"words" Expressing Word

“Words make worlds” — because it’s true...language in poetry is magical language. It creates a world. It summons a world into being. The existential necessity of poetry — lyric poetry and song — emerges from the magical power of language to create worlds that dramatize both our experience of disorder and our need for order — vividly present, both.   

~ Gregory Orr, from On Being with Krista Tippett

In the beginning is the Word. The Word becomes flesh and lives among us.  

~ John 1:1, 14, my paraphrase

Language constitutes our reality. It is the expression of the human experience of the essence of existence. The Word (Logos) is the embodiment, the becoming flesh, of experience. And words give shape and meaning to The Word. 

My Old Testament professor at Columbia Seminary, Walter Brueggemann, once said in a lecture, "Yahweh lives on the lips of Israel's praise." This is truly Incarnation! If this is also true in our time, that God lives on our lips, then God may very well be on life support today.

In the same interview quoted above, Gregory Orr shares the following lines from William Wordsworth:

“Let’s remake the world with words.
 Not frivolously, nor 
To hide from what we fear,
 But with a purpose. Let’s remove
 the dust of custom so things
 shine again, each object arrayed 
In its robe of original light. And then we’ll see the world
 As if for the first time.
As once we gazed at the beloved
 Who was gazing at us.”

In order for humanity to survive and thrive we must "remove the dust" of the current, rampant abuse of language, stop "tweeting," and sing in full measure of the great goodness of all people and all creation. 

Words matter. Language makes a difference. We must pay attention to what we say, write, and hear because in the end "The Word" is expressed through our "words."