The Power of Words: Why Shared Meaning Heals Humanity

The Word That Birthed Us

by Stephen James

We were born into stories

before we had names.

Before we could crawl,

the world was whispering meaning into our skin.

A scream, a kiss, a silence held too long—

all words, all sacred.

Before you knew how to say I love you,

you felt it.

in the warmth of your mother’s chest,

the ache in your gut

when your father left the room too soon.

Words are not just sounds—

they are spells.

We cast them daily.

Some liberate.

Some slice through the skin

like truth dressed in steel.

Humanity?

We are just a walking dictionary

trying to agree on what freedom means.

What yes means.

What home feels like.

But when the meaning splinters—

when truth is up for auction

and love is rebranded for likes—

we bleed.

Our hearts get lost

in translation.

So let’s not play God with our tongues.

Let’s remember:

every word you utter is true or false.

And when we speak with shared meaning,

we don’t just communicate.

We commune.

Let the word be HOLY again.

Let we mean we.

Let you mean seen.

And may every sentence

start not with grammar

but with GRACE.

With love,

SJ.