“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21 (ESV)
The Greek word for ‘treasure’ here is actually thesaurus (θησαυρός). A familiar meaning of ‘thesaurus,’ and primary for many people, is that it is a book, or database, filled with words and their synonyms. Hana Videen used a different word with a similar meaning in her book The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English 1, which defines the rarely used Old English term wordhord as a “word-hoard… a hoard or store of words” (2022, 15-16), and she expands the meaning by calling it “…a metaphor for the collection of words and phrases a poet memorized and drew upon for their craft” (2022, 17).
As researchers and librarians, we also have a craft and create a trove of key terms to explore a topic or a research question. Librarians, use the expanded definition for the term in which we think of a thesaurus as an alphabetical index that communicates preferred terms along with broader, narrower, and related terms within various subject-specific collections. Controlled vocabularies and cross-referencing are a treasure to researchers as to navigate the complexity of language and the in-depth study of their topics. Examples of such thesauri treasures may be the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, CINAHL Headings, the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, or the ATLA Religion Database – Subject Thesaurus.
Recently, as I worked with a student who wanted to examine the idea of “desire as a clue to the existence of God,” we first brainstormed possible terms to use in addition to ‘desire.’ We came up with a simple list of words such as yearning, craving, waiting, seeking, need, want, hunger, or thirst. We also thought about the impetus behind the story of every fiction book or film, namely, the motive or the motivations of the protagonists and antagonists. This, too, was connected to desire.
We then began to use some subject thesauri (or thesauruses, if you prefer) to expand our preliminary searches and our thinking about the topic. The subsequent results were illuminating. Going beyond ‘desire’ and the myriad of synonyms, we then also explored phrases and words that need context to connect them to the idea of desire. We thought of a few works that came to mind in which the idea is described in unique language, such as C.S. Lewis in The Four Loves2, where he called it ‘Need-Love.’ Or Carolyn Arends, who called it ‘reaching3’ in her song of the same title. Or Mark Dorn in his book Life on the Road4, when he called it ‘longing and pilgrimage.’
And let’s not forget some of the Biblical references, such as ‘groaning’ in Romans 8:26, ‘panting’ in Psalm 42:1, and ‘eagerly seeking’ in Matthew 6:32, Luke 12:30, and Hebrews 11:14. Some English versions use ‘desire’ for Hebrews 11:16, but an interlinear version renders it “they stretch forward to.” What a picture! Worthy of being in the Sistine Chapel! Oh, wait, it is…
Jesus says in our text that ‘your treasure,’ in essence, is where ‘your heart’ is. The context of this passage is all about our heart’s desire, that is, what or who we trust in, how we see reality, what or who we bow to, what moves us, what or who gets our pathos, our priorities, our anxieties, really, all the motivations of our life.
What about my research student? Was she able to answer her question? Isn’t this how student/patron interactions usually work out? They hopefully take away some of the ‘treasure’ as you’ve shared some new places and ways to dig. They are learning how to seek and what quality or value to look for. Every once in a while, you get to see the completion of their research journey, but even if you don’t, you are motivated because your heart is in the right place. And what a treasure that is.
1. Hana Videen, The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English (Princeton University Press, 2022), 15-17.
2. C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Harcourt, Brace, 1960).
3. Carolyn Arends, “Reaching,” recorded 1995, track 6 on I Can Hear You , Reunion Records, compact disc.
4. Mark Dorn, Life on the Road: Longing and Pilgrimage on the Way to God (Sound the Trumpet Publishing, 2022).
Joren Roth
Joren works as the Instruction & Outreach Librarian at Colorado Christian University. He has been an ACL member since 2018 and currently resides in Lakewood, CO.