My Heart is Hooked on Words
At any given time, I am working on several books, studies or articles. As I prepare my mind and heart, I usually get a handful of books from my shelves to skim. I pull the books by authors who have touched my heart with their lives and words. Reading molds my thinking to a devotional style, and stirs my memory how words can impact life. In a sense, it is like inviting old friends over for an afternoon of tea and conversation.
A Trio of Words
My old friends? It is almost always the same five – and it is five men that I had the privilege of meeting at one time or another. I invite Max Lucado to stop by and remind me of how lives can be touched by powerful stories. Max weaves a story with a gift of direction and compassion. I had the chance to meet Max at three different Christian Booksellers conventions as he was passing out autographed copies of his latest books. Max was always one of the convention’s most popular authors. Meeting him in that setting was like meeting a handle for the refrigerator on the assembly line.
Max Lucado
Several years later I had the privilege of meeting Max in a more personal situation. The Christian churches used to have an annual convention they called The North American Christian Convention. The year that Max was speaking at the convention, I was in charge of the collection of the evening offerings for one of the sections of the auditorium. As I was cutting through the center floor on the way to the offering assembly room, I saw Max and former Southeast Christian Church minister Bob Russell speaking near the stage. Bob and I have been friends for years. As Bob saw me pass by, he motioned and spoke for me to come over. “Tom, this is Max Lucado.”
Max honestly is one of the handful of people who needs no introduction. Genuine. Humble. Gracious. Max is gifted in putting the evasive, spiritual truth in the spotlight of common, everyday language.
Swindoll and Campolo
Chuck Swindoll joins Max on my sofa. Swindoll clearly defines Scripture – making the words of God come alive. I also had the opportunity to meet Chuck at Christian Booksellers conventions. Like Max, Chuck was a popular Christian author, host of a daily radio program, and preacher at a church. The year that Chuck brought out the book, Laugh Again, I stood in line for a lengthy time to get an autographed book. I have a picture of myself standing next to Swindoll and his Harley – and I’m reminded of a man who understands the joy of living.
Tony Campolo always accompanies my afternoon assembly. I have never known a man who spoke with more passion – and one who tries harder to apply what he knows in the Scripture to the misguided world around him. I met Tony twice at the Bookseller’s conventions. To this day, his recollection about meeting the ladies of the evening in a small diner in Hawaii is one of my favorite stories of all time.
The Music of Rich Mullins
During this time I also pop a CD or two of Rich Mullins into the player while I reflect. Rich and I attended the same college together. No one captures the majesty of God’s creation and the simplicity of Christian living like Rich. My heart is filled with stories of the special personality of Rich. One of the last times that I saw Rich was in Nashville at the Dove Award ceremonies at the Grand Ole Opry. Rich was being awarded two Dove Awards for his work with the song “Awesome God.” The singer was dressed in a black tuxedo, white T-shirt and no socks. Rich was no theologian, and yet one of the most profound ones. Who but a theologian could write,
“Where the sacred rivers meet
Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the plains
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name.”
Bob Benson
The final friend I visit is the one whom I wish to quote today, Bob Benson. Benson died several years ago after a long, harsh battle with cancer. The years of treatment left his body withered and his voice shaken, but it did not dampen his creative spirit nor his faith in the goodness of God. Benson for years was CEO of Benson Music, at the time one of the largest Christian music companies in the world. Always in demand as a public speaker, he would speak at conventions and gatherings. His words barely had enough energy behind them to crawl across his lips. Even with microphones and sound systems, the listener leaned forward to the edge of the seat just to be able to soak in Benson’s stories. And what a weaver of stories!
As I am thinking, it strikes me how the words we choose shape the message we share. How we convey that message – the words we select to use – are so important. Word assist understanding and clarity. Benson understood that the correct choice of words cultivated communication. Here are Benson’s thoughts about the importance of words.
He speaks softly
My interest in putting things in writing was a gift to me from both my parents. I have kept the letters my mother wrote to us when we were away in school and then later in the pastorate. They were usually typed in triplicate. One copy would go to my sister, Laura, who lived in Ohio; another copy to Carolyn, my sister in college in Kentucky; and the third, to my wife and me.
Each of us has claimed that someone else always got the original and we got the carbon. But carbon or not, these letters were a breath of home. Mom’s humor, wisdom, and love were captured in her easy, free-flowing style. The words seemed to have tumbled from her typewriter and from her heart.
Pop, my father, on the other hand, is a serious “working” writer. He edits and reedits and reedits some more. He condenses and lengthens, though usually it is the latter. The process continues until he is satisfied that his words and sentences adequately convey his thought and thoroughly describe all the details.
A dealer in words
I have come to be a purveyor of words, a dealer in ideas and phrases. I cannot just express my opinions or share a collection of jokes and stories. So I find myself carefully going over my words in my room before I speak in the hope that they will deserve being heard. Sometimes my words have needed to carry comfort and assurance and guidance to an eight-year-old boy whose mother just up and left the weekend before with another man. Sometimes they need to be said to a dedicated young lady who desperately wants to serve people but who is out of work. Once they were to a young professional whose wife died of cancer a few days before he was licensed to practice. There are times when I do not seem to have as many words at my command as I would like to have.
I am a writer of words, too – an author of published works, if you please. Being a lover of books, I was overjoyed one afternoon to see in the block next to where I was staying a three-story building that was labeled, “The Book Exchange – The South’s Greatest Bookstore.” As soon as I could, I made my way into its shelf-lined innards. I don’t believe I have ever seen so many books for sale in one place in my life. I was almost mesmerized.
Hooked
“So you want to be a writer,” I mumbled to myself. And just where in this vast graveyard of author’s aspirations would you like for the remainder editions of your words to be placed? On the second floor in the section marked Divinity Students? Or maybe down below in one of the many rooms through which the general reader can browse for bargains? Or to save the embarrassment of seeing the $7.95 crossed out on the dust jackets of your learned tomes and 75 cents penciled in, you prefer to continue to buy them all yourself and keep force-feeding them to your garage?
A dealer in words? Why not automobiles, or lamps, or trees, or bed sheets, or anything but words?
Because my heart is hooked on words.
A Legacy of Words
Bob Benson and his father established the John T Benson Publishing Company and shortly thereafter the label “HeartWarming Records.” Energized by the best Christian musicians of the day, Benson’s stable of performers populate most Gaither Homecoming Videos. Artists like the Imperials, the Bill Gaither Trio, the Rambos, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Downings, the Speers, Doug Oldham, the Stamps Quartet, Larnelle Harris, and Sandi Patty all had their start thanks to Bob Benson. Benson became the “pastor” for the wounded souls of the artists, musicians, writers and producers of the music that was ministering to all of us.
Reba Rambo McGuire, herself a gospel music legend, honored the memory of Benson by writing,
On a tombstone you usually find the birth date and date of death. The tiny dash…that one mark between our entrance and exit represents the totality of our earthly existence. Nobody did the dash better than Bob Benson. He carved a deep and precisely etched impression, not only on his family and friends, but also the foundational bedrock of the creative Christian culture of his day.
His chiseling tools? A soft answer, boyish grin, a steaming cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows and poignant stories that penetrated the hardest heart. He was a master craftsman who never chose a big word when a small one would do.
No one did the dash better.
