Use Your Words
I’ve been thinking about words.
I’ve been fighting cynicism ever since my spiritual deconstruction started a little over a decade ago, and the world as I know it hasn’t done me any favors. Even so, I have a lot to be grateful for — my health, my family, my friends, money to pay the bills, etc. Things get tight sometimes, but we never go without, and there are people who would kill to have a little family like mine.
I am admittedly not a Christian these days by any metric, but I can still glean some truth from the teachings of Jesus on occasion. Check this out:
…what you say flows from what is in your heart. — Luke 6:45 (NLT, I think. #whocares)
On this side of my deconstruction I still believe that words matter. I believe that what we say matters. I believe our words have a power that is more far-reaching than we may ever know. One sentence muttered under one’s breath, overheard by the right person, can change the world. I truly believe this.
Even so, I have oftentimes given most of my words to my baser instincts. I have given them to smartassery. I have given them to hate. I have given them to division. Worst of all I have set many of them aflame on the alter of apathy — forever unsaid in a world that may need one single person to hear / read them.
If you know me, or have followed my writing over the past few years, you know that I am always in the midst of a personal reckoning. I think about my past, my present, and my future more than any healthy person probably should. I haven’t made peace with much of it, and I admittedly have a long, long way to go. Even so, I can use my words for good. I can use my words to build, as well as to tear down.
My words have this power. I have this power. But just like any other skill or ability, if you don’t use it, you’ll eventually lose it, and if you’ve only ever used it to do one particular thing, it can take a lot of time and energy to further develop it. Sometimes it can literally feel like starting over.
I have spent so many years using my words to tear things down that I am literally having to teach myself how to use them all over again, in hopes that I may someday be able to use them to build something (or somebody) up.
This much is true: we might not be able to control much in this life, but we can control the words that come out of our mouths, and the best way that we can control the words that come out of our mouths is to be intentional and purposeful with them.
DISCLAIMER: I understand that we’re all in different places, and that what I need to speak to isn’t necessarily what anybody else needs to speak to. Please don’t think that I’m saying that you need to stop saying what you’re saying. I’m saying quite the opposite. There is a time for angry words, and there is a time to tap into the rage that is quietly smoldering in all of our hearts for a myriad of reasons. If you need to use your words to tear something down, use them! If you need to use your words to destroy a bad idea, use them! If you need to use your words to vent, shine a light, or wish someone a happy birthday, use them!
The point is this: Speak with passion, and speak with power, but also speak with clear intent. Measure your words. Use them with boldness, and use them carefully. There are millions of words at your disposal; don’t waste a single one.
I want my words to be kind and full of love, but I also want them to be brave, and I’m tired of bloviating about myself and my feelings over and over and over again, while completely ignoring the important work of using my privilege to help deconstruct worldviews that are so built around comforting the comfortable and maintaining the status quo that people are literally dying in the streets as a result.
May we speak truth into the darkness, and set aflame every remnant of the hatred, injustice, and apathy that many of us have been taught to embrace.
Have no doubt: Our words matter. Your words matter.
When my kids are older, and they’re learning for themselves what love and justice should look like, I want to be able to tell them that I was here, and that I was fighting to make a difference — even if the only punches I’m throwing are words on a screen.
We can’t afford to be silent — for silence is complicity.
Use your words.
