Quotes about Words

I started blogging in 2004, light years ago on the Web. And I began because I have this handicap - I can't figure out my life or see God clearly unless I untangle my life again with words.

I always prided myself on at least trying to be literate and use the right words, and if the audience didn't get it, then they could go home and look it up.

We try so hard as Christians. We think such long thoughts, manipulate such long words, and both listen to and preach such long sermons. Each one of us somewhere, somehow, has known, if only for a moment or so, something of what it is to feel the shattering love of God, and once that has happened, we can never rest easy again for trying somehow to set that love forth not only in words, myriads of words, but in our lives themselves.

Some religions draw by force of arms; He would draw by force of love. The attraction would not be His words, but Himself. It was His Person around which His teaching centered; not His teaching around which He would be remembered. 'Greater love than this no man hath' - that was the secret of His magnetism.

The living Church of the redeemed is his book. He founded a religion of the living spirit, not of a written code, like the Mosaic law. Yet his words and deeds are recorded by as honest and reliable witnesses as ever put pen to paper.

When they're gone out of his head, these words, they'll be gone, everywhere, forever. As if they had never been.

Things written down can cause a great deal of harm. All too often, people don't consider that.

How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word.

There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, Why on our hearts, and not in them? The rabbi answered, Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.

When Pat Holt strings together a list of words not to overuse—"Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally"—she's not being a stickler for formality and grammar. Instead she's reminding us that words matter, that poor word use is just a red flag for someone who wants to ignore you.

While it's calming to be reassured, it never lasts. As soon as we hear the words, the feeling begins to fade away. There's never enough reassurance to make up for a lack of commitment to the practice. We have no choice other than to trust ourselves enough to lead the way.

Whoever would fully and feelingly understand the words of Christ, must endeavor to conform his life wholly to the life of Christ.