This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Truth, not in distinct and clear-cut definitions but in the limpid obscurity of a single intuition that unites all dogmas in one simple Light, shining into the soul directly from God’s eternity, without the medium of created concept, without the intervention of symbols or of language or the likeness of material things. Here the Truth is One Whom we not only know and possess but by Whom we are known and possessed. Here theology ceases to be a body of abstractions and becomes a Living Reality Who is God Himself.
Body | Eternity | God | Intuition | Language | Light | Obscurity | Obscurity | Reality | Soul | Theology | Truth | God |
Children seem to learn to talk by inventing their own words and rules: by experimenting with language. Children make statements to adults and then wait for adults to put the statements into adult language so they can make a comparison… If the adult says nothing or simply continues the conversation, the child assumes his or her utterance is correct. When adults “correct” – that is, expand in adult language what the children have said – they are providing feedback. The adult and the child are actually speaking different languages, but they understand the situation, the child can compare their different ways of saying the same thing.
Children | Conversation | Language | Nothing | Words | Child | Learn | Understand |
A linear medium cannot represent the simultaneity of processing that goes on in the brain – the mixture of language and image, the intimation of diverging possibilities that we experience as free will. It cannot capture the secrets of organization by which the inanimate somehow comes to life, by which the neural passageway becomes the thought.
Experience | Free will | Language | Life | Life | Organization | Thought | Will |
Dean Rusk, fully David Dean Rusk
One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears – by listening to them.
Healing depends on listening with the inner ear - stopping the incessant blather, and listening.
Our language is primarily for expressing human goodness and beauty.
Frans de Waal, fully Franciscus Bernardus Maria "Frans" de Waal
It is safe to assume that the actions of our ancestors were guided by gratitude, obligation, retribution, and indignation before they developed enough language capacity for moral discourse.
Capacity | Enough | Gratitude | Indignation | Language | Obligation | Safe |