There was a time when Indians communicated by drums and smoke signals. Maybe there are places where they still do this. I know the drum is still used as a communication instrument in many areas of Africa.

Years ago, when the atomic bomb was being tested, out on the flats of Nevada, a cartoon pictured some Indians. They were looking across the barren wastes -- the spacious flats, when on the horizon the mushroom smoke cloud of an atomic explosion rose dramatically. As they looked at that wonder -- never having seen smoke like that, one Indian said to the other, "I wish I had said that."

Many a poet, prose writer, essayist, scholar, preacher, and singer, reading Paul's magnificent hymn of love, has felt if they verbalize it: "I wish I had said that."

And all of us, reading it, want to exc…