Power of the Word

Everywhere you drive around these little towns in central/southwest Louisiana in which my wife, Mary, and I have found ourselves, you will see at this time of the year (and most others) these huge machines with huge tires and huge mechanisms for something or other. They are larger than one side of the little highways around the area, and one must get off the side of the road less one become plowed under much like the fields of the area. Heaven forbid one gets behind one of these Hulk-smashing machines or one will spend the greater part of a day getting around.

I thought of these big green machines this morning as I pondered some stuff. These machines, it seems to me, are used successfully in the fields round here. They are their size for some reason, and they produce or farmers wouldn't use them.

But they are heck to pay machines on the open road, and used improperly, one would think they would be nigh on disastrous.

They are the "words" of the farming community. Words are used millions of time in millions of ways every single day, and nothing bad comes from it. But use words improperly, and things fall apart. There is nothing, it seems to me, more harmful than words used incorrectly.

I've lived my life with words as my tools. I wrote or edited in newspapers for 34 years, and was published in a newspaper when I was 15, which is **^^^))(*)*(  years ago. Then I retired, and immediately began a five-day a week blog of which I've done literally hundreds.

I've written things I didn't mean to write, and by that I mean the intent was one thing, the reaction another. I once wrote what I thought was a funny high school football picks column (saying who would win and why), and a football coach called me at home on the afternoon before the game incensed that I had used (what I thought was a throwaway line) something negative against his team. All I could do was say over and over I didn't mean anything badly and obviously (though that wasn't the case with him) it was satire.

One person's satire is another person's negative. One person's negative is another person's attack.

Social media being what it is, people get hurt often when the intent was never to hurt. Then there is those who are meaning to do so, but that's another blog at another time.

My point is found in the Bible, of course. Jesus' brother (imagine the sibling rivalry found there) wrote these words: "If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless."

He adds, "...a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself."

In the long run, it's simply best to follow what our mamas taught us: if we can't say something positive, we should be quiet. That's difficult for a columnist, which is essentially what I've been doing since I was 21, to do as columns are based on opinion.

But then I must remember that no one hired me, appointed me, wants me particularly for this blog. I'm just an isolated voice out there in a big, ol' hurricane wind. I'm just a sinner in search of redemption. I'm just a person with a big target on his back because that's what Jesus said anyone who preaches love for his glory will be targeted. Right or wrong, that's what I've tried to do. There are hundreds of people who think I succeed most days. There are those who I harm every once in a while. When I do, it literally hurts me, even if everything I wrote was true, factual, needed to be written.

If there is anyone who understands just how powerful words are, or how deeply in trouble they can get you, it was the Master, Jesus, who warned about gossip but kept on preaching the Word because He was the Word.

My prayer is as  the Psalmist said, "Lord, help me control my tongue; help me be careful about what I say." But give me the Word to keep on preaching the Word, blog, Sunday column, Sunday sermon, Sunday Bible Study or just on the occasional phone call.

Preach, in love. Preach, in practice.