English is an odd language. It includes many words from some of the Romance languages, but it is not a Romance language. English is considered a Germanic language. The sounds of our language are not as harsh as German, but they are not as beautiful, poetic, or musical as Spanish, Italian, or French.
In English, some words sound ugly. For instance, the word “regurgitate.” There is no way to make it sound pleasant. To me, COVID sounds just as ugly. COVID is a made up word which is an abbreviation for COronaVlrusDisease. The number 19 is added for the year that the disease was discovered. And yet, for as ugly as the word is, we hear it 100 times per day. It is always on our minds, always on the news, and is the major topic of most discussions. I wish we could drop this word from our language and our lives.
On the other hand, there are words that sound beautiful in English. To me, the word “wonder” sounds uplifting and gentle. To wonder at the creation of God is a pleasant and beautiful thing to do. I also think the word “cherish” sounds beautiful. In fact, when I googled the most beautiful words in the English language, cherish came up in the top ten. So, here is my thought. Let us start using the word CHERISH-20 more times each day than we use the word COVID-19. I think if we did, it would start to change our perspective.
I want to learn how to cherish each moment and learn how to cherish life. If God would be so kind, I would love to learn to cherish some of the things the evil COVID word has taken away from us. I would love to cherish our Praise and Worship gatherings in a new way. I want to cherish you, cherish myself, and the gift of life God gives me right here and right now.
If we could come out of this year — which is passing quickly and painfully — with new insight and knowledge, then 2020 will not be a total disaster. CHERISH-20 would be a great spiritual and emotional outlook. I want to look back at 2020 and with perfect vision be able to say that I cherished the down time, cherished the presence of God in the midst of the storm, and cherished those that God gave me to walk with through this crisis.
Let us stop using the ugly words in our language. Why don’t we focus on the more beautiful words for the rest of 2020? Eternity, heaven, love, solitude, and elegance were on the list of beautiful English words. It would be wise of us to speak these words more frequently.