A Way With Words

Our mind is a garden, our thoughts are the seeds
The harvest can be either flowers or weeds.
~ Author unknown


Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
~ Philippians 4:8

I am beginning a new study this week for young moms in our group focusing on the words we use and harnessing the power we possess in our speech. Harnessing, not stifling. As in:

Now if we put the horses' bridles into their mouths, that they may obey us, we turn about their whole body also.
~James 3:3

Never doubt that something as simple as talking can have such lasting effects in the lives of others. As we habitually speak words that heal, teach, affirm, instruct, guide and delight, we learn to make conscious choices about our words which then become a natural outpouring of what is in our hearts. Likewise, words of condemnation, of name-calling, labeling and blaming wound the heart and linger in the mind long after they are spoken.

Our challenge is to learn something new about how we take appropriate responsibility for this dynamic and grow in faithfulness as we mature. We want to reduce the collateral damage from our speech and live life with fewer regrets. This is one small topic but large area of life that meets us daily where we live.

It's all about choices. Let us take responsibility for our choices and not be content with the childish, "That's just the way I am" excuse.



All photos copyright by Rob Kiser, used with permission.

Living with the Classics

My friend shared an amusing exchange with her college-age son.

"Mom, it must have been so cool to grow up at a time when every song you listened to on the radio was a classic!"

"Well, we didn't know they were classics then; they were just the songs of our times," she replied.

Perhaps those of us of a certain age will go out of this world still listening to classic hits of the 60s and 70s rock era as successive generations appreciate the music of that time. Will the Muzak of the nursing homes still be playing Oldies? Probably so.

This conversation reminded me: it is hard to see a thing for what it can become when we are merely looking at it for what it is. Vision is funny that way.

Similarly, I notice that historical church literature includes the writings and prayers of those who have come to be called "classical women mystics." These women did not start out as anything other than ordinary people who sought to have intimate, meaningful experiences in their relationship with God and to share something about pursuing wholeheartedly new ways of appreciating our majestic and undefinable Creator. They longed to explore the Tremendous Mystery that is God. They were open to seeing and hearing from God in fresh ways. It was in the doing of common, everyday tasks of life that they discovered the sacred: God is present. They tried to share these experiences in writing. Contemporary writers still commend to us the power of awareness in the 'now' in being able to experience God.

How do we see glimpses of God? How do we get a sense of God's communication with us? Do we hunger and thirst to know God? Are we open to receive instruction from the Holy Spirit through a gift of discernment? Prayerfully thinking on these things will place us in a position or posture to experience God, perhaps in a different way.

God's love continues to reach out to us for intimate relationship. Such is the redemptive story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. As pastor Adrian Rogers frequently said, "It makes all the difference in two worlds." Sometime we focus on the future and neglect the power for living that is Gift in the present.

Some experience mystical moments of divine revelation in the ordinariness of our days when we have deep, inner longings to enter into a closer relationship. Most of us, I would imagine, may never have chart-topping visions or be able to communicate the unexplainable vastness of the majesty of God. We are no less valued or chosen because of the way we experience God's presence. We remember:

"My thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9

Each of us, as a believer, is living with the power and promise of the Presence of God. Some of us just do not know it for what it has the potential to become when fully formed, perhaps because we are limiting our experience of God to that which is manageable or comfortable. May God grant insight and vision to see and ears to hear the impressions of God in the everyday, mundane chores of this life.

Codes from a Sixth Grade Spy

Samuel F. B. Morse's name rings a bell back in a textbook of American history as the inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code, the means of high-tech communication in his day. His invention allowed the transfer of data via pulses or tones in on/off series of dashes and dots corresponding to letters of the alphabet or numbers. Letter-by-letter messages were sent to faraway places without a pony or rider ferrying the missive. This virtual express mail debuted in 1844.

"SOS" may be the most familiar message with simple letters: dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. Every school child knew how to peck out that distress signal. The tapping tempo was something like, "There she was, she was walking down the street, singing doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-do," for the uninitiated. There was no short cut, no predictive texting. This process was labor intensive, but the thrill of a code was worth it.

And for those of us who loved secret codes, the tantalizing concept of writing messages in lemon juice, then holding a flame below the paper to make the letters appear as brown 'ink' made us virtual CIA agents living sixth grade lives of intrigue and espionage. We saved Blue Horse notebook paper points to redeem for prizes and neat spy gear, but invariably settled for the little logo beanie instead: a blue felt tribute to immediate gratification.

The Cold War was hot then, and we believed it to be a matter of near-national security to be vigilant and prepared by conversing in codes. The Honey West Club and the Man From U.N.C.L.E. Club were my training grounds for spy-readiness. Still, I am fascinated by means of communication we use. Today's instant transmission of voluminous data is impressive.

In retrospect, Samuel Morse's two element system of dits and dahs (or dots and dashes) was quite revolutionary. And lest we consider him merely a primitive figure of history and his code assigning each letter a symbol an ancient relic in a high tech world, remember another development in our time.

