I’ve always been a fan of words. I’ve been a fan of how someone can place 30 words into one paragraph and make your heart flutter. I like how someone can put thought and meaning and truth and vulnerability in the words they release from their mouths or their fingers or their hands or however they get those words out of their body. I like how words display a truth. I like how words display the pain and the fear and the intense amount of passion they have for someone else.
I hate words, too. I hate how words lie. I hate how I could place together these 30 words in a paragraph and make someone feel like I care for them and not mean it. I hate how someone can say how much they miss you and not be telling the truth. I hate how people use words, use these sharp knife-like letters, as a way to bring comfort, but use words to be lazy with their actions.
Words and actions should go hand-in-hand. Words should enhance how you feel. Words should be the icing on the cake.
And I think words are kind of like those sins that the preacher talked about at church. He kept talking about how you shouldn’t drink, you shouldn’t do drugs, you shouldn’t have sex because those are all temporary highs. Temporary things that make you feel so good. Temporary things that make you feel like everything is going to be okay. A temporary feeling that leaves you feeling empty.
To me, words not standing hand-in-hand with action is the most prominent sermon a preacher could ever preach. I think that's what people need to hear.
We live in this world of technology and words and making us look good by sugarcoating our feelings through screens. We send easy text messages that allow us to not actually show up for someone who is hurting. We send long text messages about how much we care for someone instead of taking someone out to coffee or dinner or whatever it is that makes someone feel special. We say, "I love you" after hanging out, but we don't plan on keeping up with the problems they are going through. We use our words to show care without actually showing care.
We use words to give someone else this temporary high, this rush of happiness through their body, so that we don't have to actually show up. We want people to know we care, but we don't always show up to prove we care.
And, maybe, I hate how people say “I love you” so much because I just received a text message saying that I am loved, but I just rolled my eyes. I rolled my eyes knowing no one was going to show up. I rolled my eyes knowing that they wouldn't buy me candy or coffee to make me feel better. I rolled my eyes because for so long I believed I was loved, but the lack of action behind their words makes me not believe them.
I can't believe words without actions anymore.
