Beyond the Word - An Awakening
Partly a scholarly treatise and partly autobiographical, Beyond the Word is completely visionary in its fresh, honest, and unapologetic appraisal of the universe as it touches on topics as diverse and as interrelated as religion, biology, anatomy, etymology, chemistry, physics, politics, astronomy, music, medicine, and philosophy. Ms. Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins uses her impressive knowledge of language to convey the readers to miraculous places where they may examine the limits of their personal belief systems. Written in a refreshingly frank and concise prose style, the text explains to the readers the deficiencies of biblical Hebrew and the problems that these deficiencies create in translations. The narrative describes the life of a young girl growing into an increasingly aware and enlightened woman during the tumultuous decades of the Viet Nam and Korean Wars. Many anecdotes describe the appearance, the sound, and the feel of transcendent spiritual experiences and their effects on the subject. When the readers are not being transported into the imagery of these visions, they are pausing to examine the true meanings of the assumptions that affect their own paradigms. As life experiences demonstrate increasing wisdom throughout the narrative, the readers feel motivated and optimistically encouraged to begin examining their own lives for deeper meaning Beyond the Word.
Review by Jim Hibberd
