Kahlil Gibran said "words are but the crumbs that fall from the feast of our minds." Words are like the photographs we take of enchanted vacation vistas or bloated Indonesian babies (only, according to wisdom, each one is 1/1000th as effective as those snapshots, which is, in turn, less effective than being there). Don't we always say, "These just don't do it justice"?

Words are a cloudy image of what we have seen and understood--or misunderstood; they are inherently poverty-stricken. Deep calls out to deep, but words often get in the way, cheapen the mystical, confuse the pristine clarity the soul understands even when the mind does not. Despite that, words can be rich too, in more ways than the words themselves can take credit for.

I like words. I wish I had a better way with them. Recently, however, the impossible happened. I was struck speechless. It was so unusual, I've been pondering it ever since. Where there are no words, a deeper truth than can be spoken by us at that time must exist, although that could also be said when we try to fill voids with words.

The inciting incident to my muteness occurred when my neighbor, without authorization, instructed her tree men to trim MY tree. My exact response was: "There are no words...." I think this anomaly must have caused a cosmic shift! And I am left to wonder what deep well has been troubled by the mutilation of my tree?

If I can't discuss the tree, leave it to me to discuss WHY I can't discuss the tree! I only know God is worming his way through the insides of me these days, begging me (not unlike my husband!) to stop my incessant internal dialogue, my addiction to talking, my certainty that words are necessary for communication, and even my love of deep thinking. Just be for a little while, I think He is telling me. Every time I do, my mind is suddenly filled with new images, better words, more creativity. Concerns slough off like ice from a car in winter, warming up as it speeds down the highway. I think I am a snake about to shed a skin that enclosed me in a paradigm it is now time to abandon on the warm rocks.

I am coming to the conclusion that words, for me, are the substance I abuse in order to keep from feeling. Every blog I write could be evidence of me falling off the wagon! You could be a part of my Gabbers Anonymous group: My name is Gina and I am a talk-a-holic/blog-a-holic. Your job would be to ask Why are you talking, Gina?

Excuse me now while I go and be present at my tree's amputated wound and see if I can feel what I am trying not to feel.