Dear Mr. or Mrs. Interested,

Have you ever wondered about words?

I don’t mean wondering how to read them, write them, or speak them when you were a child. I mean how they work and what they are capable of. Have you ever wondered what you could do with words? Have you ever thought about their potential? The possible realities you could create? The emotions and lives you could influence?

This is something every writer is curious about. Every writer desires to discover the infinite capabilities of words. How they can shape universes and galaxies, build someone up or bury them in hopelessness and sorrow.

This is the beauty of words. The possibilities just keep on flying and alighting on those whose minds are open to them.

I have wondered about words a lot. And I’ve found that they’re the most interesting creatures in the world.

Enjoy,

The Merry Word-Wise

Have you seen the sick?

Have you seen the dying?

Have you seen the heartbroken?

Have you seen the crying?

The children are moaning in the night

A blind man is missing his sense of sight

The dogs are picking at the scraps

The baby’s bed is her mother’s lap

Have you heard the lonely?

Have you heard their hearts?

Have you seen their longing?

Have you seen hope start?

They need reassurance from soothing voices

A story’s song to settle all fear

Nothing can comfort but the soft reminder

That the end of sorrow is near

Have you heard others ease pain?

Have you seen what they do?

Have you wondered why it works?

Have you heard the comfort they turn to?

In the dark they speak of light

When there’s no hope they speak of day

Every time they say it will be over soon

That all their troubles will blow away

How do they pass the unending time

When there is nothing but air to be had?

How can they comfort in cold and heat

When their hearts are so unbearably sad?

When their coffers are empty they tell of gold

The loved elder is sick so they gather to remind

That soon he’ll be up and prancing about

For in words there’s always hope to find

A tale will settle the unnatural fear

A phrase can heal the longing heart

To help the helpless or lonely ears

Words are the best place to start

Awesome, beautiful, caring, decent, enjoyable, fair, glowing, hopeful, inspiring, joyful, kind, laughing, magnificent, noble, optimistic, perfect, queenly, respectful, smiling, tender, unique, valuable, worthy, xenial, youthful, zesty.

A word by itself is nothing but a word. Or at least that’s what many people think. But a word can be and is, so much more, even without a sentence to surround it.

The list above was found on a website, “Positive Words Research”, intended to improve people’s lives and inspire them with a list of single words. Each of the 1,246 inspiring words was chosen because they gave someone a positive feeling. They may have comforted them in a time of need. They may have been compliments when they felt like they weren’t anything special. They may have been whispered to them at night by a mother or a lover. Whatever the reason, the words all have the same thing in common: the ability to give someone a good feeling.

The same website also does something interesting with its subscription boxes. They are purposefully designed to give viewers a good feeling. Most websites ask you to sign up by typing a username/name and email address. The same is true for “Positive Words Research”, with the difference being their wording. Name is replaced with ‘Your lovely first name’, and email address is edited to ’Your best email address. Both of these have a positive influence, however small. The thought of a first name being lovely is encouraging and a little heartwarming.

New positive and inspiring words are added often to the list from ”wonderful people all around the world”. Now who doesn’t want to be part of the wonderful people group and have a lovely first name, and help reach others with encouraging and inspiring words. Everyone wants to be encouraged and happy. Everyone wants to feel beautiful, desired, and loved. And everyone can help spread these positive feelings themselves.

It doesn’t take much to be a positive influence. Just a few words.

A compliment to a stranger can change their whole day,

An I love you to a father can make his sadness go away,

Because these words are amazing, don’t you see?

You can create them; anything they can be.

Words can hurt

Words can heal

The can love

They make you feel

Words can laugh

Words can cry

They can jump

And sing or fly

Words have meaning

They can make

Someone feel something

For somebody’s sake

Words are joy

Words are pain

Words can dance

In the falling rain

And they can kill

They can be fake

Cruel and piercing

They steal and take

Words can hurt

Or they can heal

They bring joy or sorrow

So make them real

Annoying, boring, clumsy, damned, excluded, fake, gross, horrible, idiotic, jealous, kept away, labeled, messy, naive, obsessive, plain, queer, resented, selfish, terrible, ugly, vile, worthless, xenophobic, yucky, zero.

Words like these can shape a life, but not for the better. These simple scratches of ink, crisscrossing and curving across a dead tree, can haunt someone forever.

When struck by an insult, the initial reaction is to defend against it. But if it’s hurtful enough, a part of the mind latches onto it and won’t let go. The word ugly can result in hours standing in front of a mirror trying to make an unappealing form more presentable, when it was never really ugly in the first place.

The emotions of a human are sensitive and easily scarred. And as described by published author Michael Hyatt, “Our words carry enormous weight”. If this is true, then think what negative words can do to a person. A single insult or whisper of gossip adds a pound block to their back.

Then more insults come as foul-minded acquaintances or so-called friends drop lines and jokes without thinking of the consequences. Soon the person is buried under the weight of these negative words and it’s almost impossible to dig them self out.

This is the power of negative words, the reverse image of what positive words can do. They are degrading and thieves of life. Each word or compilation of words has the option of dropping a weight to the pile or picking one up and tossing it in the rushing river. The speaker is the one to decide what their words will do, and not everyone chooses to help the poor souls buried in insults they’ve begun to think are the truth. Not everyone can see how lost these people are. Not everyone cares.

But the few who do can use the power of their words—the power of those little scratches of ink on dead trees—to unearth the graves and reveal the living beneath the death. “Death and life is in the power of the tongue.” (NASB, Proverbs 18:21)

A calling to something better,

A responsibility, that’s for sure,

To use tools against the hate

For words are the sole, easy cure.

