Words Matter

By Warren Cole Smith

Editor’s Note: Brent McKnight died on Nov. 27, 2004, the day after Thanksgiving. He was 52.

The words on the cover of the program said, “A Service of Celebration for the Life of Harold Brent McKnight.”

But I didn’t feel like celebrating. I was hurt and angry. It came as a relief when Dr. Leighton Ford said he was hurt and angry, too. He spoke for many of us when he stood up mid-way through the service and described how he felt when he heard, the Friday after Thanksgiving, that Brent’s health had taken a serious turn for the worse.

“A huge, heaving sense of anger that I could not contain came over me,” Leighton said. He then said he screamed at God. As for myself, I did not scream, but I did cry, and ask, “Why, God? Why?”

It’s a juvenile question. And I know the answer to this question. At least I know the words: God is sovereign, and we see through a glass darkly.

Indeed, Brent himself — in our conversations over long lunches at Mantis Restaurant, with gentleness and razor-sharp erudition — helped me to learn them, and what they mean.

But I was still angry. Brent had been a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He had been lawyer’s lawyer and had just been appointed a federal judge. Why would this great and good man learn that he has an aggressive form of cancer just months after being elevated to the federal bench? This was a position for which such a man as Brent McKnight was truly made. Why is his wife being left alone when Brent loved her so deeply? Why will his young boys, for whom Brent was such a great father, be without him in those years when they need him most?

Yes, I was angry all right. But Leighton Ford had words for me and for the 2000 others gathered at Christ Covenant Church to remember Brent. “I knew my anger came from impotence and loss,” he said.

It was also strangely comforting when Leighton shared that Brent himself had asked these same questions. It made me a bit less angry to know that Brent himself, whose faith and brilliance had been such a model for me and for so many others, also wondered why. Leighton said that Brent had found words from Julian of Norwich that helped his anger subside: “Anger is the result of a lack of wisdom, or a lack of strength, or a lack of goodness.” These were good words for me, too. They helped dampen the anger.

That these words helped would have been no surprise to Brent. Christ Covenant’s Senior Pastor, Dr. John Sittema, remembered how once he — with some trepidation — asked Brent to share his “legal philosophy.” John said Brent looked up from his soup and said simply, “Words matter.” And then went back to his soup.

I laughed, as did the two thousand. It was “classic Brent.” Brilliant. Concise. True. I was a bit less angry.

One reason “words matter” is that they bear witness to truth. The right word gets you closer to the truth. Words matter in other ways too. Brent always had a moment for his legal colleagues, to discuss some matter of philosophy or law. He also knew the names of those on the security staff, and the cleaning people at the courthouse, and he would call them by name when they passed.

Yes. Words matter. Words that include hearing the sound of our own name called by someone who loves us and cares for us.

The last time Brent and I met at Mantis for lunch, we talked about a particular word. Mystery. Brent helped me to understand that a mystery is not just that which we do not know, but that which we cannot know. It was beyond our knowing. Brent and I, both Anglophiles, called out almost in one voice the words from the Anglican liturgy: “This is the mystery of faith. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” A mystery is something that is both true and not fully knowable.

Oh, yes. Words matter. Though none matter more than The Word made flesh. The mystery of God’s love for us.

Leighton Ford reminded us of Brent’s love for C.S. Lewis. Lewis, reflecting on the death of his wife, and feeling the same anger, also asked “why?” But Lewis, much wiser than I, said he imagined when he got to heaven, his first word would not be “why?” Rather, he would look into the eyes of a loving Savior, and say, not “why?” but “Oh!”

Now I get it. Now I understand. A mystery no more.

These words helped Brent, Leighton said. They helped me, too.

Our human words fail at the point of mystery; they are not quite enough. The few words here are certainly not enough to remember a man like Brent McKnight. But words do allow us an intimation of that mystery. All of which is why — as I left the church — I was still sad, but no longer angry.

I still wonder why Brent had to leave us far too soon. But I’m aware that Brent, ever the wise teacher, was right about more than the law when he said: “Words matter.” In the wisdom of his words, of Leighton Ford’s words, and of course in God’s word, even the Word made flesh, not only does my anger disappear. Even my sadness subsides a bit, and I can perhaps bear to wait for the day when “why?” becomes a satisfying, joyful, “Oh!”

2023 Update: Mantis Restaurant was recently torn down to make way for more modern developments. Brent’s son, Brent McKnight, Jr., is an associate with the national law firm McGuireWoods. Before joining that firm, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Allison J. Rushing of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Honorable James C. Dever III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.