Do not make an idol for yourself – no form whatsoever – of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to them or worship them…

Exodus 20.4-5 (CEB)

First, we act. Grasp, walk, touch, taste. Then, we sign. “Grasp, walk, touch, taste.” Signs bring us closer; they pull us further apart. I can now say: “here’s what I mean.” To say, I must be one step removed. First, we’re flesh. Grasp, walk, touch, taste. Then, we’re bodies. “Grasp, walk, touch, taste.” Bodies come together and come apart. We are languaging bodies (bodies languaging), we wave across the deep. Some waves pull us close and some waves separate. Idolatry takes us away from each other.

We learn to sense by sharing at birth, the gift of care-to-flesh. The body clarifies the flesh, makes it legible ({2,1,3}). Our sense cosmos forms by successive interactions that congeal into coherence (this sense-contingency → this actuality). Coherence is qualitative harmony, the world a plane of harmonies punctured with riffs, gaps, and discord. Harmonies group together into signs, generating, reproducing, accumulating. Symbols are dense signs; narratives are dense symbols. I can now say: “here’s what happened.” To say what happened, I must be two steps removed. Signs emerge from the un-speakable essence, energies emanating up from Adonai. The logos is God’s speaking-to-us, hallowed by Thy name. The inner home is unknowable; only energy is known. God comes to know herself by the light of her creatures. I know.

We want to tell our ancestors hello and our descendants goodbye. We bury generational memories in our language. Generational memory is contested ground. I can now say: “let me tell you a story.” To tell a story, I must be three steps removed. The human species-being is imago Dei, joining in the rhythms of creation by expressing Being-itself in Being-being-itself, Being-Unique. In the beginning was the Word. Names emerge from the un-speakable essence, signs emanating up from Self. Language is self-talk. I am that I am. History is the diary of the human species-being, Being-knowing-itself. Being knows itself by generational memory. Generational memory is contested ground. Idolatry takes us away from each other.

The future is open but clouded with symbols. Prophecy moves backward-and-forth, speaking in signs the un-speakable. Prophecy always speaks against idolatry; one moves us closer, the other further away. The incarnation is a proleptic revelation of the union of God and creation in self-knowing joy, somewhere we will arrive someday, someday someday when the waves bring us home. Free will is ours by the grace of God, God’s willing-us in our Being-Unique, that all shall be saved though we tarry. Hell is being lost; heaven is knocking on the door. Eventually, all souls come home, though some spend a long time apart. Idolatry takes us away from each other. The communion of bodies in time emanates meaning, the cosmos is erotic consummation.

As there is no firm foundation for the love of our brethren, except the love of God, so there is no possibility of loving God, except we keep ourselves from idols.

John Wesley, Sermon LXXXIII: On Spiritual Idolatry