Things keep coming into being and falling into decay. The world is filled with ephemera and unavoidable transformations. Seasons change, the sun and the moon give way to each other, the dawn keeps sinking into a purple glow. Yesterday’s stars die and new ones are born. Every day the sky descends on the earth and the sea surges up. Winds blow and then die down; flowers suddenly bloom and soon fade away. Mountains crumble down and valleys rise. New abysses gape and new bridges are built. Tumultuous rivers of history bring clear water and continue on their way murky. Numerous couples unite in love and break up without it. Everyone, including us, come and leave, treading on this inescapable way. We float like a forgotten blossom on a lake, torn between the height of birth and the depth of death. Naked and unknown at the encounter, wrapped in a shroud and unrecognised at the departure.

It seems that the only thing that remains always challenging and exciting – in this world marked by infinite transformations of being – is the question concerning the meaning. It stands still in the horizon of the universe. It is nailed to the Northern Cross and veiled with a transparent haze. Like an ungranted cry of the earth and unfulfilled promise of heaven. Hidden behind the edge of tomorrow. Unpredictable. Causing anxiety. Open. Insecure. Like a most daring risk. Like an unfinished task demanding an answer. Demanding my and your words. Unheard song contemplating beyond harmonies. Unseen drawing trying to portray the Unportrayable. A bold venture and a heroic deed. The answer by each of us who wants to seek meaning and wants to be found in his quest. The meaning…

The Greek word Logos denotes everything mentioned above and much more: the Meaning of all meanings, the word that speaks about Him and the thought that thinks Him. Moreover, it raises our hopes and faith that we are granted this Meaning, as it were, in advance. That we are addressed through it, with it and in it, before we utter a word; that we are found, before we start seeking; that we are known, before we find knowledge. We are directed towards this anticipation not only by the oldest European tradition – i.e. from Heraclitus’ original intuition of Logos and Stoic Seeds through Philo’s driver of a heavenly chariot and the Word revealed to Hebrew prophets, to St. John’s Word that was in the beginning and Justin’s scattered Logos. We are encouraged in our hope not only by the birth of a Sparkle in the souls of medieval mystics and the Notion in the spiritual mirror of German idealists.

We are encouraged by our profoundest yearning, belonging to everyone of us. The yearning that, on one hand, drags us into dark abysses of unconsciousness, and, on the other, raises us upwards into azure abysses of transcendental. The yearning to convert from the apparent to the real virtue, from false to real infinity, from our own untruth to the Truth. The yearning that reaches far beyond every casual or binding discourse about the sense and nonsense. The yearning that finally also reaches beyond the final utterance of the Unutterable, towards Silence that rests in the heart of the Word of all words, where only prayer is possible…

This was the spirit that engendered this new electronic journal Logos which should also enable us on the internet to bear witness to Him who was recognised as the decisive Word of our lives. But this fragile electronic trace is not meant for ourselves only; on the contrary, we would also like to open the space for others, for those who have not yet found and adopted their decisive word, and are maybe just now staring at the monitor and yearning to be found and embraced by it. This journal would like to open a new space for the seekers and those susceptible to Meaning – however, our aim is not to eclectically melt but to create, as it is said in the constitution of the cultural and arts society KUD Logos, “a creative co-existence of different spiritual, ethical, intellectual and confessional identities, and to promote a dialogue between them”.

A similar wish joined some of us with our friends coming from Italy and those from other former Yugoslav republics a year ago at a symposium in Gorizia where we explored the topic “The Other Balkans”. We were surprised to find that, despite our openness to different spiritual and cultural views, there was incredible otherness to be found not only in the Balkans but also in ourselves and the contributors coming from our own environment. These differences were not mainly and primarily of political nature, but of spiritual, existential, ethical, mystical, trans-confessional and ecumenical nature. The aim of our gathering was not to achieve an international acclaim of the symposium but to enable an open dialogue creating “a new word for the Balkans and a new word for us”.

It seems that this word has finally found us and made its new way towards us, so that it would become more easily accessible to everyone who wants to participate in the creation of a meaningful culture and a crossroads of different spiritual traditions. Also to you, the reader of these lines. Thus, the journal is understood as an opportunity for all of us who want to liberate us from the traditional academic discourse and authoritative approach that always limits the number of voices and imposes certain hierarchy. A new approach which we shall try to implement does not want to be hierarchical, but, according to Clifford Bates from the University of Warsaw, horizontal; in fact, it attempts to accept every voice and language that sincerely wishes to participate in the creation of a new culture of meaning and meaningfully connect different spiritualities.

In particular, it shall embrace any spiritual thought found in the true philokalia, philology and philosophy, i.e. in contemplative and active love of Beauty, Logos and Wisdom. That basic orientation does not mean that the journal will focus only on elevated expression of inspired poetry, mysticism, thought, music, fine arts or theology, on the contrary, it will remain open to every serious and sincere attempt to express the real and not only apparent, virtual meaning. Indeed, it will remain open even to those who will show at least a will to express this real meaning. And that not only by publishing in this electronic journal but by living this basic decision in their everyday lives. Without this, the new Internet technology can easily turn us into virtuality itself. Therefore, the aim of this journal has to remain the same: i.e. to find its meaning in a concrete, real encounter of different spiritualities and in a living community. You are cordially invited to click your mouse and join us.

(Translated by Nike Kocijančič Pokorn)