We have seen that man can only begin to "read" the meaning of nature, when instead of merely copying and describing what he senses, he begins to apprehend it as a series of images symbolizing concepts. Now the word "imagination" has come to mean, for most people, the faculty of inventing fictions, especially poetic fictions; but in its deeper sense it signifies that very faculty of apprehending the outward form as the image or symbol of an inner meaning, for which we are looking. It is therefore not surprising that the first stirrings of a movement of thought in this direction should have occurred among those who interested themselves in the deeper significance of art, and especially of poetry. Thus it was held by Coleridge that the human imagination, at its highest level, does indeed inherit and continue the divine creative activity of the Logos (the "Word" of the opening verses of St. John's Gospel), which was the common origin of human language and consciousness, as well as of the world which contains them.

--- Owen Barfield

We read a quatrain:

this poem is lousy, yes / but it is mine / my creative act / a yelp for the world to hear

and we see something is very wrong. We listen to sermons like Dan Sweatt's and we hear the prating of a highly-esteemed crackpot. We observe the political consequences of these things and it gets even worse: we know we've awakened in a howling wasteland where words are useless and where only yelps and shrieks and moans and screams memorialize our terrors.

These are like a soundtrack for Dali's Temptation of St. Anthony.

And it is very difficult to sympathize. These people have brought this down on their own heads, and to find warring philistines singing the songs of Zion would be an odd surprise.

That peace—but who may claim it?
The guileless in their way,
Who keep the ranks of battle,
Who mean the things they say—
The peace that is for heaven,
And shall be for the earth;
The palace that re-echoes
With festal song and mirth;
The garden, breathing spices,
The paradise on high;
Grace beautified to glory,
Unceasing minstrelsy.

There are those whose first religious impulse to say whatever they want to say, and then there are those for whom the word is a true apprehension of meaning. Wouldn't it be so ironic to hear their judgment on their own lips?