Gracious Words are like Honeycomb

 

When I was a child, we were treated to chocolate covered honeycomb from Woolworths on a Saturday. In those days, Woolworths was the bargain shop, not the M & S subsidiary that it is today. The floors were wooden and echoed as you walked on them. The glass receptacles on the counter were cleanish but wouldn’t pass today’s health and safety standards. Sweets were weighed in ounces. Ah those were the days! I was reminded of this when I read the proverb quoted in my title and it got me to thinking about the written words I use.

Two images of places we visited on our recent exhausting European tour, will provide illustrations for what I mean. Firstly, we visited Amsterdam, a vibrant tourist hotspot. Providing you can avoid the millions of bicycles, there are plenty of canal-boxed places to see. We were accommodated at the Bunk Hotel. This was the most ergonomically planned space, I have ever experienced. It was functional as a bedspace at the end of a long day of touring. The room was six foot by six foot but had private toilet/shower space. The double bed was adequate if you weren’t the claustrophobic one against the wall, and if you were the size of a hobbit. The TV was housed against the wall at the end of the bed. The shower door doubled as the toilet entrance and swung back according to use. Small but functional. This unique design stirred me to thinking that this is how my writing has become after specializing in short devotional pieces for anthologies and daily readings. Restricted by word counts and set formats, I have lost the beauty of words.

Secondly, on our way back from Sweden, we had not booked a hotel as we were not sure how far we could drive through Denmark across on the ferry (there is always a waiting time) and then across Germany. Our intention was to get at least as far as Lübeck so we could stay at a pre-arranged hotel in Groningen on the next day. We got further than we expected but looking for a pleasant place to stay is not an option on autobahn travel. So, we stopped at a service station motel which looked desperately grimy. In fact, it was quite a spacious room but noisy from the autobahn traffic.

After we unloaded our luggage up two flights of stairs, we sought sustenance from the fast-food option attached to the motel. Still quite early and in need of some healthy exercise after sitting in the car all day, I suggested a walk around and spotted a hole in the hedge, which had obviously been explored before. The path behind the hedge gave way to a leafy wood at the back of the motel. As we explored further, an up-market suburb with big houses and beautiful gardens emerged. What a surprise! Digging a little deeper into some books is like that. A slow-paced start can reveal poetic beauty.

A book I have been reading recently “The Offing” by Benjamin Myers* is one such example. At first, I was put off by the sheer verbosity of his language. Not being able to face this type of book, I opted for the audible edition. It was a book club choice and not reading it would not be honourable. Listening to the audible edition, I was able to appreciate the poetry of his language without getting bogged down with the concentration required to make sense of his meaning. I am not very tolerant of pages of description.

Fellow writers how can we achieve a balance of economy of words while still retaining the beauty?  It is my aim to be careful with words so they may economically express what I want to say and still retain the poetic beauty that words can convey – a mystery hidden beneath a bare exterior.

Proverbs is right, gracious words are like honeycomb. They are difficult to explain but when you read or hear them you recognise the beauty in them. People around Jesus recognised his words as gracious (Luke 4:22). So, praise God for holidays. It forced me to reevaluate what I am doing with words. Holidays can provide rich illustrations of what we are aiming at in our projects besides the obvious benefit of the change of scenery.

*Benjamin Myers "The Offing", Bloomsbury 2020

About the Author

Rosalie Weller is an ordained minister in the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa. She has contributed to “Closer to God” the South African Scripture Union Devotional in 2020, 2023 and 2024, Worship & Word UPCSA Devotional 2024. She has written several bible study guides, available on Amazon, a historical novel, and a bereavement journal. Her YouTube channel highlights a biblical reflection and an original poem every month. Website www.rosalieweller.com