When I was a kid, a girl walked passed me in the isle of a school bus and said something unkind to me, called me a name I think. I can’t remember what she said, only how I felt afterwards. A kid in the seat beside me quickly recited in my defense, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” “Yeah,” I said, “That’s right.” But now, all these years later, I realize that it wasn’t right. Words can hurt. In fact, they can kill, and if you let them, people will talk you to death—literally.

Words operate on a spiritual principle. Therefore, I am going to be building my position on a spiritual book, the New Testament. It is the book I know best, therefore it is the one I am using. For those not familiar, the New Testament was originally written in Greek and is an account of the life, works, words, acts and letters of Jesus and those who followed him during the first few centuries A.D. The New Testament is a collection of books, kind of like a library, written by some of the followers of Jesus during this time period.

Here is the familiar English passage from the Book of John in the King James version of the New Testament:

“In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things which were made were made by him; and without him was not anything was made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:1-5

Now here are the lines translated from the Greek Bible. While I’ll admit that I’m no expert, I am capable of looking up words in a Greek dictionary and of breaking words apart to find roots and meanings.

At the commencement of, the onset of, the start of, the beginning of, time and all the physical universe was the thought, intent, reasoning, purpose, motive, design and plan.

And the thought, intent, reasoning, purpose, motivation, design and plan was with the Supreme Divinity, the Supreme Magistrate and Supreme Authority—the Ultimate Ruler, Lord of the Universe.

And the thought, intent, reasoning, purpose, motivation, design and plan was God, the Supreme Divinity, the Supreme Magistrate and Supreme Authority—the Ultimate Ruler, Lord of the Universe.

***Personal note: the Supreme Authority is his WORD and his WORD is the Supreme Authority and his WORD is more than a spoken sound. It is a deliberate intent, purpose, design, plan. In Genesis the story of creation tells us that God SPOKE and that his WORD created all the universe. In Colossians we are told that all things are held together by the power of his WORD. He willed it to be and that thought, will, intent, purpose, WORD is still holding it all together.

The next part of this passage in John says, “All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.”

All things—I was surprised to discover that the word things here is actually the Greek word—RHEMA, which means an utterance, but even more, it means a LIVING WORD! Let’s go on with the rest of this verse…were made, generated, caused to become by him, the WORD, the thought, intent, purpose, mind and plan of the Supreme Divinity.

In the thought, intent, purpose, will, WORD of the Supreme Divinity, was vitality and the vitality was the luminosity of humanity. And the luminosity was seen, appeared, in the dimness, obscurity; and the dimness, the obscurity could not….”

The next few words of that verse are “comprehended it not” but the term for “comprehended” in the King James Version did not match the term in my Greek version of the Bible and I could not find the Greek version’s term in a dictionary, so I wanted to say up front that it is only the term used by the King James scholars that I am translating here, but oh, what a great word it is!

The King James scholars used a word that sounds like katalambano, which would make the passage read something like this… In the thought, intent, purpose, will, WORD of the Supreme Divinity, was vitality and the vitality was the luminosity of humanity. And the luminosity was seen, appeared, in the dimness, darkness, obscurity; and the dimness, darkness, the obscurity could not overtake, control, seize, lay hold on, find, possess, obtain, apprehend or perceive the thought, intent, purpose, plan, design, the vitality.”

So, this passage tells us that God’s WORD is alive, that it is a living entity and as a living entity, it holds together the entire universe .

Now, if we know we are created in God’s image and that his word framed the universe, then it stands to reason that our words also contain power. Let’s see what Jesus said about it, “For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall SAY unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he SAITH shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he SAITH.” Mark 11:23

Spiritual things are created by words, and not just spoken ones but the ones that live in our hearts. Physical things are also created by words. For example, I recently said to myself, just thought it very strongly really, “I wish I had some of those nice paint markers, but the things cost more than I’m willing to pay at Wal-mart.” That very DAY I was in Peddler’s Mall and there was a set of the exact markers I wanted at a third of the cost! Wow…call it coincidence. I don’t think so. I don’t know how many times I’ve wished for something only to have it manifest. On the flip side, I once heard a woman speak her daughter right into the grave and many times I’ve heard people speak themselves sick.

King Solomon once said that life and death are in the power of the tongue. In another place Jesus said, “By thy words thou shall be justified and by thy words thou shall be condemned.” Matt. 12:37

A negative mouth creates a negative environment. A fearful mouth creates a fearful environment. A positive mouth creates good things. So, my point….your words contain creative power. Oh, and back to the people who talk you to death…people who never say anything good about you or positive to you, realize that the mouth that has the most power in your life is yours! There will always be someone there to tell you that you can’t do something or that you’ll never succeed. They are what the late Joseph Campbell called dreamkillers. Ignore them and speak your own reality, the reality of the WORD.

time, a ship to carry me

through this space,

finite place

encasing immortality

as myself, real self,

sees that yonder plane

through ethereal windows

thoughts, flesh-weighted,

do not veil reality

dampen power

or hinder flight.

