@HomewithDean – Homily 01/08

I love words. I’m a big fan of the right word at the right time—a beautiful illustration, a deeply moving emotion delivered by crisp, well developed thoughts and a perfectly crafted sentence. But I’ll confess to you, regardless of what it may look like to anyone else, on the inside of me my affection for words is not so much an amusing hobby as it is a life and death struggle for survival.I’m on a lifelong quest for words. Words to explain. Words to teach. Words to inspire. Words to help others, but especially words for myself—to describe, connect, and anchor me to my own desires and emotions. Being male makes this especially challenging. I belong to that brain damaged half of the human race which generally struggles finding pathways to express my feelings apart from a lot of grunting and the throwing of heavy objects. That disability was fully manifest in me early this morning as I struggled to cobble together these few feeble sentences.Truth is I wanted to write something for you about this coming year. My own personal expression of hopes and predictions for 2023. But I find have a LOT of rather intense feelings about my life right now and if I’m going to be completely transparent then I have to admit I’m struggling to find the words to let them all out.Maybe it’s the pains of this last year—both physical and other—piling up and blocking the road. Perhaps it’s because my birthday is this Wednesday and I’m feeling a lot of emotion about exactly how I want to make this next lap around the sun. No doubt it’s both of those and a lot more. The point is, I want to find the words. I am resolved, I will find the words.But that will be then and this is now. And the best I can do right now is say in 2023 I want to find more of my words, and I want you to find your words. I want us to all use our words and stop acting out, stop running away, stop medicating, stop hitting other children and throwing things. I want us to find insightful words. Inspiring words. Comforting words. Honest words. I want us to discover secret wor