WHEN the bride and groom spoke to each other on Saturday afternoon, their impact on guests was visceral.
Everything they said echoed through nearly a shared century of their lives.
Their words and intonation and evocation were laced with a tangible love that was stunning in its clarity. People were in tears at their tears. A small earthquake of emotion trembled.
The choice and honesty of their language for each other soared to an altitude that is unreachable in most moments.
It was a wonderful reminder of why we must reclaim the important art of words. It highlighted the way that positive words can become a uniquely powerful force when unbridled in a sometimes cynical and jaded world.
Words shape our every thought and attitude. They set our tones and boundaries. They condition ambitions. They challenge positions.
They enlighten healing and enliven feelings. The right words can start eternal friendships and end intractable wars. And vice versa.
Words are free. In every sense. They cost nothing, while meaning everything. They belong to no-one, yet everyone has them.
You can even make them up. Words capture the essence of the presence of every experience that we ever have in life.
And yet most of us are frequently lazy with them, sometimes to the point of being careless or crass. Or worse.
That’s not to say we don’t take time to formally consider their importance. Think about the care people take with a job application, or preparing a lecture or sermon or speech, or a court case, or a sensitive discussion.
Yet contrast that precision with the wanton disregard for meanings and feelings and values that daily peppers social media, like Twitter or Facebook.
Words can wound deeply. The misappropriation and misapplication of words can become so toxic that criminal offences are committed by people who have never even personally encountered their victim.
And very often, some mainstream media are equally guilty of poisoning the potency of words to selfishly promote profit and dishonest agendas under the feigned cover of journalism.
Public political discourse is no exception either. In fact it largely shapes the framework in which ‘lines’ of words and soundbites of nastiness become the negative norm.
From north America to the north of Ireland, we see repeated examples from public leaders of words being deployed to destroy rather than to build bridges.
When all’s said and done, our words are imbued with our motivations – good or bad, interested or dismissive, active or passive.
Motivation is what matters most, both for individuals and institutions. And valued words can lead us to positive places – both personally and as a society.
Words can be tangible tools for creating better people and outcomes, despite the corruption of corrosive social interests.
None of us should be afraid to insist on a higher standard of discourse both between, and for, each other. We can always do better.
And we are obligated to challenge the abuse of words when they are gratuitously offensive or consistently negative. Otherwise our innate right to strongly disagree becomes undermined.
Words don’t have to be complicated to be compelling. Simplicity often lasts forever.
Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg in 1863 was just 272 words and lasted less than three minutes. Yet it embedded eternally the democratic edict: “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.
Think too of Heaney’s invocation to “walk on air against your better judgment”, or Yeats’s plea to “tread softly because you tread on my dreams”.
Look at Tennyson’s urging “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”, or Whitman’s reminder that “the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse”.
Most of our ‘verses’ are normally contributed to the daily conversations we share with friends and colleagues and families.
Some of these end up like good Irish stew, with rough cuts of root staple tossed into a bubbling broth of life that brews around indefinitely and always satisfies.
Others achieve the construct of cathedrals, where the stateliness and sophistication of discourse and ideas almost requires quiet veneration at the privilege of others’ wisdom.
As Saturday’s bride and groom founded their public partnership with loving words of unlimited truth, Maya Angelou’s quote came to mind: “In the flush of love’s light, we dare to be brave.
And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.”
Words of love can free up futures. Let’s learn to be brave with them.
