Speaking as communion, and thus speaking with God, has become problematic in a culture soaked in superficial speech and content with surface skating relationships. So when it comes to speaking with God, and in God's name, it's hard to find a secure covenantal basis for words to create, sustain and nourish communion.
Walter Brueggemann has thought deeply on speech as communion and words as sacrament. Our lost capacity to speak with candour and trust makes the encounter with God a time replete with posssibility for renewal, when we can be renewed in the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit. And enabled again to speak, and commune with each other.
"We are always shocked that the massive sovereignty of God yields before us, and the suffering love of God demands so much. We can hardly endure the strange juxtaposition of sovereignty and grace: the sovereign one who is shockingly gracious, the gracious one who is stunningly sovereign. The shock of such a partner destabilises us too much. The risk is too great, the discomfort so demanding. We much prefer to settle for a less demanding, less overwhelming meeting. Yet we are haunted by the awareness that only this overwhelming meeting gives life".
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