Extant...

"Words are alive.  But they are not alive as you are.  They do not know change, or age, or decay; their meaning does not drift.  There are no colloquialisms; they are absolutes. Once written, they persist." (Michele Sagara, Cast in Peril, p. 508)

I am about the start the last book in the series that I have already read.  Yes, there is a new book in the Chronicles of Elantra!  Oops.  Wait. I am about to start the second to the last book in the series that I have already read.  Crap.  I just checked.  I am three books away from that last book in the series that I have read.  Well, basically, I am close to that new book (book 12)!

Cast in Peril (book 8) and Cast in Sorrow (book 9) are sort of a matched set.  Kaylin sets out on a journey to the West March to hear the Regalia, a Barrani telling of a story using True Words.  Cast in Peril is the journey there and Cast in Sorrow is the telling.  When I was finishing the former last night I thought more the parallels between True Words and the Word of God.  Maybe parallels is not the right word.  It is just that when I read what Kaylin is learning about True Words and language, I often think about the Living Word.

The quote above resonates with me because I think that the crux of the problem with most approaches to the bible these days.  There is this idea that it is flexible in meaning rather than able to fit all life.  There is a Word for every moment of life because the Word is life.  But the meaning is resolute.  Firm.  It does not "change with the times."

Another passage that really struck me was when Kaylin was talking with the Element of Fire.  On the journey, she encountered beings that she (nor anyone else) understand as to what they are.  In the books, there are some buildings that were created by the Ancients and are sentient.  Many have avatars that can interact with the inhabitants.  In the West Woods, the Barrani have the Hallionne, safe havens that are sentient.  Sometimes the avatars are awake and sometimes they are slumbering, but even in sleep the buildings see to the needs of the inhabitants.

One of the avatars Kaylin meets has ... brothers.  Kaylin wakes them from their slumber that is not slumber.  They take the shape of Barrani, but are not Barrani.  They are not Hallionne either.  So Kaylin, when the opportunity arises, asks Fire if it knows what they are.  It is the fire's response that fascinates me:

     To the fire, she said, "Do you understand what he is?"
     Yes.
     "I don't suppose you could explain it?"
     How?  You might.  You explain me to myself.  Not the heart of me, not the essence of what I am—but all of the ways in which what I am can touch what you are.  It is only in those ways that I exist, for you, at all.  They are the same.  They exist to you only in the ways you perceive. (p. 444)

In this passage, I started thinking about God.  What we know of Him is who He is, but what we know of Him is not all that He is.  We err when we think that we know God, that we know all of God.  Not, of course, am I saying that God is merely an elemental.  Not at all.  But this idea that Kaylin only knows and interacts with only one small part of an elemental when she talks with Air, Fire, Water, or Earth is something that has come up before.  This was the first time one of them stated it so clearly.  And, in the telling, was a bit of an eye-opener, for me, regarding God.

And then there is a discussion that Kaylin has with one of the brothers, whom she has named Wilson. She is asking him about the marks that she sees on these stones.  She wonders if they are actually parts of a word somehow.  And asks:

     Why would it even be written this way?"
     She could feel his confusion. "Writen what way?"
     "When I write words—" She let that sentence trail off.
     "Yes," he replied.  "You have never written a word.  None of you have ever written a word.  You have heard words, Lord Kaylin; you have read them.  I believe you have even spoken them.  But you have not written them; you have always come to the language that is already extant." (p. 489)

I LOVE the idea that the language of True Words is already extant.  The Living Word is the same.  We cannot add to it or subtract from it.  We can hear it and read it and even speak it, but we can never write it because it already exists, because it has been written.  And written for us. 

Oh, how I love that I still discover new thoughts even though I have read through the series many times now.  Language is wonderful.  And the Living Word is an endless fountain of ineffable gifts.