Words at Risk

A friend forwarded an electronic newsletter she'd received from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries; this article is written by Jill Carattini. She mentions that the little smiley emoticon :-) was proposed 25 years ago by Scott Fahlman to soften the haste and harshness of online communication. (Email really has made us more careless in the use of words, hasn't it? And texting, which I haven't gotten into, is even worse.) Jill concludes that we ourselves become less distinct and human when our words are weakened. She claims that one of the first steps to slavery is loss of language. That shocked me, but then I realized that when humans are trafficked and sold to someone in a foreign country who speaks a strange language, it has a profoundly dehumanizing effect. Finally, Jill quotes C.S. Lewis (in "The Death of Words"): "When . . . you have killed a word, you have also blotted from the human mind the thing that word originally stood for. Men do not long continue to think what they have forgotten how to say." So this is a plea for words: love them, protect their meaning, THINK about them, and especially honor the words of God. (Actually, God's words are not at risk. He Himself is committed to their endurance. But our humanness is diminished by our disregard for His words.)

I'm continuing to feel well, though I'm tired. Yesterday I left work a couple of hours early because I was so bothered by house-cleaning I'd been neglecting and didn't have the heart to tackle in the evenings. So this morning I said to Chuck, "The bathroom looks clean even in the dark." I guess it's all in my head, but I really do feel better with a layer of crud removed. I'm sure I'm good for a full day's work today.

We're preparing to travel to Indiana next Wednesday to spend Thanksgiving with our children and grandchildren.

Have a blest day.
Carol