Beneath the cliff, the spring runs clean and bare—
The pebbles lifted like prayers in thin hands of air.
A child skips stones to cut the surface of the lake.
light rocks, sharp point.
The spring wound underneath a tremor in his thumb,
Crack-laced breath kissed flame in shaking twist.
This unforeseen moment could mark the end of everything.
light rocks, sharp point.
In spring she returned, her lips dressed in bloom,
Her words a lantern swaying through a dim-lit room.
Rattling the thoughts we never dared to voice—
light rocks, sharp point.
I once played a trick on a friend with an impressive, thesaural vocabulary. I told her she’d have three guesses to define a given English word: “trunks.” She grinned. “The long snouts of elephants.” No. “The main stems of trees.” No. Her smile faltered. “A chest for storage.” … No. We tried three more: the storage space in the back of a car, the luggage cases for travel, a euphemism for someone’s backside. No, no, and no. I was thinking of swimming shorts. She laughed—half in disbelief, half in defeat—at having missed such an ordinary usage. All her guesses were “correct” in the dictionary sense, but none were the sense I had meant.
Intuition teaches us that nearly all words can mean different things in different situations, yet that same intuition is often unheeded when interpreting literature—and especially when reading the word of God. In linguistics, this is called lexical range: the spectrum of distinct definitions a word can have. In English, head can be the 1) body part on top of our shoulders, 2) the leader of a team, 3) the act of moving in a certain direction, etc. In the same way, every word shifts meaning depending on the surrounding text, tone, and situation.
In my religious upbringing, I witnessed how regularly this principle was neglected. Take the New Testament Greek verb ‹ σῴζω › (sōzō), often translated as different inflections of “to save.” Tradition and hermeneutic misguidance lead many to read it as referring to “eternal salvation” in every case: rescued from the effects of sin and evil to be with God for eternity. Yet in the original text it frequently means to heal from illness, rescue from physical danger, preserve for later, or restore a weary soul—sometimes indeed referring to salvation from sin, but only occasionally. I reject that Saint Peter, a devout follower of Jesus, was begging Jesus for a thirty-second Gospel presentation before his inevitable drowning in Matthew 14; or that the Apostle Paul, the champion of works-less justification, was urging the saints in Philippi to make their own way to God through practical righteousness in Philippians 2:12. Applying the same meaning to every occurrence commits a logical fallacy called illegitimate identity transfer: taking one definition from one context and unduly importing it everywhere.
We see this same principle of lexical range—and the confusion it can cause—in Jesus’ own ministry. In John 3, Nicodemus misunderstands ‹ ἄνωθεν › (anōthen) to mean “again” (“How can a man enter his mother’s womb a second time?”), when Jesus meant “from above.” Both are legitimate dictionary senses, yet Jesus clarifies through further explanation that Nicodemus had picked the wrong one. Likewise, in John 11, the disciples take ‹ κοιμάω › (koimaō) to mean “to rest” or “to sleep,” when Jesus meant “to die.” Again, both are common uses in first-century Greek, but only one fit the moment. John even pauses to point out this misunderstanding, highlighting the interpretive slip that happens when a hearer applies a valid definition in the wrong place.
The refrain in my poem—Light rocks, sharp point—is a miniature exercise in lexical range. The title of this essay, when read divorced from further context, conjured a single mental image (different to each reader), but positioned within three different stanzas, each surrounding scene narrows that same phrase into a wholly different meaning: a child skipping stones on a lake, a crossroads moment in the life of a cocaine addict, a poignant rebuke of a community. The same exact four words in the same exact order, radically differentiated by the stories that enfold them.
Reading any piece of literature—Scripture included—demands the same discipline. We must adopt the posture of translators: curious, patient, and willing to let context be the final arbiter of meaning. In my own journey through languages as an interpreter, scholar, and missionary—French, Arabic, Japanese, and Biblical Hebrew and Greek—this mindset has reshaped how I both talk to others and listen to the authors of the Bible. It has freed me from reflexively assigning inherited definitions and instead allowed the words to breathe within their own worlds. When we resist the temptation to fix a single meaning where the language offers a range, we not only protect the original intent—we open ourselves to a truer understanding of the message, one that ultimately brings the kind of personal and communal transformation we’re yearning for.
Ten years ago, “Thani” in most people’s minds meant cold, logical, detached; not the person you came to for emotional refuge, but the one you sparred with over ideas. Today, through a decade of suffering and refining, God has reframed that word: “Thani” now often means safety, gentleness, and peace. Words change with context; so do we, when we’re engaging with God in becoming more like Him.
I wonder what definition God will call forth for me in the decade to come.
