Metaphor and spirit
It’s almost impossible to speak of the divine except in metaphoric terms. All spiritual and religious thinking and writing is profoundly metaphoric, with metaphor and ‘literal truth’ intimately interwoven at multiple levels. In the New Testament, for example, the miracles of Christ can reasonably be seen as either literal truth or as metaphor – or, most frequently, both. ‘Metaphor’ here includes symbols, similes, stories, myths, allegories, parables… any instance of using one thing to represent another.
In the heyday of organised religion, before literacy was widespread, enormous energy was spent on agreeing shared metaphors and symbols. What colour should a priest’s robes be, on which day of the calendar? What imagery was appropriate in religious buildings? It was worth the time and energy because a metaphor can carry a lot of information in a powerful way, much more memorably than a ‘literal’ description.
For example, here’s another description of a Clean spiritual exploration. Stephen Cotterell, a trainer and consultant from Brighton, said: “This process is illuminating without being blinding, like being in a big, glowing ball. It’s like when you’re driving in fog, it’s as if the headlights are being reflected off a wall. But it’s an illusion of a wall, an edge – the edge isn’t really there and you can go beyond it.”
And speaking for myself, when I ask Clean Language questions in to guide a spiritual adventure, it’s as if I have a magic wand which I can use to stir up a person’s unconscious system. It acts like a prism on light, separating the colours of the rainbow so that the entire spectrum can be seen and appreciated. The wand adds nothing but attention and energy, and yet has the power to transform confusion into clarity.
As you read these descriptions, I wonder if you’ve begun to get a sense of what that experience might be like? I find that as I discover more about people’s metaphors for spirituality, I can ‘try them on’ for myself if they appeal. Often, I seem to see and experience something of the divine as I do so.
And at the same time, the person I am facilitating often experiences their spirituality more deeply, as the questions focus their attention on the most profound aspect of themselves, and beyond. The journey may be directed inwards, to their own ‘centre’ or ‘core’; outwards, encompassing the entire universe and beyond; or to a point of connection between themselves and the timeless, boundless ‘other’. And for many, the exploration involves a combination of these elements.
[...] Clean and Spirituality by Judy Rees, Resource Magazine, February 2008 [...]