Through Our Speaking We Create Each Other, Episode 206

 


Language is a doorway through which we can step into new relationships with the world and with one another, and as such our ways of speaking and listening are a profound kind of power. We are changed by what we say and by what others say. So how do we find ways with language that honour its power, and that open up possibilities and understanding for one another? And how might we be ones who, by our listening, gift others around us with the possibility of speech, so they they can bring themselves and their powers of creation fully to the world?

This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about about giving name to what would otherwise be hidden, hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Here's our source for this week:


In Hebrew the term davar (דבר) means both ‘word’ and 'deed.’ Thus to say something is to do something. I love you. I hate you. I forgive you. I am afraid. Who knows what such words do, but whatever it is, it can never be undone. Something lay hidden in the heart that is irrevocably released through speech into time, is given substance and tossed like a stone into the pool of history, where the concentric rings lap out endlessly.

Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I both discover and create who I am. By my words I elicit a word from you. Through our converse we create each other.

Frederick Buechner

Photo by chris liu on Unsplash


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The Brilliance We Are, Episode 207

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Falling, Episode 205