Why are words so important? Perhaps because they are never just words when we slow down and deeply contemplate them. We might uncover how much consciousness and meaning they carry. They can flow from a deep river of truth and reveal the timeless calling of our universal heart, or they can reinforce habits of fear, doubt, and separation. They have the potential to open us up to healing beyond what we can even imagine possible, or shut us down into the shame of the wounded victim. They can serve as a glorious invitation to life or a harsh dismissal of it.

Words. They are important because they hold powerful potential for shaping the development of consciousness. But what calibre of consciousness? What does our daily “word diet” consist of? What words do we indulge in each day? What kind of consciousness are we cultivating collectively by engaging with these words and images daily? It is through these words and images that we relate to one another and come to understand ourselves. What could be more important to pay attention to?

Words are never just words; they are reality-makers. Slowly, bit by bit, our psyche, emotions, and thought patterns are formed through words from the moment we are born. From the words of our earliest inner dialogue to our grade 3 teacher’s words, we grow according to the landscape of meaning that words have created. Whether we read extensively or choose never to read again, we are shaped by a culture of words. They are the building blocks for our individual and communal concepts or shibboleths. We see them reflected in how we relate to one another and our understanding of life’s purpose and meaning. Because words eventually fashion the potpourri of our experienced realities, they also form the cultural landscape in which we live. This landscape is vital for the development of spiritual awareness through consciousness. It can either aid or obstruct the expansion of our individual and collective consciousness. We will either be supported in knowing and living from our authentic nature in God/Self/Spirit, or we will feel crazy even thinking such a reality exists.

Words of Spirit hold the potential to realign us with our authentic nature. Scripture and the love poetry of the mystics exemplify this. We receive divine transmission through their words. St. John of the Cross likens such words to being “like the sun,” in that “they can do for the heart what light can for a field.” French resistance fighter Jacques Lusseyran recognized the power of words as a blind concentration camp survivor during WW2. His writings urge us to ward off “the pollution of the I” that arrives as a cascade of outward images, rules, regulations, and cultural distortions. Lusseyran preserved his inner light while in the concentration camp through his connection with a spiritual inmate (“Jeremy”) and the healing medicine of recited poetry. In his 1998 book And There Was Light, he writes:

… I learned that poetry is an act, an incantation, a kiss of peace, a medicine. I learned that poetry is one of the rare, very rare things in the world which can prevail over cold and hatred. . . . A medicine, neither more nor less. An element which, communicated to the human organism, modified the vital circulation, making it slower, or more rapid. It was, in short, something whose effects were as concrete as those of a chemical substance, I was convinced of this.

Words hold meaning as they shape our reality and influence our understanding of ourselves. They provide context to the life around us. Throughout our lives, we are moulded — one word, one idea at a time. Words can either help birth the authentic “I” in Spirit, or they can help pollute it, as Lusseyran says. Whether we choose to be conscious of the power of words or not does not mean we are free from the reality of the word/concept/reality wheel that shapes the life within and around us.

We must understand that words are the building blocks sustaining our lives. What are the internal words, thoughts, and images we recycle through our awareness? And what consciousness does our daily reading or listening nourish? What meaning and context do they provide for our relationships and the spaces between us? Do our words and concepts reinforce our personal positions and the cultural status quo? Or do they challenge the boundaries of what we know and open us to previously unseen doors of possibility?

As spiritual beings, we might practice paying attention. Or we may discover too late that we have never truly known who we are in Mary Oliver’s description of our “one precious life.” We would be wise to understand that the eternal Word that resonates throughout the universes is not separate from the yearning heart seeking expression within you and me, and through this one precious life we share. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).