When Words Lose Their Meaning
By Dr. Edrees Bridges, D.Min., APBCC-FR
Imam, Baytul Sabr Jameel, House of Beautiful Patience
What if confusion is not always a failure of understanding, but the moment just before insight arrives?
This time of year, many lives are quietly lost to death by suicide. Behind those losses are stories rarely told in full, stories shaped by loneliness, exhaustion, and a slow erosion of meaning and purpose. Often, what disappears first is not hope itself, but the language we once used to name why life mattered.
Language, like the human being, changes over time. Some words deepen with care. Others thin through repetition and haste. In that process, meaning is often lost, not because it was false, but because it was no longer held with attention.
The word bemuse offers a quiet example.
Today it is commonly used to describe confusion or distraction, a mind unsettled, a person unsure. Yet its older root tells a different story. To muse was to think deeply, to reflect, to remain with a question long enough for it to shape the heart. The prefix be- suggests being overtaken, saturated, fully immersed. To be bemused once meant being absorbed in thought, seized by reflection, given over to meaning.
Somewhere along the way, depth was mistaken for disorder.
Perhaps this shift mirrors something within us. We live in a world that rewards speed and favors amusement, without thinking, without stillness, without pause. Reflection is often misunderstood as hesitation. Slowness as weakness. To linger with a question can feel like being lost.
But for many who struggle with hopelessness, it is not distraction that is missing, it is meaning.
The Muslim community is not immune to this struggle. Faith does not make one exempt from despair, nor does devotion shield a person from loneliness, grief, or exhaustion. Many suffer quietly, carrying shame around their pain, unsure how to speak about it in spaces where strength and certainty are often assumed. When meaning erodes and purpose feels distant, silence can deepen, even among those who pray, fast, and believe.
When life no longer feels intelligible, when suffering cannot be named, when purpose feels broken or unreachable, people often turn inward in painful ways. Loneliness deepens. Life-limiting behaviors emerge. What is lost is not intelligence or strength, but orientation, a sense of where one stands and why their life still matters.
The Qur’an repeatedly calls the human being to reflect, to ponder, to return to awareness. Not everything is meant to be resolved immediately. Some truths unfold only through patience, presence, and trust. Allah created the human being fi ahsani taqweem, in the best and most purposeful form, carrying inherent worth even when that worth feels hidden from view.
When words lose their depth, people often do too.
To be bemused is not always to be confused. Sometimes it is to stand at the threshold of understanding, where certainty has not yet arrived, but meaning is quietly forming. For those navigating despair, this space can feel frightening. Yet it is often here, in the pause, that life begins to whisper again, not with answers, but with presence.
Perhaps what we need is not fewer bemused moments, but the courage to remain with them, together, trusting that guidance, like healing, arrives in its proper time.
If words can lose their meaning over time, how might we rediscover our own, having been created in the best and most purposeful form?
If this reflection touches something tender for you, know that you are not alone. Seeking support from a trusted imam, chaplain, spiritual care practitioner, or mental health professional is not a sign of weak faith, it is an act of care for the life Allah has entrusted to you. Caring for the soul and caring for the mind often belong together, and reaching out can be a step toward mercy, healing, and renewed meaning.