I love Words...

I find I am fascinated by words.  By what is said, by the way they are said, by the way they make you think and feel, by the the way certain combinations resonate and leave impressions on your soul that nothing else has the power to. Whoever said 'a picture is worth a thousand words' never really understood the potency of words. Have you ever wondered, for example, why the book is always better than the movie? I love words like some people love music. For me, music is simply poetry in motion; the cinema or theatre a chance for words to take center-stage, right where they belong.  Maybe that's why I have always hated small talk. It's a tragic waste of words.

And some people have a way with them. They know how to make words dance across a page, to create a symphony of sounds, to bring to bear the creativity of the imagination. To motivate. To inspire. Words have longevity. They stand the test of time. Things said eons ago remain in the back of our minds, securely stored in the crevices of our hearts becoming the driving force of our lives, the source of our power, the purpose of our existence. Words uttered by obscure human beings, once in the darkness of oblivion, have propelled them to the forefront of movements today that are larger than the lives they ever dared to imagine for themselves. I think often of the words of Abraham Lincoln's mother as she is said to have uttered on her death bed..."Be somebody, Abe. Be somebody." One life so inspired, went on to inspire a nation. Oh, the power of words to inspire, to regenerate, to create.

Today we have millions of words bundled into quotable quotes that continue to inspire millions of people to action. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech brings into sharp focus the plausibility and possibility of a mere trifling notion. Philosophies expressed thousands of years ago by men of varying literary abilities still cause us to reflect deeply upon the issues of life, to pause to ponder the substantive, to consider their life-changing and life-giving nature. Fortunately for us, words never got in the way of these men saying what needed to be said.

 But think not for a moment that I contemplate the matter of the power of words merely as a one-sided affair. For whether we accept this as truth or not, in the same way that words have the power to create and re-create they have the power to demotivate, to hurt, to destroy to kill. Many a dream has died at the tip of a naysayer's tongue. Many relationships have ended because of words laid carelessly on the altar of unrequited love. Recognizing, therefore, the power of words to inspire or demotivate, to create or kill, I choose life. I choose everyday, deliberately, to read words that are life-giving, to listen to words that inspire me to greatness....to aspire, to learn to speak words that have the power to call out the best in others and inspire those in my sphere of influence to speak and write and live like the existence and prosperity of future generations depend on it. I choose life!