Words

I love words. I love learning new words. I love speaking. I love reading the written word. I love hearing the spoken word. I love hearing other people speak I love to read books that are little more than one word stacked upon another and another until a wonderful story has been told. I love nouns, Verbs, Adverbs adjectives and direct objects. I cannot imagine Life without words.

Everything I’ve ever learned was built upon words. Words have provided me the most sublime of ideals and my greatest of frustrations.  I have forged powerful relationships with  people through words. I have damaged relationships in the same way.

I think in words, I pray in words, I write poetry in words, I ramble my thoughts in words, I revel in words. I love long words that sound erudite give me a reputation for being a sesquipedalian. I love short words that pack power and punch. I love foreign words that sound suave and sophisticated. I make up my words sometimes–I don’t think I fool anyone when I do this!

But words are tricky and treacherous. Words are wiggly and not at all as precise and specific as some think. Carefully constructed legal contracts are often broken because some word didn’t say what it was intended it to say.  Words can fool and deceive.

Words give a sense–– A false sense–– of security. Word seems so foundational, so secure, so precise–– but none of that is true. No word ever fully expresses the truth of the heart, the love one feels for another, the pain and sorrow one feels for the travels of life.  More often than not, words fail us.  And, as wonderful as words are,  people often use them to curse rather than bless. And in the end, words are ethereal–seemingly real for the moment then slowly their meanings change and degrade until no one really understands what was said–much less what was meant.