Words

Words made the world. Oh shut up. I went to public school. I learned all about the Big Bang Theory. I’ve been paying attention to the news most of my life. Hawking’s Black Holes, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, String Theory, all words describing the way all this began. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:1-2 ESV. I’m Christian. Yell at me all you want about how bogus the bible is. If there is anything that remains about people and religion it is controversy. Controversy is words, too. Words make controversy. Words settle controversy. Oh. And . . . stop with the “it’s the word of GOD so it is infallible.” thing. There is not one bible. God’s word is infallible. Man’s understanding of God’s word reflected in the existing editions of the Bible? Not so much.

I don’t care if you declare that your Bible is the right one. I read the ESV most days. Sometimes I read the NIV. I grew up on the RSV. That’s just us Christians. Muhamad, perhaps in frustration with us unruly Christians, helped record the القرآن الكريم. I have the impression, perhaps incorrect, that there is a lot less kerfuffle over the accuracy of the Quran than there is over an orthodox Bible. Both are words people are willing to fight over. The running debate over orthodox Buddhism is not over. Judaism has made debate over the law a central part of its religious tradition. You can stomp your feet and get red faced all day. Go ahead and call me a blasphemer. The times in history when we are unified in our opinions are few. We still manage to live and love and serve in spite of still being a thick-necked people.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God,” John 1:1 ESV. God said and it was so. Some versions of string theory play very nice with those words. I like the words in Genesis and John and it doesn’t make my brain hurt to think about those words with the words of our physicists that explain creation as an explosion.

I am my words. It was words whispered to my Mom that lead to her being with my Dad and thus, my birth. Words made me. Yeah, I know, the scientists have it all explained and you can see it happen in films on YouTube. Words make the world. Words make war. Words make peace. Words, translated into clock tick-tocks make computers do useful things. Words comfort the bereaved, praise God, damn Satan, give grace, encouragement, curses. Words explain the world. How we say it, how we tell the events of our lives, tells of who we are. Melancholy, sanguine, phlegmatic and choleric.

Four words, and for some, four archetypical temperaments. The four archetypical corners, four cardinal directions. The melancholic north, fussing over the headlines–four dead in a crash on the Interstate–and fearing that one of the dead might be kin or kind. The phlegmatic south, always fine, though the small, efficiency apartment is ripe with stale beer and baby-back rib bones. The sanguine west, not caring about the rent-controlled, Section 8 rent or the nervously bare cupboard, though never empty of good wine or weed, a NAS full of mp4 dancing across a 4K 50’ Flat Screen TV. The choleric North, always at some level of intensity above 5, never far from another angry rant.

Words fill this blog with content. Words communicate praise for it and damnation for it. Through words my son told me he thought it was over, the blog being a wall of words was passé. Words are spoken while standing around a coffin, remembering him or her, who has passed from present fact to past legend. Words made this too.