Strong Women Who Inspire the Fire by Karma Pratt

I have always been a lover of words. Looking back, I realize I've had many strong female role models in my life that have guided me along the way, and inspired the creative fire within me.

My mom tells me I could recite the alphabet from memory at 18 months. She showed me the beauty of words using a wooden alphabet magnet puzzle. Together we explored the sounds and shapes of letters. I wanted to speak them, write them, and read them without ceasing. Words offered entry into other worlds, and were the catalyst for my imagination to run wild.

From a very young age, I was requesting books on writing and teaching myself how to write letters in block print and cursive. Our first elementary school hand writing assignment was to provide the teacher with a sample of our penmanship. I offered her three options: printed letters, "proper" handwriting (as taught in the books I had filled up at home in the summertime), and my handwriting (adapted to suit my creative style). She just stared at me.

the joy of the handwritten word

My future writing career was also shaped by the matriarch of the Pratt family, my grandmother. We used to sit at her kitchen table playing Scrabble. My favourite part was the sound the letters made as I shook them vigorously in the case. Her favourite part was challenging me to look past the obvious three letter answers. 

My grandmother was also one of my first spiritual advisers, though I didn't realize it at the time. A devout Catholic, she took us to Mass on the days she babysat us, and taught us about the power of prayer. I still remember watching her pray as we drove to church in her tiny brown hatchback (the Peanut). I believe she was fully trusting God to make the corners on the South Taylor Hill for her as we made our way to town and she moved through her daily devotions.

After she passed, my family found dozens of journals, all filled with her thoughts and prayers. She took great care of each of us through her words, her belief in the Word, and her faith.

with my grandmother, July 2008

In school I discovered libraries, a new kind of heaven. When other young girls were playing house, I was playing "library". My library checkout cards were painstakingly hand drawn, cut out on small papers and inserted into each book between the front cover and first page. Out of reverence, I couldn't bring myself to ever deface a book, or I would have glued the checkout cards right into those books. As it was, they were always falling out, floating to the floor whenever I moved my collection.

As I got older, I continued to explore new worlds through school libraries. In high school, through the enthusiasm and genius approach of my Grade 11 English teacher, Ms. Mitchell, I came to know and love Shakespeare. His use of language transcended the realm of “normal” and brought a new appreciation for eloquent descriptions. My passion for words took on new forms, through theatre, singing, and learning other languages as well. In university I studied English and Spanish language and literature, and eventually took my love of language to a new level with a Master of Arts in Professional Communication.

words and music onstage, Cabaret, October 2011

As I've moved through these ages and stages in my life, words have always been a constant. My faith has meandered over the years. Sometimes I've gotten lost in this big, loud world. I haven't always turned to God first. It's only as an adult that I've finally made my way back to God's hearth, to sit at His feet and learn from His Word. 

Now I find myself steeped in the call to write, and my faith in God has become the launch point for my work and words. I am ever thankful for the opportunities God's given me to learn from so many strong women over the years. They saw the spark within me, and fanned the flames, allowing me to grow into the writer I am becoming today.

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Karma Pratt is a faith-driven mom of twins, a communicator, a writer, and an encourager from way back. She loves words, art, creativity, God, and people, although not necessarily in that order. 

You can find her online at redraincoatcreations.com or connect on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Behind the Words by Bryan Norford

I’ve always been fascinated by the ability to use language to express an idea in various ways. Before I became interested in writing as an author, I was involved in preparing technical and professional documents. I found language could be used to produce authentic sounding documents (whether or not they were authentic!) by the use of words that had not only a dictionary meaning, but also carried inferences understood by the culture—professional or communal.

A couple of examples come to mind. The expression “that’s unacceptable,” seems to carry authority beyond personal opinion. Also the word “discriminate” has lost its discriminatory ability because advocacy groups for human rights commandeered it to connote their agenda. I’m sure you can think of others.

Obviously, this has implications for both fiction and non-fiction writers. Authentic writing depends not only use of the right word and ruthless deletion of unnecessary words, but also on word order. Strunk and White admirably demonstrate this by rearranging Thomas Paine’s sentence: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Other arrangements they suggest don’t carry the same emotional impact, but the reason is hard to define:

Times like these try men’s’ souls.

How trying it is to live in these times.

These are trying times for men’s souls

Soulwise, these are trying times.

This is where craftsmanship and art combine in the classics that we admire, but which deflate our own confidence. We doubt we will ever reach such sublime heights, yet we are continually constrained to try. Such is the nature of writing. Like life, perfection is seductive; its empty promise will never stop us trying, but always leaves us lamenting our poverty.

But we are fortunate to write in English. English and the other Germanic languages are descendants of Greek (recall the expression: “The Greeks had a word for it”?). So English has a wealth of words few other languages on earth can boast, providing every nuance necessary for effective, accurate writing. Would my passion for writing have been as dynamic without the English language? Possibly not.

However, the biblical languages have certainly enhanced it. A common response to even an elementary knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, is that it opens up the Scriptures afresh. In the Old Testament, for instance, the Hebrew faith formed part of the everyday Hebrew language. Thus, it was not possible to differentiate physical life from the spiritual. The connotations of God’s love and faithfulness were in every expression of love and faithfulness between humans.

In the New Testament, the Greek language had every word necessary to transmit the Christian faith. What is even more remarkable, the Holy Spirit used the “Dick and Jane” Greek of John’s Gospel to communicate sublime truths of the faith as effectively as the classic Greek used by the author of Hebrews. Furthermore, Paul took words from the Greek language and infused them with Christian truth providing “crossover” meanings to aid evangelism in his day.

If I have understood the depth of God’s love and actions for me in procuring salvation, it has been the meaning built in to various words critical to the Christian faith. The Australian theologian, Leon Morris, in his book, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, researched the words: redemption, covenant, blood, propitiation, reconciliation and justification from the original languages. His work gave me a depth of understanding that drew me into a clearer and deeper permanency of my relationship to Jesus Christ, and greater assurance of my eternal security in God’s provision.

It is no accident that God has communicated to us by the written word. Not only does it provide a permanent record of God’s care for His people, it does so in a way that is relevant to every generation. His gift of writing for me and those He called into this ministry is simply an extension of His desire to communicate His love beyond ourselves.