Ultimately through our own use of words, we come to be what we are in the world, for good or bad…
Through the concert of heart and mind tuned by true words, we may move beyond our individual, separate aspirations and become aware that we hold humanity in common; so then we have a common—that is, a community—responsibility to words.
—Marion Montgomery
This is another reason why laws and education are never neutral. It’s also another reason why cultural literacy is a good start but doesn’t go far enough toward redeeming virtue in the West.
All education cultivates a particular cultural morality, and education is rooted in words. People will come to be what they are in the world, for good or bad, depending on how they have been instructed by and how they interact with words—whether thought, spoken, or written. What people read, who people talk with and listen to, and what people choose to say shapes them and simultaneously reveals who they are in the world.
To be mindful of our words is to be mindful of what we are creating and what we are becoming.
Recall the Scriptures:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” –John 1:1–3
“for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.((For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:, KJV.)) “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten, and waste your pleasant words. Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the good sense of your words.” –Proverbs 23:7–9 (ESV)
“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” –Luke 6:45
Leave a Reply