(199-200) Works of Love
Part Two I
Love Builds Up
"But Love Builds Up." (I Corinthians 8:1)
When we speak about the spiritual
Our language must be metaphorical
We live inside our world that's physical
And must strive to make beliefs transferable
When we are born it's in a mode sensuous-psychic
We discover our spiritual mode in our maturity
The words modes share are forever basic
But differ greatly in their metaphoric clarity
The language modes used will seem the same
But in meaning they differ substantially
In the spiritual mode our words will gain
Some access to the divine reality
In this light the word "edify"
Becomes entirely and repeatedly renewed
When we say we "build up" to identify
It's with new meaning endlessly imbued
Once the phrase to build up is made transferable
It becomes more than ordinary speech
In the physical mode it sounds to height referable
Within the spiritual it expresses a greater reach
We cannot build up without building deep
To find strength we need a good foundation
In ourselves it's love structure we must keep
To build up comes from our love's creation
Metaphorical language must be understood
In the terms of Kierkegaard's discourse
If we want our words to express the good
We must know what they do endorse