Sometimes, when I think about it, this process of writing a daily blog amazes me. It isn’t particularly amazing to me that I write each day. People have been keeping journals for generations. My family has boxes and boxes of journals of one of my great grandfathers, who wrote about everything from the weather to local politics to recording the high points of sermons that he heard at church. I’ve known plenty of other people who used the process of writing to clarify their thoughts and as a discipline to document the changes of life.

What amazes me is that there are a few people who read what it is that I have to write. Through the technologies of the Internet, what I write is accessible to a wide variety of people. Some of my old friends read my blog posts from time to time. Members of the congregation I serve read it. From time to time I will receive an e-mail note from an unexpected place and be surprised that someone has found my blog.

I guess I want people to read what I write, or I wouldn’t bother to post it on the Internet and make it available. On the other hand, I don’t often pause to think about how many people are reading. It is a bit like worship. It is nice to worship with a group of people, and I am grateful for those who come to attend worship. But it would be necessary for me to worship even if others didn’t come to participate. If I weren’t in a leadership position, I would still seek out a community in which to share the experience.

It is what I do. It is who I am.

Being an avid reader, I am aware of the power of words. My life has been deeply influenced by reading words written by those whom I have never met face-to-face. There are some key concepts that took generations to develop that have been handed down from generation to generation and honed through a long process. It was the Persian king Cyrus the Great who formulated one of the world’s oldest declarations of human rights. His work was preserved and handed down and subsequent generations added to and honed his work. The belief that there are certain rights due to every human being was incorporated into the Declaration of Independence and other documents that provided a foundation for our nation. And human rights continue to have a prominent place in international relations in part because Cyrus had a great idea and was willing to share it with others.

The great writer and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, once wrote, “Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.”

There are moments when what we say is as important as what we do. Telling the truth is a powerful force in our world. This has been recognized by those who have abused power as well as those who have used their power for good. Augustus Caesar sent the poet Ovid into exile. King Soloman banned the priests to Anatoth. Stalin imprisoned and tortured many writers: Boris Pasternach and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He killed the poet Osip Mandelstam. The Nazis in Germany killed Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but they couldn’t stop his words from being read - their power inspires many today.

I don’t imagine that my writing has the permanence of the words of the world’s great writers. I’m not likely to make a list of those whose writing has changed the world. I do, however, have the ability to occasionally make a connection by telling a story. And stories have wonderful power.

The Anangu people, indigenous to the center of Australia, tell a story in which the people are the tongue for the body which is the land. The role of the people is to speak for the land. At Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, they invite their guests to listen to the silence of the place and “hear” the land. The experience of standing on a hilltop and watching the giant rock painted by sunset and sunrise sparked an overwhelmingly powerful emotional response for me. There was a sense of connection with something so much larger than my one life on this earth. That connection came, in part, from listening to the stories of the people.

So I feel compelled to tell the stories of our people. When I tell of Moses standing up to the power of Pharaoh and taking a stand against the production culture for the freedom of the people, I know that one man, speaking truth to power, can change the course of history. When I tell the stories of Jesus feeding hungry people, healing those who had been discarded by society, and reversing the societal notion of who is and is not blessed, I offer a way of living that brings forth futures.

And sometimes, when I write, a few ideas become more clear and easier to tell. Words have the power to make connections.

Of course words can be used to harm and hurt as well as to heal. There are days when I despair at the harshness of the language used in our political life. I cringe when words are used to condemn ideas - and exclude people. I despair at the lack of basic civility in too many public conversations. There are other moments, however, when words can reach beyond disagreement. I have found that the simple discipline of listening carefully when someone says words with which I disagree can lead to engagement at a different level. Sometimes when a person has been really heard, they become open to listening. Sometimes when we really listen we can grasp our common humanity that is more basic than the concepts and ideas we espouse.

So, for now, I will keep writing. I will keep treasuring words and trying to craft sentences that exhibit a bit of clarity. I may not change the world, but perhaps I will write enough to enable myself to understand the world a bit better.

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