Every  now and then I suffer from a philosophical moment. Okay, I admit it. It’s more than every now and then. It’s just about every day at least a couple of times a day, unless I’m too busy to think and have to run on auto-pilot (which sometimes happens when you work in an elementary school). Today, I thought I’d share two questions that keep picking at my brain.

What if everyone in the world were capable of and suddenly decided to— think for themselves?

And what if greed and the need to dominate others were wiped from existence over night?

Mud settles at pond’s bottom.
I can see it. Mid-calf deep
a turtle’s hiding place
beneath sunlight patches
that flicker and play
shadow tricks.

Locust tree is the culprit
half-shading, half-sunning
still, clear water,
encircled by summer
lilies, daisies, mossy grasses,
and dark ivy vines.

Here is my soul, green
blue as nature herself
brown as earth, fluid
as water and intangible
like dancing light and
windblown shadows.

I’ve been pretty busy lately, but somehow I’ve accumulated several books to read. I’ve been trying to dig my way through Rachel Varble’s, A Biography of Jane Clemens, Mother of Mark Twain. It’s an interesting read, and I’m learning a lot of history. I just need several uninterrupted hours to complete it. It’s the type of book that feels like I’m “wading through” at times, due to overly romantized descriptive paragraphs and awkward phrasings. The entire book is exposition with no dialogue, so it’s like reading a textbook, laced with the author’s bias. But I’m reading it, despite her writing style, because it is about my home area. However, I often find myself frustrated at the prevailing accepted thought of the times. I suppose that in itself is a lesson in history, it’s depiction changes from one generation to the next. Mrs. Varble wrote her book back in the 1960s and her bias of race and ethnicity fill the book in a million subtle ways. So, I like the history lesson, but I’m not overly fond of her writing style. I will always feel that plain talk is easily understood and too many writers, both past and present, “put on the dog” when they write and spit about a bunch of stuff that nobody ever says in real life. And on that note…

A book I’m LOVING is Stephen King‘s On Writing. While I am not a fan of King’s fictional stories, mostly because I don’t like horror due to the fact that I have an overactive imagination that I can’t shut off and scary images keep me awake at night, I DO like his practical no non-sense look at writing and identify with so much of what he has to say in this book. I’m glad I took the time to pick it up.

Next on the pile is a book called Ill Wind, by Doug Beason and Kevin J. Anders, then comes All Together Dead by Charlane Harris, Writers Dreaming by Naomi Epel, And She Was by Cindy Dyson and finally Brandon Mull‘s Fable Haven.

In June, I plan to read Sandra Kring’s latest, A Life of Bright Ideas.

brown leaves crunch

and scattered under your boots

my sandals

as we search for morels

dry-land fish

near black pond’s rim

where a faded sign reads

“no fishing”

twenty year-old jar

lies half leaf covered

no mushrooms peep

through, only bomb shell rocks

and brilliant violent

woodland irises

still

we walk, brother and sister

talking of yesterday

remembering parental wisdom

stories, prophecies of long ago years,

breathing in sweet locust

for the moment

and forgetting

tomorrow.

my mother calls to me

             …stand, daughter

my father calls to me

           …sing, child

my relatives say to me

         …paint, young’in 

rhythms of all ages

         …drive me

to dance, to breathe,

         …to soar

their lives compel me

        …to write.

Aniwayah

amber eyes, like fire

warm me with

intelligence.

Aniwayah

a song in the night

to sisters and brothers

not a romantic song

of freedom or such notions

but rather a song of

being.

He Wo Ni Tsa La Gi

I am from a long line of free spirits

of Oo go yo s ti

and of Moses Black Fox

of Qua tsi te li co

and Woman of Wolf Clan.

I am of Sallly Rogers

who taught my dad to track

and of Granny Mag

whose medicine healed his head wound.

I am of Wi hi ma

who refused to forget

he was “Indian”

even when his uncles

punished him for fear

–of discovery.

He remembered and

his mother remembered

and her father remembered, until

there was no longer a need to fear

Oklahoma. We stayed in Kentucky

in the hills and the hollers

in the nooks and crannies, taking on

White names until it was safe to be

Indian again.

I am she who walks with light,

a whispering wind

who touches the Earth

I am child of these rivers

daughter of these hills.

It starts in November and I sing it to myself until January and then sometimes, I listen to it in July. I really do like this song.