I may have stolen those words from a friend, but they are very true so I decided to label this article with them.
We were talking on the phone, and that same friend told me that he was struggling with a certain book I very much love by an author I very much love. Yes, he was having a hard time with
Manalive by G.K. Chesterton. How dare anyone ever make fun of my beloved book and author! Anyway, his reason was that the author is too poetic or something (I couldn't hear him over the phone very well....). Anyway, something silly like that.
He then used the example of how that certain [wonderful] author takes up
two pages to talk about the wind when he could have just said, "And the wind blew." Ummmm......
Clearly, my friend struggles to understand the magic of words. And maybe that is his problem: wind is magical, but words? Ah, but that is the thing, my lad, words can express so much more than just "The wind blew" or even that "wind is magical." For instance, there is a wind that blows throughout an entire day. It comes and goes in larger or smaller gusts, but it is always there. But even these days are different. There are the great terrifying winds that crash and thunder, that shake the house and finger their way into any crack. You feel they will never let up. Throughout the night, they howl and groan. It's especially scary if you live in the woods. Then there are the light, feeble winds that blow all day, yet are tired and faint. In the summer time, they blow away your napkins and papers, but they do little to cool you off.
However, the story of "how the great wind came to Beacon House" is a wonderful and unusual story. It is the kind of wind that carries something with it. The kind that comes after a calmness. It is like those days that are calm and dark. You stand at the top of the road and look down. You feel something: a storm is coming, and yet it is so calm at the moment. And then, you hear a distant roar. You look over to that hill across the valley and it seems the trees are dancing, or, no, maybe they are bowing down to the earth. The roar grows louder and seems to shake the very earth. As you stand there, you wait to brace yourself. The wind is coming.
Boom! Like that, it hits you like a wall, making you catch your breath, but then fills you with life and wonder and excitement. Something has indeed come: a wonderful, crashing storm. Lightning flashes across the sky and thunder booms through the great woods. Rain splatters on your shoulders. You run for shelter in the heavy trees, but they, too, will soon be drenched in the magic of a summer storm.
That is a wind that comes with something, and it is a great and wonderful wind.
And that, my friend, is why we need words, sometimes many words, to express the very meaning of what we really mean to say. Wind is indeed magical, but so are words.
