I have just finished reading ‘Day After Night’ by Anita
Diamant, a story about Holocaust survivors who were imprisoned by the British in
Israel, freed by the Jewish Palmach and placed in Kibbutz’ throughout the country.
“Kibbutz. The word echoed in her head suddenly
unfamiliar and unlike an ordinary noun like pencil or soup. More like justice or even unicorn. Not so much a thing you could put a hand on; kind of a fairy tale or a dream…a nice idea, a noble goal perhaps. Not a real place like the one these men were
talking about…just out of view.”
Kibbutz; for these survivors, it was another word for freedom. Though they knew this word; they knew about the places that they were, but heard now, in
this moment, the word held another meaning...salvation, freedom, home at last, a dream fulfilled.
The power of a word understood…said or heard or read at just
that moment…the moment of seeing it real…of feeling it, smelling it, tasting
it. Have you ever heard a word like
that?
A friend said to me on Sunday that he was amazed at the
reading of these words…one in particular; the word taste.
"Truly I tell
you, some who are standing here will not taste death
before they see the
kingdom of God."
Luke 9:27
Taste death?
What do you do with a word like that, used in that way for
that purpose? Tasting death…it’s as if
it is something to be grasped, held on to, experienced; rolled
around on your tongue, filling your pallet and then…to be swallowed. Like a
blueberry, a little explosion, popping in your mouth, it’s sweetness laughing there, all sweet,
flesh, and skin and seeds. Like ice
cream? Ice Cream, with a bit of
butterscotch, smooth and creamy, sweet; melting over every taste bud and down…your
throat cherishing the melting down of it.
Tasting; maybe like a lemon, biting down on it, the pulp, squirting, finding its way
into every hidden place in your mouth, its juice sucking up everything into a
pucker, your lips, the whole of your face and even your fingertips…bitter.
Tasting death…tasting, the power of a word.
.
A word, how you hear it, how it falls fresh in
your mind, powerful, with a new meaning, on your heart, filling your soul. Words, how you say them matters, how you hear
them sometimes matters more.
The power of words…thinking, feeling, tasting…taking them in, filling your
soul.
