Alpha-bet

There was a time when the world held untold mystique for me. That was before I learned to read. The cat. The cat sat. The cat. The rat. The cat sat on the mat. The cat ran. The rat ran. When letters were only abstract symbols on the page. Now the world is words, and meaning and questions, all made up of words. If there is an English word within my scope, I can read it. On signs, on billboards, on t-shirts, on the spines of books, on the written page. I can't not read. It has become as natural as breathing.

I can read in English and increasingly in French. Now, this semester, I begin the study of New Testament Greek. Tonight as I sit practicing the alpha-bet, everything is new again. Letters seem mere abstractions. The zeta and xi are like snakes in miniature, writhing from my pen. Tonight I can look at a page of written text from the book of John and recognize a few words here and there, but for the most part, meaning is still a mystery.

And the world holds wonder.