Recovery Meditations: March 31st


WORDS

"Handle them carefully ...
for words have more power than atom bombs."

Pearl Strachan Hurd



A friend wrote to me tonight about the "healing power of words" I began to think about that and she was right. Words can truly heal. I thought back to times in my life when the right word at the right time by the right person made an enormous difference in my life. I also thought of the times when words devastated me.

Many times I get busy and don't think about what I'm going to say and words come out and in my "busyness" of the moment, I don't realize they could have a double meaning. It is afterwards ... many times days afterwards .... that I realize my choice of words were inappropriate. We speak and listen to tens of millions of words in our lifetime and, perhaps, we need to weigh the words we use more carefully. I hope, however, that I don't ever find myself saying words to others I don't mean or out of fear restrict words that need to be said.

Although this British politician of the 1930s, Pearl Strachan Hurd, said that words have more power than atom bombs, there is something that I find even more powerful. Silence. Silence when there should be words can hurt. Silence when someone should have the courage to speak harms. I tend to think of silence as the ultimate insult. And yet some of the most beautiful words ever spoken to me were the silent ones.

One day at a time ...
let me choose my words carefully but not so carefully that I become callous. Let me use words to heal and not hurt; to make things better and not worse; to express feelings, even negative feelings to and about others, kindly ... courageously ... carefully.

~ Mari