Today, in a place called Marburg, I walked on stones that have been walked for more than a thousand years.  These stones are worn and old.  If they could speak, oh the stories they’d tell!  I wondered about those stories and the people in them.  I tried to imagine the shoes on the feet of the people that walked here–the women and children, the soldiers and guards, the shopkeepers and buyers.  Years and years of them living lives we know little about today.

And then I thought about words, and how something as simple as a word can also last for centuries.  But unlike stones, words communicate.  They tell the stories.  They explain.  They describe. They detail.  They evoke emotion.  They enlighten.

Words are more powerful than stones.

I’ve shared this before and will share it again because all day today, these words went through my mind:  ““You know, there are poems, there are stories, whole books, about people who lived hundreds, even thousands of years ago. Those people still live because of words. Words! Words are the most wonderful things in the world. As long as there are words, nobody need ever die.”
– Betsy Byars, Keeper of the Doves

Stones preserve structures, but words preserve people and thoughts.  We are more important and words are more powerful and more enduring, but only if we preserve them.

Another reason for writing my fingers to the bone.