ABSTRACT
It’s those words that deceive, that leave out more than they contain, that pretend to hold steady what quickly slips away; it’s those canonical texts that come with such authority before they too are found lacking; it’s those lines that speak directly to who we are before they begin to sound hollow; it’s those arguments that motivate action before they fall away like empty promises: there is nothing secure, nothing to grasp, nothing to trust, only pretense pushes on, pushes us into our delusion that we have found an answer. Working with words is a fool’s mission, a making of sand castles that will quickly wash away: consider how many words are launched with no discernable effect, how many carefully crafted words are designed to foster change but carry no power, how many wasted hours; consider, too, how words beget words, sometimes as fighting words, that sweep by without notice, how they are found and then forgotten, only to be presented at another time as something new, how they come with all their rules and regulations that keep some from being heard. This dictionary of false possibilities is nothing more than eggs cracking under the weight of elephants.
