souldare

I thought we’d start with the prompt today. Take 2, 3 or 5 minutes to respond to the following unfinished sentence. (Set a timer, if it helps you.)

Words make me feel….

When you are done, come back and read the quotes of the day, and some ideas about capturing and collecting words.

Gracious words are like a honeycomb,
    sweetness to the soul and health to the body. (Proverbs 16:24 NLT)

There is a certain magic in writing down words for me. I don’t know when I developed my affection for words. Was it when I was learning the alphabet by rote in the song? Was it when I was given mimeographed worksheets to write the lower case “a” and then “b” and so on? Or  was it when I was given a blank paper with the solid blue and dashed red lines on it, in order to copy words like at, bat, cat, and that?

I loved reading, spelling, writing and most of all learning. I remember when I first fell in love with definitions. In the seventh grade, the teacher gave us a word list, like we used to get in elementary school for spelling, but the assignment was to not only learn how to spell these words, but also to alphabetize them and look up their definition. I remember trying to pronounce “pungent” as phonetically presented in the dictionary.  And discovering that adamant meant very determined.

I clearly was on my way to being a word lover by the time I graduated high school, and my love for God’s word blossomed then as well. I was introduced to the idea of studying the Bible, and of course, I wanted to learn the Greek and Hebrew origins of the ancient text.

When I went back to college, after my own children were in high school, I was thrilled that UM-St.Louis offered Latin, as a language choice for my foreign language credits. So many of our words originate from Latin roots, especially prefixes.

Words make me feel happy, productive and interested in their origins and meaning.

Maybe words are not your thing, but I hope you give them a chance to bring delight into your life. You could just collect them, or  at least choose one to define.

The easiest way to collect words is in a list. Or you could actually keep them in a little paper box? Or maybe you could house your favorite words in a poem? If you’re not a poet, why not try using another person’s words to find your own by discovering a found poem?

Creative Links:

Masu Box with Lid

How to Find a Poem