On, About, & Concerning Prepositions

I intended to write about mixed drinks, following a prompt of my friend Nik. However, I chose instead to have a (dirty) gin martini and write about whatever topic captivated my attention following said consumption. Thus this essay, as with many other writings, began in the original dynamic duo of inspiration: friendship & spirits.

In fourth grade, my teacher offered .5 points of extra credit for each preposition that we could list from memory on our test. I remember this moment distinctly as the first & only time I earned 122 points on a test. To this day I may still, from time to time, run through my alphabetical list of prepositions to keep my mind sharp. The list begins with aboard & ends with without. If you know of any prepositions that begin with the letter 'z', please comment below as I am always adding to the list!

Later as I studied languages like Hebrew, Greek, Spanish, & German, I discovered the vitality & necessity of prepositions in all languages. I remember asking my friends who studied Biblical languages what the hardest part of their major was. "Prepositions," they answered. The subtleties of meaning, especially in Koine Greek, hinge on the relationships a preposition conjoins in a sentence. I mean, prepositions may be the difference between life & death. If Jim is aboard the plane, then he is happy & safe, though likely also crammed if he flies coach. If Jim is above the plane, then he will be remarkably less happy & horribly unsafe. He would have more leg room, however.

The ways we connect words & ideas matter. John Caputo, a contemporary philosopher of religion, wrote a book called Philosophy & Theology. His thesis was brilliantly simple: throughout all the history of philosophy & theology, the two great pillars of Western civilization, the most important word of the three is and. For Caputo, philosophy & theology only remain coherent & helpful when they occur together. When they are divorced, theology transforms into tyranny & philosophy dissolves into abstractions unrelated to the cares of people who live on the ground. While I hold reservations regarding Caputo's interpretation of the history between philosophy & theology, I heartily affirm his central thesis.

Now to be fair, 'and' is a conjunction, not a preposition. But insofar as conjunctions conjoin ideas, concepts, words, & people they still point to a kind of relationship. In Western civilization, we tend to fall into relationships of 'or'. Republicans or Democrats. Friends or enemies. Carolina or Clemson. Gin or vodka (the answer is gin, always gin). Even the gradations many appeal to still imply the two extremes which form a spectrum. Grey still stands between black & white.

Insofar as prepositions & conjunctions appeal to the relationships of words & concepts, they may prove illuminating when we consider the words we use to describe our human relationships. To be 'with' someone may imply anything from proximity to dating. To be 'for' someone implies a kind of commitment or affirmation. To be 'aboard' someone....sounds like sketchy.

My generation is quick to affirm being for a cause or person, against injustice, all about vaping (to my eternal dismay). We grow ever hasty to define our relationship to ideas, celebrities, movements, hashtags, & brands. And to our credit, many stand tentative to the tired disjunctives which readily encroach upon nuance, subtlety, & a richly lived life. But when I look to those I believe possess a kind of wisdom, I often find their insight concerns the ways things relate to one another. For example, a mentor noted that since the beginning of the #MeToo movement, pornography has not been a part of the conversation. "It seems foolish to leave pornography out of issues regarding harassment, sexism, & the like. The desire to fulfill a kind of deeply human community on a computer screen or magazine might factor into the kind of men who treat women like objects for them to wield their power on."

I am often guilty of thinking of myself as some sovereign individual who needs relationships only insofar as they allow me to do things I couldn't do alone. But the reality is, the human situation is one of dependance. From birth to death we depend on those in our world to survive, thrive, & become who we ought to be. Thus to understand how things relate may look like understanding & accepting a more fundamental dependance. Perhaps if we embraced this dependance, we would not be so hasty with the messiness of relationships, both in concepts & in community.

So for you & I, we would do well to not only memorize prepositions & conjunctions, but to also understand what ideas we are relating. Just as philosophy & theology ought not be separated, there are concepts, people, & realities we cannot hold into two different worlds. Compartmentalization is not categorization. Compartmentalization is not community. Prepositions concern relationships, and in a related way, so should we.