Actions Over Language

They are not hear­ing our words any­more. Christianity’s com­plex lan­guage sys­tem pro­gres­sively belongs to fewer and fewer that take the time to study them. Com­puter terms grow almost daily. Text mes­sag­ing is cre­at­ing lan­guage short­cuts that resem­ble a lan­guage all its own. Jobs and pro­fes­sions also have their exten­sive and pri­vate terms. We live in an Orwellian Babel. Every­one is speak­ing a dif­fer­ent lan­guage, but using many of the same words. It is kind of weird.
Lan­guage unites or divides. It unites in poetry, story, and song. It divides in analy­sis, the­ory, and other judg­ments that sep­a­rate the “informed” from the despised unin­formed. Words can be great tools. Lan­guage has no replace­ment. It is never neu­tral. It is shaded by the motives of the one doing the ver­bal­iz­ing. In polit­i­cal dis­course, words are often cheap­ened to hide the lies. Valid­ity has to do with less dis­tance between the descrip­tion and the real­ity. “Get­ting real” means match­ing actions to words.
Words can be manip­u­la­tive smoke screens or depict com­mit­ments as solid as the Rock of Gibral­tar. It depends on the per­son utter­ing them. Words backed by actions are the most pow­er­ful. They depict real­ity. Words alone are merely noise. This is part of what James meant when he wrote of faith and works. Men­tal con­structs are not effec­tive unless they are tied to actu­al­i­ties. Think­ing about doing the laun­dry is not as pro­duc­tive as actu­ally doing the laun­dry. In fact, thought alone is not far from mere fan­tasy.
We can­not wait for peo­ple to learn our terms. Our actions will have to come first. Sac­ri­fi­cial liv­ing changes things in earnest. Gifts given are tan­gi­ble means of help. They are real. Feed­ing the hun­gry. Pro­tect­ing the pow­er­less. Doing what counts takes few words or none at all. Jesus taught, but he also healed. He fed peo­ple. There was no gap between his inten­tions, words, and actions.
“Actions speak louder than words” is a sim­ple tru­ism. So, with it in mind, it is time to begin doing what I am doing today — even if I do not say a sin­gle word to any­one. May what I do speak!