The Labyrinth, Postmodernity and Ritual

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Narrowspeak vs Wholespeak

Poet Les Murray contrasts the terms 'narrowspeak' and 'wholespeak' to elucidate his thinking on ways of talking about God. He suggests that in recent times (modernity) God talk has been severely reduced to narrowspeak, the voice of reason, rational and didactic ways of talking, the discourse of prose. It's a language that has to make sense, be explained, and that everybody can understand. Wholespeak in contrast is a poetic discourse, mystical speech, a language which is 'truly dreamed'.

This is very similar to Walter Brueggemann's appeal to the church to rediscover poetry rather than prose. Both argue that the church needs to rediscover wholespeak or poetry, rather than feeling obliged to adopt the language of modernity. We might call this the 're-enchantment of speech', speech that is in the language of the imagination, that recognises the importance of symbols, images, myth, metaphors, music, the arts.

Creative imagination, rather than some supposedly objective, rationally specifiable procedure that lies outside the domain of personal knowledge, is the key to knowing reality. The truth is contained in symbols and the symbols are materially embodied. That is, it seems to me, a corollary of the incarnational and sacramental character of Christianity.

This may be overstating the case. It is highly probable that speech about God in prose resonated in modernity, it was an appropriate contextualisation and in any contextualisation you gain some things and lose others. I suspect this is equally the case with 'wholespeak'. Nonetheless, it does succinctly capture the strategic way of talking about God employed in the Labyrinth. Both the words of the meditations and the whole experience are full of imagination, artistic endeavour, in images, symbols and metaphors that are evocative of the Holy, but always suggesting that our speech is an inadequate vehicle for describing or capturing the Otherness of God.

The significance of the arts, the parallel between the Labyrinth and an art installation perhaps lies here. This speech is intuitive to those producing the Labyrinth, but it is also a language that resonates with many of the spiritual seekers in postmodern times.

Whereas a large section of the contemporary church appears to be increasingly content with the pre-packed truths of a certain type of Christian exposition, the modern secular imagination, when it turns to religion, is more willing to linger with the different dimensions to religious awareness afforded by things like candles, icons, silence, Gregorian chants and hints of mysticism.