Excuse Me, What Did You Just Say?

Excuse Me, What Did You Just Say? – Part I

Money is one of the currencies we employ to facilitate the exchange between our wants and needs and the products and services that satisfy them. I purposely use the word exchange rather than “buy” or “purchase”, because often the money we get is compensation for our time and effort. Therefore, for the sake of this blog, we understand that we don’t simply pay cash to buy something or some service. Somewhere, in the lineage of this, seemingly, simple exchange (buying a latte at Starbucks for example) we have brought part of our life experience into the mix. We have become part of the exchange.

In a similar fashion, words are the currencies we employ to facilitate the exchange between our soul and spirit and our, ever-growing, universe. God used words to create the visible and invisible worlds. Our words create bridges between us and our God and others. Our words often facilitate exchanges far beyond our comprehension. With our words we can hurt or heal, help or hinder. With them we express our innermost thoughts and feelings toward others whether they be kind, critical, peaceful or fearful. With them we order a meal at our favorite restaurant with expressions of indifference toward the server or value for the service they are rendering.

One of the people I admire is Randall Worley. I’ve heard him speak on several occasions. He is what many would consider a “wordsmith.” He articulates well, is well versed, practiced in speaking and can say more in a sentence or two than most labor to do with an excess of words that really say little.

Randall once shared that in our church culture he felt that through redundancy and over-use, many of our words had been worn smooth in our excessive use of them. That picture stayed with me for years. I felt that I completely understood what he said but the deeper implication eluded me for years until I saw another, slightly different picture.

I was sitting next to a brook. The water was clear, flowing and I could easily see the stones on the bottom. They, like the words in Randall’s analogy, were worn smooth with the constant flow of the water. At that moment I felt that Holy Spirit asked me what I saw. I recounted to Him exactly what I have just described to you, my reader. He then asked me, almost rhetorically, what was going on. For that moment I was simply absorbed in what I saw in the brook. Then, I realized that outside of the water nothing was moving. The stones were worn smooth so that nothing on the surface of them would catch the power of the water and be moved.

By analogy is the water our words and we the stones? By over-use have we become worn by the same references that by now have become so cliché that they have lost their meaning? Are we constantly engaged in so much small talk that seems, after all, meaningless in contrast with life-giving dialogue between two people who could have so much to say?

Do we have a propensity to talk much and say little? Do our words move people? (And, not with manipulation but with inspiration.) Should they? When we show up do we serve up our typical entrée consisting of either gossip, criticism or, particularly, self-aggrandizement?

On the other hand does our speech make room for others to grow, express, flourish and be free? Do we engage in such a way that we have created an environment for ideas and ideals that can be mutually beneficial? Do others become more alive and energized or do they politely bear with us as we drone on and on about our latest whatever?

Imagine the worlds we can create, in fresh new ways, by being intentional with our words. If our mouths speak what is abundant in our hearts, may we not reap cliché and redundancy but that which edifies every person and situation.