THE DOT

My fourth-grade teacher made a single, round mark on the board as he stood in front of the classroom. “A dot is the end point, like the hole in a garden hose,” he explained. “If you tip the dot sideways, it becomes a line that runs on a plane forever.”

Thus was my mind first opened to the notion of infinity.

For a graduate school project in 1999, I “curated” an art show by Elma Eidse Neufeld named AMATE:LOVE! and wrote the guidebook, which begins:

Unspoken, then pronounced by the First Speaker, the invisible Logos took on form, became seen. The seed of all symbols, the dot is the innermost essence of the visual, the contact point between Creator and created, the touch of the finger of God. It is the spot at which pencil meets paper, the genesis of art and the germination of the written word.  Like warm breath on a frosty windowpane, it creates an aperture onto the cryptic world of imagery.

This morning while reading a devotional commentary by the late Donald Grey Barnhouse, I contemplated the idea of a single word functioning like that dot on the chalkboard, that melted spot on the window–a written word acting as the visual cross-section of an idea that leads to eternity. The author’s point was that the concept behind the particular word he was considering (“righteousness,” appearing first in Genesis 15:6) continues on in “every page and in every line” of the Bible–from righteousness as an attribute of the Almighty, through the loss of righteousness in Lucifer and mankind and its manifestation and re-establishment through Christ, to its ultimate, yet-to-be-seen triumph in all creation. Of course, the author was describing what we call a theme or motif–something I’ve been writing about for a couple of years now (see MOTIFS).

A single word, as the written symbol of an idea, can thread its way from today all the way to forever. 

I’m currently drafting my second novel. It’s in pretty rough form right now as I’m concentrating on plot and character development; I’ll take time later to refine word choice. But one word that keeps popping out at me in this novel is home, which pings all sorts of emotions for me. It speaks of childhood comfort at the family table and coziness before the fireplace, of anticipation when I left for school, of joy in new life with my rancher husband, of great satisfaction as I watch my children establish their own homes. Mostly, it brings to my heart a sort of longing for the eternal.

What word threads its way through your life? Share it with me here, please!