Use your words

I apparently have a voice that at least one devoted and exhorting cousin wants to hear. So, if for no one else than him, here I’ll speak, or write. Words, I know, have power; the power of life, the power of death. And to have a voice and use it, oh now, that’s a high calling. Isn’t it?

Charlotte and mothers of toddlers say “use your words”. I agree. Use them. Weave them. Plot them and plant them. Only make ‘em worthy of the message.

I have a thesaurus. You can use my thesaurus any time you want. Thesaurus.com There it’s all yours and everyone else’s. You may find words there. You may find them in dictionaries or mix up letters and find your own. I find words, the best of them all, in communicating. One person drops this word in amidst the common; an author crafts another into niches perfect and tight. Babies discover and I rediscover them: daddy instead of dad, oops instead of damn. See, “oops” is profoundly better.

In a word, I can smile or cry or breath or kill or linger. It is, I’m sure, a sort of power to own my words and give them away. I make them what I want and then send them, weighty or light as they may be. I welcome words back too, though.

This I hope, will serve as a platform for words both given and gotten – a platform with multiple planks. Planks like faith and family and travel and fears and laughter and opinions…all of them loaded, brimming with words that ought to be shared. Use your words and I’ll use mine.

~ by Kara Belcher on January 22, 2008.