June 2017

There is power in repetition. How many times have we used it to remember facts for an exam or temporarily recall some important piece of information when we can’t find a pen to write it down? How often have we been uplifted by hearing a compliment more than once on the same day or been torn down by hearing another’s criticisms several times in a row?

It’s amazing how often our thoughts can circle around to the same thing or follow similar patterns. At the risk of overly simplifying things, I suggest that our brains often get stuck in negative repetitive ways of thinking – patterns we must actively work to break or derail. And the best way to do that is to replace the negative with the positive. For we will think – and we will often think repetitively. So let’s repeat the good stuff.

Several years ago, I was plagued by a great deal of worry. At best, it was distracting. At worst, on some days, it was almost debilitating. I wanted to bring an end to the cycle. So I started a worry notebook. I carried around a small notebook with me, and every time I found myself worrying about something, I wrote it down in my notebook and said, “God, I give it to You. It is no longer inside of me, no longer has a place in my mind.” Then I would look back over the list from time to time and see all the things I used to worry about that had slowly become unimportant or less troublesome in my thought life.

But to paraphrase a famous teaching of Jesus, it’s not enough to clean out the house and leave it empty; after cleaning out the bad, we must infuse the good.

A couple of years ago, my dad introduced our family to the idea of a “blessing box”. He gave each of us a small wooden box and slips of brightly colored paper. Then he encouraged us to develop a new habit of gratitude. Every time we encountered a blessing in daily life, he suggested we write the date and a summary of the blessing on a slip of paper before adding it to the box.

I’ve given up keeping a worry notebook – though there are days when I think taking up that habit would be useful again. But the blessing boxes at home and at work: those have been filling up steadily. I need to keep using them until they are full and I have to start new boxes or buy bigger boxes. In this way, I will use repetitive thoughts focused on the positive in a way that gives life.

Let this be a motto for each of us day by day: May the input I give myself and others repeat what’s good and true, what’s blessed.

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While I was building this blog, I had to come up with a tag line, a subtitle-snapshot to show what I’m about. So I chose “apt words to light the world.” But what does apt mean? It is more than the abbreviation for apartment, and it is not some typo for every smartphone owner’s favorite collectible.

Webster’s dictionary defines it several ways: 1) likely to do something, 2) very well qualified, 3) quick to learn, and 4) appropriate or suitable. Let’s focus for a moment on the last meaning.

King Solomon of Israel lived in the 900’s B.C. History describes him as an extremely wise man and just ruler. He once wrote that a judge’s correct ruling is like golden apples in a silver holder. Another of his pithy sayings has been translated into English as, “A person finds joy in giving an apt reply, and how good is a timely word!”

In 2017, the word apt sounds quaint, remote. But the fact that it means timely is proof that we should reintroduce it into our vocabulary – conceptually if not literally. In a world overrun with a cacophony of words – many of them butchered, empty, false, or degrading – there is a desperate place (and hunger) for apt words. That’s what I’m about: in writing and in speaking, offering words that are appropriate, suitable, timely. Words that bring life and build up.

Serious writers are charged to say things in a fresh way that will attract the attention of readers and publishers alike. I suggest that aptness and freshness are not always the same–and that aptness is ultimately far more important.

No matter how you use written communication in your daily life – whether professionally, academically, or personally – consider this. We don’t need more new words to cloud the waters of meaning, and we don’t need more fresh words that will drift away with the tide of fads. We need well-written and spoken words that are meaningful and useful. Apt words are rarely new – they are often reminders of truth we should know, the direction we should go, and the love in which we should grow. The new will fade, and the fresh will become stale. But the well-written word is a thing of beauty. And the apt word – that is golden.

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