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I'm very fond of all the diversity of faiths and religions we have to share with each other and in those moments of sharing it never fails to amaze me when I realize we are expressing an under laying "sameness" but using different words, thoughts and metaphors to express it. All the patients and efforts of listening to each other until we get to that recognition of a hidden likeness that connects us to each is worth more than gold! Having experienced these moments and the profound gifts that we get from them I have been drawn back to the biblical story in Genesis 11, "The Tower of Babel" and I am left asking what was so wrong with having one language and one speech? And what is wrong with a collective joint effort to build something together?
After reading many commentaries and listening to many versions of "the wrong" I could not be satisfied with it was "sinful people" and the all so bad "ego self" that corrupted this language and speech with their self serving acts. So I have turned to the one source I'm coming to trust, "that still small voice" that remains inside and I'm asking for answers to be poured out from the heart...
To read the story of Babel my first question was "what is the word language referring to?"
I was surprised to find that it is referring to "lips, brinks, (banks, shore, edge of sea, cup, river) binding, etc...
(Thus: lips are the edge of a sea of words)
Speech?
Surprised again, it refers to saying, utterance, matters, acts, commands, thing, something, etc...
(Thus: speech is referring to the one certain matter or idea)
The phrase "Go to" in the story means give, give to, grant, permit and ascribe, etc...
So now I can see that these people were asking for everyone/each other to ascribe to a set boundary of one idea that they would build together.
The outer building of this idea and concept would be memorialize in a tower, but the tower would be built inside a city (the boundaries *the language*)...they were not just building a tower but a city also...
What does the word city refer to? Here is the "Did you know!"
The word in the story that was translated as city actually means
"excitement, anguish
a) of terror
I have often wondered what would have happened if everyone had ascribed to the Dec. 2012 doomsday hype?
And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
The awe-verwhelming part to this story is when I realized that the Lord confounded their language (lips/city) but not their speech (the central common idea/tower) and what's more they only left off building the city (terror) but not the tower...
Be Blessed
