I love to feel where words come from . . .
His name was Papunehang. Although I have always had difficulty pronouncing and spelling his name correctly, his words spoken over two hundred years ago have had a lasting effect on my spiritual life. As the story goes, the eighteenth-century Quaker John Woolman felt "led of God" to travel among the American Indians in western Pennsylvania. On that incredible journey, Woolman's physical life was in constant danger. Upon arrival in a certain Native American village, Woolman invited some of the inhabitants, Chief Papunehang among them, to sit in silence and worship with him. At the close of this time that Quakers would call silent waiting upon God, Papunehang turned to Woolman, and through an interpreter said, "I love to feel where words come from."
The story is a classic in Quaker circles. The spoken words of Chief Papunehang reach into the heart and soul of what meditative silence can do and mean. Within that feeling, words are expressed, both inwardly and outwardly, and transformation occurs. As a form of spiritual expression, words by themselves are imperfect, and feelings unexpressed repress our souls. But when feeling and word combine, we reach into the souls of one another, and spoken and unspoken words are shared. In such reflective silence, we become spiritually aware, and being spiritually aware, we become self-aware and socially aware of our human interconnectedness.
I have been asked on numerous occasions, "How do you define spiritual?" Good question. For me, the word is elusive and difficult to define fully. This mysterious quality is important, and I believe the word will always elude capture and exact definition. Our human vocabulary needs such words, words that are always just beyond our grasp, in a region where we travel more by faith (another elusive word) than by sight, more by experiential feeling than by logical reason. And so, when I use the word spiritual or spirituality, all those who are travelers and seekers in the mysterious realm of faith will understand what is meant, but not fully. All our experiences in this realm are unique to those experiencing them.
Words can provoke life stories and experiences where, upon reflection, we can track the guidance of the Inner Light. To feel words, rather than defining them intellectually, or merely using them as a form of verbal or written communication, is to begin the process of connecting with that Divine Center that resides within each of us, and out of which we are moved into the realm of transforming spiritual growth. Words are not the experiences, but they can be one means to take us there.
When separated from our spiritual Center, words can be hurtful and spiritually destructive. We all know what it is like to be the perpetrator of careless, hurtful language, or to be on the receiving end of a verbal attack. However, there are words when spiritually felt that can take us to that inner sanctuary where Chief Papunehang could feel "where words come from." We can experience spiritual growth through the spirituality of expression: one cannot read the Beatitudes and not feel them spiritually. One cannot read Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech and not be moved spiritually.
An old Chinese proverb says, "Words are the keys to the heart." This sentiment was certainly true for Papunehang. In spiritual silence, words that are "keys to heart" are formed. And when we have learned through the discipline of silent waiting how to feel where words come from, we can experience how we are being quietly taught by the ways of the Living God.