Fragment -- #52

[10/1996 journal entry] A reality that transcends the human is essentially without or beyond language, forms, institutions. I would argue that symbols (1) must serve to awaken a spiritual experience (past or present) and (2) should arise from within the experience of those sharing in that to which the symbol points and which the symbol opens. Corollaries are (1) that such language, forms, and institutions should be permitted to fade/die as well as be born and (2) that no competitiveness should occur about such symbols. As examples of such symbols, see Bonhoeffer’s reference to the gift of Barth’s cigar and his references to ‘the parcel’ in the prison correspondence