Dear Pilgrim,
It’s time we met. We have been acquainted long; but I want you to know me better, because in knowing me, you will better understand the world, its people, and your place in it.
I am a tool, thought up in God’s mind, used by Him first, when He made the world. Then men used me to name and label, and form first theories. An enemy twisted me into lies, and made the world run amuck.
I form civilizations, and cultures form me. I am a servant, and a ruler. I bend to another’s will, but bind him stronger than iron. God bids life and death by me, and men either save or lose their life with my aid.
Banished and embraced, exiled and welcomed, pirated and treasured—I always live in paradox.
You feel insecure because I am volatile, capricious, mysterious. I’m beyond you, and yet beneath you. I possess objective purpose, yet I yield to subjective whim. I define your world, but am utilized for its undoing.
You wouldn’t believe what’s been blamed on me. “All my fault” people would have you believe. I’ve been cajoled, dissected, dismembered by men for their own deceptive ends. And I’ve been scrutinized, studied, tested, and loved by men who search for truth.
Poets paint sonnets with me. Musicians agonize over me so that I will blend with their work. Sometimes, they let me speak silent, through the haunting beauty of song.
The world spins by me, it seems, and why shouldn’t it? I was used to conceive the world.
But beyond my grandeur and danger, at my truest heart’s purpose, I am only an instrument. I’m the cord thrown from one person to another, always outstretched, always pleading, always inviting.
Let’s walk this road together for a while, till knowledge blossoms into wisdom and guessing yields to sober understanding, till confusion gives way to clarity, and unintelligible hope grows into believing joy . . . and we comprehend our place in the Creator’s hands.
Fondly,
Words.
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