Finding the rite words...

Today in church there was a baptism...and I cried. I cry during all of the sacramental rites: baptisms, ordinations, weddings, funerals, etc. I always feel as though I should be stronger than a person who cries in church. But then I started thinking that if a person is going to cry, church is as good of a place as any.

I don't even know the family. That never seems to stop me. When I was in high school and I would acolyte at weddings and funerals, I always cried. I rarely knew the people that we were marrying or burying. This morning though, I figured out what gets me. It's the words.


As an English teacher, I tell my students to use stronger diction in their writing. We study writers that use a lot of impressive language and syntax, and I understand that it's this language and style that formed them into the writer they became. Sometimes fancy words are necessary. Sometimes they aren't. I think that sometimes just saying what you mean is the fastest way to connect with an audience. Sometimes we don't want to wait fifteen pages to get to something that you could have said in three. Sometimes we don't want to wait a year to hear what you really want to say. And sometimes, people just need to hear simple words.

I was sitting next to the priest's wife and little girl, who is learning to talk. Annie can say things like "baby" "mama" ..."cracker". These are pretty simple words, but they get the message across. Right about that time we all stood to renew our baptismal vows with the family. This is what gets me every time. A group of people saying in unison, "I will with God's help".

I saw Scott Simon, a broadcast journalist for NPR, speak at a conference last year. He said, "People say that a picture is worth a thousand words. You give me a thousand words. I'll give you the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the last paragraphs of the speech by Martin Luther King to the march on Washington, and the final entry of Anne Frank's diary. And I wouldn't trade you for any picture on earth."

Sometimes, instead of hearing a lot of complex words and contrived ideas that make a person sound smarter, simple words will do. Things like: "I miss you" "Please" "Thank you" "I forgive you" "I love you" "Forgive me".

Assuming these are things you need to say or do for someone, I hope that their response is "I will with God's help."