Do Words Have Any Power To Transform?

It's kind of harrowing to begin questioning your vocation like this, but, alas, here I am doing just that. Here I am, someone who fancies himself an authour questioning the power of words to transform---to make an impact, to shift awareness, to alter perspectives.

Maybe it's just me, but for all the words I have been exposed to over the years I feel no fundamental transformation of consciousness. Yes, I have been transformed in both profound and subtle ways by experiences.... by relationships.... but certainly not by words. 

Even when people have spoken to me words that seemed quite injurious to me at the time have not had their impact upon me because of their own nature, but more so because of the nature of the sentiment or emotion behind and beneath the word. It's as if the word is but a vessel for the real power. It is as if the word is but a messenger, and not itself a message. The message, the real message--the power of transformation and transmission--can be carried and contained in words. But dare say I, as the authour of numerous works, that words are powerless and impotent without and apart from the consciousness which infuses words with any and all semblances of power and potency which they might ever appear to have.

Yes, words are truly empty until we pour Heart and Soul into them. And it is that Heart and Soul we drink, never the words.