many words we actually use, but which have lost all usability; they no longer "apply". Choice is clearly a residual "word" used by people who no longer believe in the concept. Or we do "believe", but we understand that the "chooser of the chooser", or the chemistry of desire, and the inner embedded story-teller, are all things that negate or neutralize the concept of "choice". It is of no consolation that the concept of "belief" is also horning the dilemma of our sit.

I want to suggest that the brain/personality is up to the task of finding "choice". Do not let yourself off this hook: You are choosing your life. Look at the exceptions that prove rules. And those desires -- how many of us would lose a head if our dreams were judged? How bitter, how salted, how merciless are our whims. Are they to be irresistable as well?

We are inside our story. Still, that next page is blank. There is really no law, no chemistry inside, and no judge, no tyrant, which can force the ending. Who knows.