"The principal characteristic of human beings is our role as bearers of consciousness, of intelligence — in a word, of the spirit. The spirit infuses the whole universe from its very beginning, but in human beings it becomes self-aware and free.
"The phenomenon that most particularly represents the spirit is human speech. Only humans, of all the higher beings, are endowed with language. We can even be defined as 'the speaking being,' as the Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana points out (El arbol del conocimiento, 1995). Speech recreates the whole universe of things, giving them names, codifying experience in phonetic and graphic symbols. In modern linguistics we can see the strict logic that regulates all language, even in the smallest child. We speak without needing to think about grammar and syntax.
"The spirit is especially present in the language of love, in the poetry of nature, and in the rhetoric of persuasion. At such times, discourse is more than speech. It is transformed into pathos, logos, eros, and ethos, that is, into realities that move us, inspire us, convince us, and motivate us to take action.
"In poetry the spirit irrupts as creation. Poets do not speak. They are spoken, by an inspiring energy that seizes their whole being. They sing life, they weep misfortune, they express secret experiences and reveal hidden intentions. They transform reality by means of metaphors and figures that evoke and bring life to amazing experiences.
"An artist takes a piece of wood, cuts it, shapes it, and draws out of it an image that transports us to other worlds by conveying feelings of beauty and admiration. It is the transfiguration of matter. Especially in dance, bodies are transformed into spirit by the lightness of their steps and the delicacy and elegance they evoke.
"But nothing shows the presence of the spirit in human life as well as love does. In love we seek to fuse our being with the 'other.' It is an act of unconditional self-giving that somehow resembles death, as it merges the identity of the 'I' and the 'thou.' When love is expressed as compassion, the spirit enables us to come out of ourselves, put ourselves in the other's place, bend over the person fallen by the wayside. In forgiveness we transcend ourselves, so that the past does not have the last word and cannot close off the present and the future.
"The highest expression of the spirit is the one that opens us to the Great Other, in love and trust. It establishes a dialogue with God, listens from the conscience to God's call, and delivers us trustingly into the palm of God's hand. This communion can be so intense, say the mystics of every tradition, that the soul of the beloved is fused with the Lover in an experience of nonduality; by grace we participate in God's very being. Here the human spirit is touching the hem of the Holy Spirit's garment."
