The People Journal

Words made flesh

Posted by: Jim Mondry

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 at 5:18 pm

John1: 1-3 — In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; nothing without him was made that had been made.

I love the image of God speaking the world into being.  His words become real - ‘owr became light, raqiya becomes land, ‘Adam’ rises from the ‘Adamah’.  There’s power in God’s voice. 

We don’t often believe we have that same ability.  When we speak, we don’t consider what is created by our words.  We all (myself included) flippantly say things, believing that the words die as they are spoken - jokes about others, insults of ourselves, sarcastic remarks about whatever we chose to belittle.  We don’t stop to consider what lives on after we have created these words - the life they will take as they affect those that have heard them.  A simple personal insult of oneself may be heard by someone else, and they may begin to believe it of themselves.  A sarcastic joke about culture may heard by someone and place even more guilt and shame on them. 

Our culture thrives on insults and jokes about others.  So many comedians, so many writers thrive on putting either themselves or someone else down.  The consequence of the words are thought to be a few laughs, but nothing more. 

Perhaps a new way to be counter-cultural is to consider your words.  Consider the life they will have once they are spoken.  We don’t have the luxury of knowning how they are going to grow and affect those around us.  We do have the ability to not speak.  We have the ability to listen.  We have the ability to build each other up.  Let us try and use our words to build, to encouarge, and see how that changes the comming year.

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