Language and the Soul

If we could see our soul perhaps we would be circumspect in our language, for language forms the soul and the soul forms our language.

Those who say that a word is just a word fail to recognize that language is a gift, a creative gift, and that our words create and destroy, belittle and build up. Those “name it and claim it” folks, and positive mental attitude tribes, cheapen language in that they make it a currency, just as an American dollar or an English pound. They fail to recognize that language is formative and that to appreciate language is to recognize that it can either work deep character in our souls or it can tear them down, shredding them into sound bites and hashtags.

Twitter and texting with their brevity and shortcuts reduce us to frogs and toads who jump when touched – we need not think, we need only react…and react we do, responding in kind.

When language is reduced to the pragmatic are we any different than animals who are taught to respond to commands?

As we destroy thoughtful and formative language, we distance ourselves from the Word, the Word that brought creation into existence, the Word that desires to redeem us, the Word who desires to reform us into His Image.

I happened to observe some people watching a television show in which it seemed every other word was “beeped” out. Is not this the equivalent of an animal grunting and snorting? This is not formative, this is destructive. These grunts and snorts not only reduce the soul of the one who grunts and snorts, it reduces the souls of those who receive the grunts and snorts. We have exchanged swimming pools for cesspools and we revel in our sewage.

Of course I cannot conclude this without apologizing to animals, I mean no offense to them, for the sounds they emit they emit naturally, according to their nature. The grunts and snorts we emit are not natural, at least not natural according to our original nature; we who were made in the image of God are descending much lower than the animals.

Fractured language promotes fractured thinking; fractured language fractures the soul; fractured souls are at the mercy of their surroundings. We do not think complete thoughts. We seldom see complete images. We glory in our shame, and we think this is normal.

I wonder what the first word that Adam spoke sounded like.

I am afraid that the last sound we emit will be a grunt.