The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said: “The limits of your language are the limits of your world.”

Meaning that your language sets limits around what you think about and how you think. And it explains to some degree how different cultures operate: sometimes it’s because their language keeps them from acting in a given way.

But for the most part, Wittgenstein is not only wrong in that assertion, he is dangerously, horrifically wrong.

Wrong in the sense that many 20th century Western European and American philosophers were, men and women who were and are wedded to words, a bunch of wordsmiths who operated in the rarefied atmosphere of a moribund academia.

A world without dance. Without art. Without religious awe. Without soul.

Does anyone at a cosmic event like a child’s birth imagine that that event is circumscribed by mere words? Or likewise staring at Niagara falls or the Pantheon or even a sunrise over an ocean? Do these people have sleep without dreams?

Words are important. God came into the world as the word made flesh. And it is impossible to do astronomy or theology or sing without words.

But words are not the limits of our world. We sometimes begin with words and sometimes end with them, but they are usually a fulcrum that launches us into worlds of which our words are but a sometimes rusty key.