I’m buried beneath the earth

Ugly, stupid, unwanted

The dirt presses around

Oh how I long to be comforted

The dirty words are cold

I long for a hand to hold

For an instant I feel bold

But then again I’m told

I’m buried beneath the hate

Crazy, damned, fake

Where is my saving joy?

Where is he for my heart’s sake?

Music reaches my ears

The song without tune I hear

Hope approaches near

Fading, flees the fear

I’m buried beneath cold, hard words

Hideous, awful, odd?

A shovel breaks through the night

First thought: it must be God

Arms pull at word-carved stones

Surprised I’m not just bones

Encouragement in undertones

Finally I’m not alone

I’m unburied above the earth

Lovely, always beautiful, first

Cold frost pinches at my nose

But believe me, I’ve been through worse

I stare at the personification of death. It’s cold and horrible in the quiet night. The blood has stopped flowing from what once was a neck, but I can still see it in my mind’s clear sight. And I whisper to myself, you’re next.

Eyes avert as I stroll the streets. No friendly gazes meet. We know what’s coming before it does but there’s nothing we can possibly do. I saw my ending when I was five, the following days the townspeople did too. Once a future is set, it’s not long before everyone knows what’s coming. But there’s nothing to do, no running.

Comfort comes from all sides. It always does to the doomed. It eases the fear and the coldness inside but unheeded my destiny looms.

There are those who sneer as I pass, knowing just makes them laugh. But when they see their fate, they won’t be so quick to judge, and may even regret their hate. Knowing they’ll be sorry makes me sad that they can’t see past their own view. I would defend my dignity, but when you’ll die tomorrow, there’s nothing of it left to lose.

So I stroll away from the faces, leaving the prospect of a fight. If I don’t go to my death then I’ll be drawn to it by fate, and that’s more frightening than the empty night. Flight only accomplishes fright. If I stay I will cause pain and suffering, or I can go and make my vision come true. There’s no question as to what I should do.

My friends’ words comfort, the sneering words hate, and all of these words drive me closer to my fate. I will be strong like the comforting word say. And I won’t cause the sneering people more pain. Their words drive me along and I sing the fate song, hoping it won’t begin to rain.

Into the woods I stumble, up to the telltale cliff. I wait until midnight but still no one comes; I start to leave, confused and miffed. But as I take a step, the huntsman appears, seeing not that I stand on the edge. He aims at a deer with a bow made of wood, peering past a tangled hedge.

I know to move but comforting words hold me still, this is what I am born to do. The deer leaps, the hunter shoots, and my body the arrow passes through.

I gasp at the rough, cold wood. It settles by my heart, doesn’t kill me but I know it could. I shudder with a breath and fall from the edge of the rock. My body tumbles through the air as the sneering voices mock. But I’m doing this for them, I’m dying for their sake. To save them from pain, I knowingly came to the cliff over the lake.

I would scream for fear, yell for pain. But the comfort-words crowd into my mind, whispering my name. My last breath fades and a light my eyes see. Just as I saved the deer, these words now save me.

I want to speak with words that flow

That curl around nothing to make life grow

And at a word I’d change a heart

In a soft song to banish the dark

I wish my words were magic-filled

Then they’d dance like birds and trill

I’d make them roll like waves at sea

And bring warm rain just to be

If only they’d craft a sunset pure

Enchanting the eyes only to lure

Them away from the coming of the day

But I would keep the darkness away

At a sound, light would twist around

To illuminate stones and waters bound

By the very earth I spoke before

And suddenly I’d open a door

To flooding falls pouring down cliffs

Hanging between trees and forming mist

At the pull of a song the rock would rise

Twisting itself into a mountainous disguise

Beings spring through pillars of light

And quickly a newborn bird takes flight

They curve their hands and twist the sky

Bending the world until at a word, they die

I would shape a life into a glowing light

Grant him gifts and power of sight

The will to save, to enchant and find

A strength to use on darkness and bind

Enemies arise, as they always must

Against the savior, fighting for just

The hope of a better, bright universe

Without hate or pain or sorrowful curse

And finally at a long awaited song

My hero would give himself along

With a chance for the next to take his turn

To save my creation before it inevitably burns

The power of words is endless.

When I was in 5th grade, I discovered the true power of words for the first time. I did this by learning to love to read. Every child learns to read at a young age but learning to love to read is completely different and it is almost never taught in classrooms. When a child learns to love to read, they discover the power of words. They discover what words can do to you, how they can entrance and ensnare you in a story or tale and make it seem like a reality.

The secret for how words do this is described in five syllables of Hebrew that nearly every child knows from their days of pulling rabbits out of hats. The word is simply “abracadabra”. It is originally a Hebrew phrase meaning “I create what I speak”. (Smith)

This phrase unlocks the mystery as to why words have their power. They are not just descriptions. They are magical creatures that have endless, wonderful possibilities of how to enchant the mind. They shape mountains for us to climb, they fill pits for us to swim, they weave woods for us to lose ourselves in. They trap us in their captivating promises, predictions, and parables until we feel that words are more real than reality.

So many people don’t understand this power or how beautiful words can be. So many people have never picked up a book that can teach them to love to read. So many people are missing out on the infinite wonders I have come to enjoy so much. The wonders I hope to create for others someday.

All thanks to one five-syllable word: abracadabra.

Capture the life inside a sound

With vibrations build its bars

Bend the noise and magical voice

Twist its light into glorious stars

Imprison the life in quick pen strokes

Read aloud its form and feature

Box it in with a singsong voice

Turn its light into a creature

Trap the life in voice and volume

Call its shape into existence

Write and speak and yell and sing

Mold its sparks to create distance

Take the life and hold it captive

See it’s worthy of awe and rapture

Build its bars then set it free

For someone else to find and capture