I am passionate about
words. They are an expression of the soulful nature of our being, our
experiences, our attitudes and our cumulative growth. I love words that feed my
soul, like poetry. Consider what the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran said about this
genre of literature: “Poetry is not an opinion expressed. It is a song that
rises from a bleeding wound or a smiling mouth.” Never a greater truth has been spoken. When I
write poetry, I write what I feel, from all my wounds and all my happy moments
of the heart.
Words of poems that touch
me are like seeds that had been sown in my heart. I believe the experiences of
the poets that write them. American poet Sara Teasdale’s poems of love touch
the very nerves of my heart. When I read
her poem about the ‘sensitive, shy years, that strove to sing with voices
drowned in tears’ years before ‘she saw his face’ I tend to believe in love
even though all I know of it is pain but I also know the years drowned in tears
and so I can believe in love too (see her poem “The Years”)
Another poet of my heart
is American poet Emily Dickinson. Her words of life and death and all that’s in
between bring to me the reality of mortal life and the memories of it we will
take with us when we cross the bar. Her poem “Retrospect” dissolves me into
tears just by simple awakening of memories of my childhood. When she says “It
was just this time last year I died. I know I heard the corn, when I was
carried by the farms – it had the tassels on”, I remember the fields of corn of
my childhood.
And who could not be
touched by the lyrical poetry of the Irish W.B. Yeats who wished he had ‘the
heaven’s embroidered cloths’ so he could spread them under “your feet: but I,
being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread
softly because you tread on my dreams.” (Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven).
I believe in the beauty
of words and I also believe in their power. They evoke emotion, memory, innermost
beliefs, spiritual awakening, hope and faith. I am enthralled when I read the
scriptures and see examples of words of faith that bring the impossible into
possible. Such is the power of words.
Consider
Enoch who was called to his holy calling when he was ‘slow of speech’ (Moses
6:31). The Lord promised him that He will give him ‘utterance’ and He will
‘justify’ all his words (Moses:32-34). So because Enoch trusted this promise,
given to him by God himself, his weakness turned into his greatest strength,
and he became so powerful that when he spoke the people trembled and could not
stand in his presence (Moses 6:47). That my friends is turning the impossible
into possible.
Worthy spoken words have the power to resonate with the spirit of
God and empower us to achieve things we could not ordinarily do on our own.
An example of this is calling upon the power of the Atonement to enable
us to overcome a certain weakness or to receive a healing. I have had
experience to this end and can testify that the power of the Atonement, when
prayed for, can heal you, as does hearing His word which ‘heals the wounded soul’ (Jacob 2:8). The vibration of words carries with it power that creates
a pathway for manifestation of that which we pray for. Admonition to pray is prolific in scriptures
for exactly this reason.
Spoken word
and faith are inter-related. The great exemplar of this is the
Saviour himself, who created the world by the power of His word (Jacob 4:9;
Mormon 9:17; Genesis 1; John 1:1). I believe when the Saviour spoke the words
of creation, He spoke by the power of faith. This is obvious to me through a
small incident in His mortal life when He came upon a fig tree that had no
fruit to feed His hunger. He cursed the tree and the tree withered the moment
He spoke (Matthew 21:18-21). When His
disciples marvelled at what they saw, Jesus told them that if they had faith
and doubted not, if they said the word for mountains to move, it would be so
(v21).
I have to speak of Enoch
again. During
his interlude with God, Enoch pleaded with Him that God would have ‘mercy upon
Noah and his seed’ (Moses 7:50) but he did so in the most powerful way that a
prayerful plea should ever be uttered. He said: “I ask Thee, O Lord, in the
name of thine Only Begotten, even Jesus Christ, that thou wilt….”(v50). In
other words, he did not use Jesus' name as an ending afterthought, like we are
accustomed to do so at the end of our prayers. He began with the Saviour’s name
as an acknowledgement of his faith in the source of power through which his
petition can be granted.
As a result of his faith in the
Saviour and the power of His name, God could not withhold from covenanting with
Enoch that He would grant his petition (v 51). So powerful did Enoch become in
speaking ‘the word of the Lord’ that the earth trembled and the mountains fled
(v13). Without a doubt, he commanded the mountains to flee in the name of Jesus
Christ. Likewise, the mountains of our lives can crumble at the mention of His
name. Believe in the power of your faith in Him at whose appearing the
mountains will flow down at His presence, the elements will melt with fervent
heat, the waters will boil and the sun will hide its face in shame (Hebrews
12:29; D&C 133:40-44, 49). Is this not power greater than any mountain on
your path?
Dare to create the life
that God would want you to have by becoming your best self. Aim higher than you
have ever aimed before. The Saviour wants you to be like Him, in every way. He
would have you learn to harness the power of faith that you might rise to
godhood through your power of manifestation. That power is already in you……He made sure of
it. So speak the power…..
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