In praise of words. . .

There is no doubt that Google can translate so that something can be understood in its basic form or that AI can mimic poetic rhyme and turn words into content that can be comprehended and even appreciated.  But words remain the domain of the Word made flesh and of the people created by Him and endowed with His creative gift.  Words are the exclusive domain of humanity.  Whether in poetic form or story, novel or essay, comment or commentary, words are what distinguish us from the rest of God's creation and mark in us the sign of His image.  We are a wordy people created for words.  Some of them are profound and others vulgar but all of them the unique sphere of those who the Creator formed from the dust of the earth and made to reflect His glory and serve His purpose.

I fear, however, that words are beginning to fail us.  Our speech has become coarser and more vulgar.  We tend to resort to this kind of demeaning speech when the force of our ideas fail us or our skills with words become rusty and contrived.  It very well could be that we have become captive to the briefest spurt of words that fit a text or a tweet but have little room to explore the greater opportunities of the language as a whole.  It could be that we have substituted words on a screen for real conversation, authentic debate, and reasoned argument that we have forgotten how to talk.  Perhaps Charlie Kirk was so popular because he took the time to listen and to speak, delighting in the rich and vibrant forms of debate while the rest of the world simply spoke into an echo chamber or wrote off those who might or did disagree.  Politics has lost the sound of the mighty orator whose craft was once able to change minds and influence hearts.  The greats were remembered not simply for their wisdom but for their words.  Churchill once made a living and kept his sanity by producing two thousand words (and laying 200 bricks!) each day.  Now a school child cannot write cursive and looks in terror when an empty exam book is placed into his hands, expecting him to write cogently of his knowledge and to make his point.  What has happened to us?

Reagan was perhaps the last of those for whom words were a gift.  He was the great communicator because he had great writers, knew his words, and delivered them not as script but as the language of his heart.  Others after him have had good writers too but they were wooden in delivery and the words were strangers to them, almost like enemies which had to be battled and won.  Trump has some good writers but off the cuff he betrays how he uses words less to convince than to inflict damage.  In modern times we have been lacking in those whose voices on senate floors or in the house or even in an interview left us struck and rethinking what it was that we once believed.

Sermons were once the most formal speeches any person ever heard live and without filter.  Great preachers served us well with the Word of God in eloquent words and nuanced speech.  I know how many sermons I remember from days gone by and how few reach that mark today.  Yes, we have people who speak well and faithfully but in the pulpit they seem to wear their homilies as if they were ill-fitting clothes.  For the record, I do not consider myself a great preacher and dare not hold myself up as fine example.  I write a great deal -- almost every day -- but not very many of my words are what I would call memorable.  But I know it when I read it or when I hear it.  You do as well.

If there is a problem speaking the Gospel to people today it could very well be a problem with words that has created a crisis of communication among us.  Truth has become as weak as a passing thought in a moment.  Unleashed from its anchor in fact, everything has become about feelings and so little about anything stronger.  Even in the pulpits of America pastors speak with more conviction what they feel than the Christ they know and whose words they are there to preach.  It is no wonder that people do not find this Gospel as compelling.  God's Word has become an alien language and their ears no longer know how to listen to what is being preached and taught.  Too many of us go back home without being changed or transformed by the Word of God in the words of men.  An armor of sorts has left us impermeable and our lack of appreciation for the good book and its author have served to close our ears and hearts to God's entry.  It was always about words.  When words become strangers to us, God is distant.  To pray for the renewal of the Holy Spirit is to pray to be open to hearing the voice of God that transforms everything.  I hope and pray that this renewal lies in our future.  It will most certainly lead to repentance and faith in the hearts and minds of the hearers but it also has the power to rescue us from the bland and mundane that fits the minimum of who we are but fails to elevate us.  The renewal of words spoken, heard, and considered is key to the renewal of the Gospel among us but its fruits will also spill over into a better humanity of better people.  The silence and our uncomfortable relationship with words not only prevents us from being saved by that Word but leaves us with little that would distinguish us from the rest of God's good creation.  Pray that this too shall pass -- for the sake of our life with God and for the sake of everyday human life.