words, words, words...

How many words do we really need?

I find that Americans are excessive on almost every level, even the way we use language.

There is so much traffic and commotion on the internet.  Run-on blog posts, tweets, status updates, opinions. Words, words, words.  We have a lot of them. I realize the irony of this post, as I am merely adding to them.

But what are we really saying?

I know that in my own experience, it sometimes requires a lot of words and a lot of talking in order for me to pin down what I want to say--the heart of my message.  But once I get to the heart, can't I start to cut away the excess?

This is what a love about poetry--the condensed language--"the best words in their best order."

I'm wondering how this would translate to the way that I live--what would my life look like if I knew the heart of my message--the message that God wants to speak through me--and started to delete the rest of the clutter?

My favorite poet, Linda Pastan, says--

"I'd like to write long narrative poems. I'd like to write a novel. And any time I start anything long, I keep trying to take out anything extraneous, anything that doesn't belong, and I end up with a small lyric poem that just happens...But each poem of mine goes through something like 100 revisions...I want every word to have to be there. I want a certain kind of impact on the reader or on myself when I read it, the sort of condensed energy that can then go out."

Simple. Concise. Condensed. Powerful. The core, the meat, the good stuff. Nothing else.

In his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller writes about living a good story.

I'm wondering what it would look like to live poetry.

Jesus spoke in poetry. His parables were metaphors, and as Tony Hoagland says, "metaphor is the raw uranium of poetry." Those simple, short metaphors carried so much density, meaning, and mystery, that they eluded most people. They still elude us. Perhaps that is why they're so brilliant. We try to pin down their meaning, but despite all of our thick commentaries, we can't.

Jesus chose His words wisely and His words were few. He didn't need a lot of them.

He is the Word.

Word...as in singular.

I can find nothing superfluous, excessive, or wordy about Jesus or the way He communicates.

I am taking notes. The implications are profound.