Sometimes I just have to complete a jigsaw puzzle. It’s not a game; more a survival tactic. Puzzles provide retreat from the tumultuous ocean of words we swim in, which can threaten to drown us in their ubiquity and ferocity.
Some words, of course, are helpful, clarifying, edifying, even revelatory and uplifting. But more seem to envelop us in deception, seduction, obfuscation. Conversations that might otherwise involve genuine sharing often calcify on the level of vacant chatter. Or they devolve into rants we’ve all chanted ourselves or endured from others too many times.
This is why it can be a relief to open a puzzle box and escape into a realm of shapes, colors, and pieces designed to fit together. To flee from the pointless din to a realm where silence rules and the big picture doesn’t need to be verbalized.
Words were invented for a higher purpose than to add to the noise, scripture tells us. God utters the first words, which become reality in tangible form: Let there be . . . and it was so (Gen. 1). Speaking of the creation of the world in Genesis, St. Augustine writes that language is a journey into creativity. God’s words are simply and immediately effective. They engender what they imply. Words don’t begin as an invention like all the rest. Rather, they’re the divine tools that invent what else might be.
These days, many words tossed into the air fall flat and die without producing anything useful. Or worse, they build a smokescreen to obscure truth and steer us toward places we never intended to go, with consequences we will heartily regret. Words can be incendiary, setting fires in hearts that lead to mass hysteria or mob violence. When such words are declaimed on news streams, I turn them off. When office conversations take that virulent bend, I excuse myself.
This is because I’m secretly afraid of the power of words. Even when they are aimless or untrue, the original authority to invent reality still resides in them. Words paint pictures across the imagination. We see what they’re saying and, unfortunately, we may believe them despite their hollowness. For false words, too, can be efficacious. Herein lies the danger.
Consider, then, how Jesus is a master of the effective word that is profoundly true and beneficial. When Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” it’s not a suggestion, wish, or promise. It’s a bestowal. Peace is immediately radically unleashed over an anxious group of disciples, and they viscerally absorb it. When Jesus proclaims, “Stand up . . . and walk,” the lame regain mobility, and when he shouts, “Come out of the man!” demons flee to their destruction. Best of all, when he declares, “Here is your son” and, “Here is your mother” at the cross, Jesus reinvents the very meaning of family.
It’s a bit magical, what words spoken with divine authority can do. They speak a new reality into existence, transforming mind and heart, restoring function to broken bodies, and reconceiving relationships. Theologian Anthony Gittins called such pronouncements “performative utterances.” Divine words perform their meaning. This is no idle talk.
The Letter to the Hebrews describes this authority further: “Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (4:12). If divine words are this masterful, it’s good for us that what God chooses to speak repeatedly are words of peace, love, mercy, and forgiveness. No matter how insistently we shatter the world, God’s word can fix it.
Performative utterances are a far cry from what we get from many powerful people in government, industry, media, and religion. Performances, perhaps. But words that are performed are not to be confused with words that perform their intent. Performed words are promises made to be broken, dead on arrival. Such words are delivered not to give but only to gain something: our vote, our trust, our dollar.
Is this speech effective? It can be, if it achieves its goal. But clearly it’s not the sort of commanding authority Jesus offers when he calls Lazarus out of his tomb and he comes! Or when Jesus declares over supper, “This is my body. This is my blood.” And so it is, until the end of time.
Imagine if you and I used language as performative utterance instead of in the relentless unspooling of ego that comprises much of our talk. I suspect we’d talk a lot less if we imagined that words have real power in them to create reality. We’d become like monks who observe Grand Silences until we reach the hours ordained for the praise of God. Because performative utterance is essentially a form of praise. It trusts divine authority to recreate reality in some specific way. It demonstrates our confidence in God and in the divine will to bring the kingdom to fulfilment right here and right now.
It’s not the way we normally talk, to be honest. Our prayers are frequently launched like helium balloons into oblivion rather than in the trust that God encounters us in this conversation. Preachers, too, may talk at great length and say nothing performative at all. We speak of love, devotion, and forever to another person yet may deliver none of the above. Our words sound weak and ineffective in our own ears when there is no actual will behind them.
Blessings and sacraments are the ultimate performative utterances. Designed to bestow grace on the recipient, they may in fact be offered and received in the bland spirit of a commercial transaction. This is why the church, in her wisdom, includes in canon law the caveat that sacred actions remain efficacious even if the minister or recipient of a sacrament is less than worthy. And a good thing, too, since we’ve all presented ourselves for holy encounters being entirely unready for prime time. Even when our hearts are closed, God’s grace is nonetheless present.
What if we resolve today to approach language as the sacrament of intention it is? We would keep our promises and say what we mean. We would speak into the world what we hope to find there: tenderness, compassion, healing, and peace. We would bring to the places we go and the people we encounter the good news they sincerely need. Manifestos about our fears and outrage—which benefit neither the speaker nor the hearer—would be withheld, as such words only incarnate more fear and outrage. Words become flesh and dwell among us. How many times do we have to hear this before we believe it?
If people of good will used words as performative utterances, with utmost seriousness as to their authority to create reality, what would we say, and not say, today? Words that cut and criticize, judge and condemn, would have to be suppressed. So too the self-talk that causes self-harm—and we’d naturally extend that same charity toward others. We’d speak more of love and hope and beauty, less about indignation.
But mostly, we’d say a lot less. For a single day, imagine words as prayers we’re praying all the time for the world and its people. Watch your speech become quieter, softer, more tender. Folks who know us might stare at us with curiosity, wondering what happened to the verbal wrecking ball we normally swing into every conversation. If words had the power to create the reality they tell, what would you speak into the universe right now?
This article also appears in the September 2024 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 89, No. 9, pages 47-49). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Image: Unsplash/Andreas Fickl
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