Poema by Anne

A quiet summer day, the only noise is the tin pitter-patter of where water hits the roof and the click-clack of computer keys. Four hours in front of a screen, creating more screens which will become ink-stained on paper, trying to remember what predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives are, trying to make them all sound somewhat interesting to eleventh-grade students, trying to sort out my soul all at once. Something about the nitty-gritty details of grammar makes you want to grapple with your own run-ons, fragments, comma splices, misplaced modifiers, split infinitives. The study of grammar forces you to name what you know intuitively. The study of grammar forces you to clean up your messes, whether they're in the form of sloppy prose or otherwise. Grammar teaches me organization: I can declutter a paragraph, but what of a heart? Strunk & White recommend omitting needless words, stripping a sentence to its essentials, making your verbs sing, doubting the extraneous: are those adjectives necessary in stating your purpose? Are the adverbs only going to muddle your path, distracting you from what's important?
I imagine myself taking the podium this fall, hair back, pale cardigan, nutmeg lipstick, a kind smile that oft invites mischief: "See kids, your life is a sentence in which you want to fill strong, active verbs. Read. Write. Sing. Befriend. Smile. Give Thanks. Prance. Pray. Seek. Guide. Love. Omit all the fancy stuff: declutter your words; declutter your life. Understand the functions of words so that you can live more fully."
I imagine blank stares, 20 of them: "So why do I need to know what a split infinitive is?"
"To not know would be tragic," I answer them, sarcasm leaking from my words.
The only answer I know is that grammar is spiritual and to know its structure is to know an attribute of a God who creates Order from chaos. A friend once whispered to me that God is His Giver of Structure. I didn't really understand what he meant. Now I do.
Grammar gives us boundaries; it structures language.
God gives us a life, sentence by sentence. He punctuates our path, sometimes with a period, sometimes with a comma, sometimes with a question mark. We must choose our words carefully, asking for guidance from the One who etches the letters of our story onto eternal paper, trusting the One who gracefully gives structure.
"The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." Psalm 16:6