Going back to Peter's opening post in this thread, I note that Lee seemed so concerned with "firstborn" v "only begotten" and needed to reconcile these (or use it to make some point not really found anywhere). This seems so trivial to me. While it might be technically true that an "only" cannot truly be a "first," we actually say things like this all the time.
We have the "first annual" whatever. Yes, there is a presumption of repetitions in the future. But at the time there is only the one.
I am now a grandfather. My grandson, now only a little over 6 weeks old, has been referred to as our "first" grandson many times. Yet, at this point, he is the only grandson, therefore no one against which a ranking can be made. But the acknowledgment of "first grandson" is not considered weird or meaningless because there is not a second.
I think that this is just exactly the kind of problem with so much of Lee's (and the LRC's) lexicon. It is treated as being special in and of itself. The actual truth that is the same no matter how it is described is not really in question. Instead, the way you say it becomes important.
"Two notes of the chord, that's our fluoroscope.
But to reach the chord is our life's hope.
And to name the chord is important to some.
So they give a word, and the word is [fill in the blank]."
The final word in this particular poem is irrelevant. The point is that this mantra is repeated over and over in the LRC concerning one peculiar word after another. I must refer to the Spirit as the "all-inclusive sevenfold intensified Spirit" or I have become degraded.
Hogwash.
That's decidedly
NOT a heavenly language.