“No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” James 3:8
The words that are written on the page, edited and punctuated, respaced and shifted to perfection. This is not so for the words that issue from our mouths, ripe with tone and inflection, uncorrectable, indelible and wholly uncontrollable once said. We often don’t know the lives our words take on after they are issued from our lips, they flow invisibly through the air, though sometimes like the wind we recognize them by their influence.
This last week has set me to wondering about the lives of my words. I wonder at assumptions and fears that other may hold about me, I wonder if like so many of the fears and assumptions I hold about others they are based on words carelessly spoken in a moment of irrational passion, anger or frustration. Whole lives can be changed by a word. Our lives are changed daily by words written thousands of years before. Wars are waged over words, countries conquered and hearts broken. Given time and care I would like to think I would be able to correct false characterizations based on carelessly spoken words but how often are we given that opportunity in this life?
A friend I have on the squad is wise in a way that I cannot fully grasp. She is a wealth of wisdom, knowledge and grace, and my most frequent complaint to her is that she does not talk enough, does not share enough and is too deliberate in her censorship of what she says. In the last few days I have seen the way that words can transform the ignorance and curiosity of one heart into the hatred of another. I have seen how words spoken in jest can marry themselves to past insults and become current heartache. I see the prudence of her silence and careful deliberation in unleashing an untamable tongue.