The binary code in our computers is a language using only two symbols: 1 and 0. Each letter and number is assigned a combination of 1's or 0's (bits) transmitted in on/off pulses. Sound familiar? The SOS bit sequence, for example, is 01010011, 01001111, 01010011. Hmmmmm. Morse's dots and dashes seem a bit more advanced than I had previously thought.

When we need help, we do not write SOS as a lengthy string of 1's and 0's. We do not have to; the language is doing it for us while we are expressing our words. It is built into the programming to translate the code, if you will, whether we are aware of it or not. Even the most evolved languages and codes for transmitting information can be comprised of the simplest building blocks. What can be simpler than 0 and 1? The most elementary combinations can be the most effective.

The words I AM come to mind. A fundamental building block of our language and many languages is the first person, present tense of the verb to be. This three-letter sentence can be a building block of faith as well.

This profoundly simple answer to Moses' question of God still echoes through the ages. I accept this transmission over thousands of years as instructive.

"I AM," the LORD God spoke of the Divine's mysterious name. Perhaps that answer was as unexpected as a dot or dash.

Just, I AM, or also translated, I AM THAT I AM. These words still confound some who want to de-code the mystery.

Our linguistic utterances are skeletal means of encoding a small portion of information. We hang so much information on our words, and we ask them to bear more meaning than some can carry well. Some words come pre-loaded with baggage we do not intend. It is not a perfect system, but our language serves as an effective shorthand for broader meaning.

I believe that this name of God expresses beautifully the Person and the Presence of God. I AM may lay the foundation for our understanding of God as Emmanuel, God with us. It also provides meaning and context for the seven I AM sayings of Christ in the Gospel of John.

Though we may acknowledge that we cannot fully know the ineffable mind and heart of God and Christ, we can continue to savor scripture's authoritative transmission to us - bit by bit. And when the distress signals sound above the chaos in our lives, may we know where to turn for help. SOS is as near as our next breath.

 Breathe on me, Breath of God, 
 fill me with life anew, 
 that I may love what thou dost love, 
 and do what thou wouldst do. 

 Breathe on me, Breath of God, 
 until my heart is pure, 
 until with thee I will one will, 
 to do and to endure. 

 Breathe on me, Breath of God, 
 till I am wholly thine,  
till all this earthly part of me 
 glows with thy fire divine. 

 Breathe on me, Breath of God, 
 so shall I never die, 
 but live with thee the perfect life 
 of thine eternity. 


Text: Edwin Hatch, 1835-1889

Music: Robert Jackson, 1842-1914 

This hymn's writers were actually living during the time of Samuel Morse....interesting.


Bonus question: Grade school tests used to ask students, "what were the first words transmitted over the telegraph?"


"What hath God wrought?" from Samuel Morse on May 24, 1844, a reference to Numbers 23:23

Last Words

Today I prayed for a man who is only in his forties and nearing death. He is blind and in kidney failure. It will not be long, they say. His family suspects he has given up. Facing the end of life with no wife and no children, there is only one thing he responds to: the voice of his mother.

As I prayed it came to me: This same voice that was the first to be heard in utero may speak the last words heard as her son departs this life. There is such intimacy in that realization. My heart was heavy for them both.

How powerful this voice of a mother is in our lives! How beyond comprehension is the connection to heart or soul or spirit - not merely to our ears - is this voice of a mother. Do we appreciate the opportunity that is ours to speak words of wholeness....of loving...of forgiving...of encouraging into the lives of those who have been given to us?

This is not just my hunch. Scientists found the link between a mother's voice and the 'hug response' indisputable. U.S. endocrinologists' findings earlier this year at the University of Wisconsin Madison and published in a U.K. journal, showed a mother's voice had the result of calming teenage girls whether heard in person or on the phone. Her voice alone was able to lower elevated levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, and boost levels of oxytocin. * And the benefit continued after the stressful encounter of the testing was finished; there were lasting benefits in keeping cortisol lower, it said. I hope we are listening.

I know moms who recklessly assail their children with barbs and caustic remarks just as toxic as drain cleaner, leaving them raw and wounded for a long, long time. Not surprisingly, these patterns tend to repeat in families. We never know what happens in the homes of others and what hurt children carry with them from damage inflicted carelessly from mothers and fathers. You may be the neighbor, or the teacher, or the best friend's mom, or the coach, or aunt who will be the one to step into that place of loving affirmation and offer another model for a child whose mother could not or did not live into her highest calling. Being a birth mother is not the requirement. There are adoptive moms who have embraced motherhood as the gift it is and bridged a gap making a new way of life possible for a child.

Do not wait to have the last word to speak words of healing and love and wholeness of spirit. Live with as few regrets as possible. Lord, let us seize that privilege while we can.


* http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/12/mother-phone-call-study-us-oxytocin and http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/05/14/mothers-voice-calms-stress/13825.html