I started reading Madeleine L’Engle’s book The Rock That Is Higher : Story as Truth. It’s decent, but it’s not quite as focused on story-theory type stuff as I was hoping. It’s actually much more about using Bible stories and stuff like that as a guide in your life. Not quite my cup of tea, but I think my mom will really like it, so I may give it to her.

Anyway, L’Engle talks a TON about the Bible in it, and quotes a million different things. So that was on my mind tonight when I sat down at my computer and put on my mp3 player. The first track that came up was the Beatles “The Word“.

Say the word and you’ll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I’m thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It’s so fine, It’s sunshine
It’s the word, love
In the beginning I misunderstood
But now I’ve got it, the word is good
Spread the word and you’ll be free
Spread the word and be like be
Spread the work I’m thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It’s so fine, It’s sunshine
It’s the word, love
Every where I go I hear it said
In the good and bad books that I have read
Give the word a chance to say
That the word is just the way
It’s the word I’m thinking of
And the only word is love
It’s so fine, It’s sunshine
It’s the word, love
Now that I know what I feel must be right
I’m here to show everybody the light
Say the word and you’ll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I’m thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It’s so fine, It’s sunshine
It’s the word, love

With my mind still on weird religious topics, I immediately connected this to the Christian habit of referring to Jesus as the Logos - The Word. From John 1:1…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jesus is also referred to as “the Word made flesh“. I don’t think it’s any great stretch to see something in this song. Especially since how he talks about the “word” being love, and that whole thing in John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Plus he talks above about showing the way, and there’s that part in John 14:6 where Jesus says something to the effect of “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The whole thing also makes me think more about how Philip K. Dick talks in both VALIS and Radio Free Albemuth about how this divine intelligence contacts people like authors and singers and stuff in order to have them put in subliminal messages into their work and songs.

Sure this sort of connection-making is a flight of fancy, but its a fun one. Tieing things together for me is always more productive than separating them. And more than that, I prefer to look at it as comparative mythology, taking old stories and seeing how they vibrate when superimposed onto newer ones. I’m also halfway inclined to think that John Lennon was into this sort of thinking. I found a page with some pretty cool quotes by him. Here are some of the ones I like the most:

- I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?

- I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

- Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

- Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.

- Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s hip not to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.

- You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.