Words can be like seeds that are planted in soil and grow into plants. Words can be like pebbles that fall on the ground and produce no life. Words can insult or compliment. Words can be useful or wasted, helpful or harmful. Words cannot substitute for action, no matter how hard we try. Words without action do not mean much. Words can heal or injure.
We need words to talk and write but words are not what we are talking or writing about. Someone I know, today when challenged said “I am a human being.” This statement was in response to a person who was trying to define and describe this person with words.
Plants and animals, life forms, cannot talk or write, thus cannot use words. They are what we describe them as; a brown cow is a brown cow. However, a human being is beyond any description. A rich or poor person, a white or African-American person, a man or woman are all human beings.
In war and conflicts we often talk about our enemies in words that ignore that they are human beings. At SOAWatch last weekend, in the horror stories of victims in Latin America from soldiers trained in the School of Americas, I heard about the terrible results of lack of respect for human life and dignity.
In this busy world we throw out so many words and hear so many words, we forget how to hear and see beyond the words and see each other as human beings.
Too many words tonight about words. Let this face of death on a puppet from the march onto Fort Benning and the School of Americas say the rest. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A human being is wordless.
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