The Power of the Word
March 9, 2020
Daddy used to say “there’s nothing wrong with just sittin’ and lookin.’” I know that makes him sound awfully country, like hillbilly country, but he was anything but. When he said it, he had a little twinkle in his eye, probably thinking of his mother, a stickler for elocution. In fact, Daddy had a beautiful way of speaking, in phrases that seemed drawn straight out of the nineteenth century. He referred to his family as kin or kinfolk, he called the trunk of the car the boot, the freezer the icebox, and the glove compartment the glove box. He was known to say, “I reckon so,” and when he needed to think about something, he would say he would cogitate on it.
If you had done something extraordinary, he would say “well, aren’t you knocking down the high persimmons.” For those of you unfamiliar with the persimmon tree, they do grow to considerable height and the first to ripen are at the top of the tree. Of course, those are the sweet ones that you want to eat, so you have to figure out how to knock them down, which as you can imagine, involves some ingenuity and effort.
Daddy’s favorite Bible verse was John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He loved the mystery of those words, the poetry of the King James Bible; he had grown up with it, studied it, its cadence was foundational in the way he formed sentences. That the Word and God were one resonated deeply with Daddy.
Near the end of Daddy’s life, when Parkinson’s had depleted his remarkable faculties, my brother Walker went to visit him at the nursing home. Daddy didn’t seem to recognize Walker, his own son, and after conversing as best he could about family and church to no effect, Walker noticed a King James Bible on the table. He picked it up, turned to the 23rd Psalm, and asked if Daddy would like him to read it. Daddy allowed that he would, yes, and by the time Walker had finished with “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” Daddy’s face had brightened, and he looked at Walker with sudden recognition and said, “You must be my son, Walker.”
And that is the power of the word.
©2021 Joy Cunningham