Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion....
He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.
He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes.
He hurls down hail like crumbs— who can stand before his cold?
He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.
Scripture referencing both language and the natural world is bound to get a grip on me.
What I appreciate in these lines is the notion of words as physical forces, and of God's words registered in tangible events. Christians commonly refer to the Bible as "God's Word" and assert the verbiage it contains represents the utterances of the most high. Which I can agree with, to an extent. But the core teaching of Christianity, the Incarnation of God in Christ, affirms a more concrete form of divine language. Christ was, as the gospel of John says, "the word" that "became flesh and dwelt among us."
The writer of John actually uses the greek term "logos," which denotes something far more expansive than a mere utterance. "Word," in this case, is simply a convenience of translation, which I think is the case most of the time when Christians talk about God's word. We use speech or writing as a kind of metaphor to describe spirit acting in the world. This isn't to say God never speaks to people through written words, though if his happens, I believe, it's less because the words themselves than because they open up a sense of something greater. The sort of word that scatters frost can also shatter egos.
It's appealing to believe that printed or spoken words fully represent, or at least largely approximate, the message of God. But that belief is an attempt to confine God to our comfort zones. It's a rationale for confining one's awareness, a step toward having eyes yet not seeing, having ears but not hearing.
The seeker of the holy could do worse, the Psalm suggests, than to turn his attention to crackling frosts and melting snows.
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