Today has been fairly quiet in terms of Conference Business. As the new week begins, there is lengthy discussion about the number of bishops that will serve within the African Conferences. This is very important legislation, but it is legislation that is not immediately applicable to my work in West Virginia. As such I have been digging through upcoming legislation while I watch the proceedings take place. I check to see if there is anything I should highlight which has implications for West Virginia. Mostly what is left for me to focus on – outside of matters of human sexuality, pension, and the final piece of regionalization – deals with the clarification and reworking of ordination requirements. It is all /very/ thrilling, let me tell you.

I would like, in the midst of a quieter day, to speak to the way that God brings small moments out of obscurity into something much more significant. A moment that began several years ago but that found a definite form yesterday.

Sometime in college, I’ll put a year to it of 2014, I was in a physics class during a summer term. It was as thrilling as you might expect a summer physics class to be. During the lab attached to that class, someone began to sing out loud. I was apparently impressed at their willingness to sing out in the middle of a class and that led to me choosing to sit with them in lecture. Soon, I had another friend in my life. As with so many friendships, we graduated and went into our graduate and career fields and lost touch outside of occasional interactions online.

Enter in the delicious Ethiopian food I picked up the other day. Waiting for it to be ready, I recognized the person who walked by me. I called out her name! The person turned around! Sure enough, my old physics buddy is now a Crime Scene Investigator in Charlotte, NC. We made plans to get lunch and, yesterday, we did so!

The conversation we had touched on many things. Catching up with the past five or six years, sharing stories of what happened back in college, and – of course – lengthy explanations of the United Methodist Church and its multi-layered polity. One takeaway, however, was the power of words.

We often speak without thought. We do not think about what our words will mean to the person we are speaking too. Scripture describes thoughtless speech as being like, “shooting flaming firebrands and arrows,” (Prov. 26:18-19,) and as an all-consuming fire that burns everything in its path. (James 3: 5-12)

Thoughtful words, however, can bring life, and life abundant. If you close your eyes, I bet you can think of something someone said to you, something kind, even if it was decades ago. Those little bits of encouragement and assurance keep us moving in a life that can often seem overwhelming.

For me, I remember the first time someone told me I had a future in ministry, the kind words that carried me through many years of doubt. I remember friends praying over me in Youth Group a long time ago, when I was offering a message. I remember the little signs of kindness – a bookmark made by hand, help picking things up I had dropped and abandoned, a joke in the midst of a rough day – all these things build us up into who we are today.

I also remember my failings. Especially in college, I made many mistakes with careless words. I said things that hurt people, I broke off friendships that were dear to me because of pressure from other people in my life. I failed again and again and again. Though I’m certain most people have forgotten my indiscretions, I know not everyone will have. Something I’ve said has almost certainly affected someone negatively to this day, a barb sticking into their memory of what once was a goodly thing.

However, I was told in our lunch meeting that there were enduring things, things I said that lingered with people for good. In particular, I was reminded of a way I used to talk about personalities and relationship dynamics that changed how my friend understood herself. As was apt for my undergraduate work, these words were a metaphor from chemistry. The truth is, the way we see ourselves in relationship with others is a lot like how carbonyl groups react… (Pause for dramatic ooohs and aaaahs.)

The essence of my teaching was simple – some people need greater support than others, but all people seek stability in life. Some people, like acidic halogens, do not do well on their own, and so do their best to stay in constant contact with others. Some people, like amides, are in relationships that allow them to stably exist in the midst of others or alone. The average person, like an organic acid, is neither prone to being alone or to being surrounded by others, they find equilibrium. However, there is another group – the ketone – that stands on their own, seeking only to be with those who prove themselves as worth the social energy.

I would describe my friend, frequently, as a ketone. She did not need constant socialization, but chose to be around those who were willing to put in the time to be a part of her life. She was a ketone, proud and strong, and she kept using this identification in her post-graduate life. She told me she would frequently tell people she had just started to get to know, “I’m a ketone!” Simple, esoteric, but to the point. As she told this story, she adjusted the sleeve of her shirt and showed me a tattoo on her shoulder… A ketone, a permanent mark of how she had chosen to see herself, and a term that I gave her through our friendship to describe herself.

I was shocked in the best possible way. I had impacted her life by giving support, being a friend worthy of being a part of her social circle. I spoke a kind word, affirming her personal strength and stability. Now that is part of her, quite literally a part of her, and it is something I had forgotten I had ever said.

Our words matter – the harmful things we choose to say and the encouraging things we choose to say. We have life or death at the tips of our fingers and on the tip of our tongues. Think before you speak, speak life into this parched world. You never know when you may be humbled to find that the words you have spoken to those in your life became the foundation of something deeply, personally important to them. Let our words speak life and let that life transform them into the most excellent manifestation of their truest self.