What words are your go to words?

Have you paid attention to the words a teacher uses over and over again in their speech? I am not talking about the verbal mnemonic devices employed, nor the words that function as fillers - like the works "like" or "um". I am talking about the words that the teacher uses time and time again that underpin the teachers overall philosophy?

Richard Rohr's book, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi brought to light that Francis of Assisi used some words more than others. According to Rohr, "Those who have analyzed the writings of Francis have noted that he uses the word doing rather than understanding at a ratio of 175 times to five. Heart is used 42 times to one use of mind. Love is used 23 times as opposed to 12 uses of truth. Mercy is used 26 times while intellect is used only one time."

Doing, heart, love and mercy were, perhaps, Francis's go to words that functioned as his philosophical and theological underpinning. I understand that the sheer number of times a word is used does not mean this word is important. For instance, a political candidate may use the name of an opposing party more than they use their own but that does not mean they are secret members of the opposing party. Nonetheless, the frequency of words to the frequency of other words in a given teacher's lexicon is interesting. 

There is this blog that makes word clouds of the different books of the Bible. And when you take a look at that you can begin to see some common themes. The first thing you may notice is how the Bible is often taught as a book about people and how to live - like a Christian version of Hammurabi's code or a moral document. However, the Bible's main protagonist is not humanity but God. This is a collection of books and stories written by people in order to try to put language and understanding around the indescribable and fully unknowable. 

What words are your go to words? What do these words say about where your heart is? If someone were to examine all your writings what would your word frequency be for words like "love", "I", "welcome", "peace", "sorry", "forgiveness", "truth" or "joy"?

Secularism filling in holes in religion

Alain de Botton gave a TEDTalk called Atheism 2.0 and I commented just briefly on why you should see this talk just over a year ago. 

If you have not seen this talk, or if you do not remember what this talk is about, Botton has the thesis that the world is secularizing poorly and that secularism has holes in it. He goes on to argue that, of all sources, religion provides models for the secular world on filling in these holes. 

Imagine that. A secularist is looking at religion to help fill in the holes of the secular worldview. This is fantastic because he understands that every worldview has holes in it - including religious worldviews. Botton's humility to reach across the chasm (that has been created by fundamentalists on both sides) and incorporate some things from the "other" side is what we need more of. 

My question to us religious folk, can we do the same thing? Are we humble enough to recognize the holes in our worldview and look to models in secularism to fill in these holes? 

The next post (or 2) I will submit some thoughts. Leave some comments if you have anything to add!