Reification

Reification is a fancy philosophy concept that I don't completely understand, HOWEVER, part of the meaning has to do with how we take abstract ideas and make them concrete.

A simpler issue is when we take VERBS and turn them into NOUNS. For example, when we take character qualities and activities of God like LOVE, FAITH, GRACE, HOPE, and JOY and consider these something like commodities that we can trade in. What does it mean for us to have more or less faith? ...more or less love? ...more or less grace? Is that possible?

I suspect that if we love as God loves, there is no quantity to our love. It isn't a person, place, or thing that can be measured. It is a quality of God that either characterizes us or doesn't.

How might it change our prayer if we took a break from those words and prayed what they really represent? Prayer that asks that God help us to put God first and to care about others as much as we care about ourselves. Prayer that confesses our belief in God and asks that we might trust him ever-more. Prayer that expresses our gratefulness for God's unmerited favor for ourselves and asks that we might take on that kind of character to extend unmerited favor upon our sisters and brothers.

It isn't that any of these words aren't wonderful words or that they represent anything bad. It just might be that they become such easy labels that we slowly start to forget all that they are really supposed to mean. What does it really mean to LOVE, to be persons of FAITH, to transact PEACE, to be GRACEFUL in our relationships with God and others? Shouldn't these words really always be verbs?