A recent trip south provided me with an angst I was not expecting. I had finally gotten away for an overnight trip with my husband to attend our daughter’s graduation from law school and was eager to “rest” a bit from the expectations and demands that I had left behind. But as soon as we hit the interstate, I felt as if rocks were being hurled at me from every direction. Rocks of words. It didn’t take me long to realize I was reading every road sign, every billboard, every water tower, every advertisement on trucks … right down to the bumper stickers on the cars. I’m not sure which was more exhausting: the constant reading of the words or the attempt at not reading them. They were everywhere.
Don’t get me wrong: I love words. In fact, I still use a dictionary to find just the right one needed when writing. And of course I love using them verbally. It’s in my DNA as both a woman and the family from which I come. Words are good, but they can be very exhausting to both the one reading or the one having to hear them.
Words can also be very hurtful. In fact, they are described in Scripture as daggers. Proverbs 18:21 tells us that our words can bring death or life. They have the power to build up or tear down. But we don’t have to have anyone tell us that. We have all been victims of the cutting edge of that knife. Some left small incisions that only made us wince; others provided open wounds that take a lifetime of healing … if even then. Of course, I have also been the one left holding the knife.
And this morning I was reading of yet another potential product of words. I think it’s one of those things the Lord wanted me to see because I was actually reading the incorrect passage at the time. I had begun my Ephesians reading in verse four instead of the prescribed verse eight. I had read it numerous times before, but this time it jumped off the page. “Let no one deceive you with empty words.” Yes, words have the possibility of being “empty” with an end result of being deceiving. And that gets over into a whole different sphere of influence. A realm of falsehood, of hypocrisy, of duplicity, of trickery. (Read those words again. They are not lightweights.) And that scares me. Not only because our use of words can be so powerfully sneaky, but because I have played into it myself … on both sides of the cunning coin.
I’m not saying the male population holds no real estate, but I do believe that women just might have a corner on the market which also gives us the power to read the female persuasion. In fact, it’s something that dates back to the Garden of Eden. Don’t consider for a moment Eve didn’t know what she was doing. And don’t think for a second that same tool is not used today. No, we women may not leave the house in inappropriate attire, but that doesn’t mean we don’t do our share of wooing with our words — to both species. In fact, I would say words might even be the more dangerous of the two because of their deception and the ease of giving in to their flattery. And we all know who the father of that one is.
Just this morning my precious friend Katie reminded me that words are just letters linked together — by spelling. By putting letters together in a correct order “to comprise the conventionally accepted form of a word.” Ah, but it can also mean “a verbal formula (spelling) considered as having magical force.” And so we have yet another dimension of this deception of words added to the equation.
Like I said, I love words. I love using words. I love finding the correct words to not only stir the readers minds but their hearts as well. After all, can you imagine reading a novel that doesn’t evoke emotion of some sort? How does any good author like Amor Towles do it? And, yes, I am entranced … spellbound … by his use of letters linked together. Writers do it by using beautiful, wooing words.
So maybe I just need to ask myself: where is the dividing line that separates words that are life giving and encouraging and sacredly beautiful from ones that are deceptive and duplicitous and “trickery” in nature? On which side of the coin do I rest my writing pen? Indeed, may the One Who is the True Word, guide my heart, direct my thoughts, give purity to my writing, and, when needed, protect each of us from unnecessary and deceptive words.
Now there’s a wordy blog post.
Lord, have mercy.
Just an ordinary moment…
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