October 8, 2003
Word
Science fiction guru Ray Bradbury one time said that if first-grade teachers do not teach their students to read within a year, they should be fired and replaced by someone who can. Harsh words, but overdue.
Reading informs writing. Writing develops language facility. Writer Toni Morrision claims that language makes us human. “The Word became flesh” was writer John Evangelist’s take on it. Became. Enhanced. Suited. Adorned. Embellished. Flesh.
DNA, God’s autograph, the language that informs human being, was there all the time, its discovery, another of grace’s markers. It was Pogo, the Wonder Possum, who said, “How will we know what to say less’n you tells us what to think?” DNA may not tell us what to think, but it does provide the occasion, the “family” reunion, the embraces, the anecdotes, and fires them up to know how to and when to go to new places, to think.
Then comes the real pleasure. If we’ll let it and trust it, imagination moves in. Imagination, wishful thinking, implements faith, welcomes its Creator, affirms commitment, dares to be vulnerable, and shapes our world.
Word, God’s private system for imagining human being.