When I started this blog, one of the things I wanted to talk about was the relationship between Good and Evil. Not in any sterile, merely philosophical way. I wanted to talk about the effect they have on each other, the responses they call forth from each other.
Ben Witherington, author of the Gospel Code, which I wrote about earlier has located a stellar example in the events in Amish schoolhouse.
We can learn much from the example of the Fishers, mother and daughter. Both of them stood up, at a time when the rest of us would have excused them from the duty, for what they knew to be Right, to be Good.
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A recent issue of The Writer contains an aricle by Brian Sousa about reading your writing aloud in order to find mistakes (an admirable practice, I might add, especially for checking dialog). I stopped reading when I came to:
Perhaps they were noticieable only to me, but there were sentences, even whole paragraphs, that when verbalized compelled me to rewrite.
The word “verbalized” means “put into words.” It’s impossible for sentences and paragraphs to exist without having first been put into words. And it wasn’t the process of putting them into words that caused the errors to become obvious. It was the process of speaking them aloud, something “verbalize” doesn’t necessitate.
Of course, I knew what he meant. What he meant was “vocalized,” not “verbalized.” But I ask you, what is more depressing than an magazine devoted to writing that cannot be bothered to use the right word?
“Arlen? It’s Bernie. Tell Zora to get in here. Now. It’s not a drill.”
I remember it every fall. It was a lazy Saturday morning. I hadn’t planned on getting up yet, but the phone call worked faster than a cold shower. I passed the message to my wife. It seemed no time at all before she was in uniform and heading out the door. The good bye lasted longer than usual. I watched her go, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, wondering if this was going to be the last time.
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