In and out of Consciousness...

On my plane ride back to Phoenix today after quite a lovely Thanksgiving break, I was determined to catch up with my reading on "The Power and the Glory" - and by hook or by crook no one (and no other book now that I have finished most of the Narnia series - yay children's books!) was going to stop me.

I was even ready to give up a window or aisle seat if my overhead light didn't work.

I'll admit I was on the brink of constantly falling into sleep, but the overload of coffee and coke (at separate times, of course) kicked in to keep me awake overall.

Ok, here goes...

To preface, I sometimes have difficulty analyzing literature at deeper levels, so bear with my connections and discussions.

Here is one part that stood out in reading the very beginning of Part II (p. 70 in my edition):

"...Oh it is easy to say all the things that there will not be in heaven: what is there is God. That is more difficult. Our words are made to describe what we know with our senses..."
(This part comes directly after he is talking about not being able to enjoy things without first denying the self of them - in experiencing something only in relationship to something else - or lack thereof.)

If you think about it, though, most things are much easier to talk or think about in relation to something else - e.g. Warmth could be thought of as the absence of cold. (I guess that's not really deep, is it?)

I pose, though, this question - Can you think of anything or any situation in which our words do not describe what we know with our senses? Or, in other words, is there a time when things can truly be understood in the absolute sense?

(If this is still not making sense, I apologize for my near delirium now that the caffeine has lost its effects.)



Oh, and for those of you visual learners unfortunate enough to never make it to a desert climate, I have included a picture of a cactus below. (Maybe that could earn me some bonus points?)