I don't know about you, but I have had some brutal battles with words in my life. Words got me into the Principal's office in middle school (when a temporary insanity overcomes many young minds--especially in the 8th grade.) It was the only time the authorities summoned me to answer to charges of human cruelty. Clearly, I haven't forgotten my lesson.
It was a simple note to write. When you are thirteen years old, in a clique, and somebody has to be the scribe for the gaggle's collective angst toward an outsider who has no business trying to break into the circle, you answer to the call to leadership, right? It was my sheet of notebook paper and my words based, of course, on those of my accomplices. The victim, whom I shall call "Alice," had the unmitigated gall to want to sit with us at lunch and add her "two cents" whenever we socialized. Worst of all, she was failing in fashion sense. She wore socks with flats, a most heinous offense in an era when cool was Capezio flats, cut just low enough to reveal a bit of toe cleavage. Her skirts were ridiculously long in an era of Twiggy and the miniskirt, her hairstyle too elementary school. Our exclusive club had no room for her and she wasn't taking the hint. The time for action had come to state our grievances with her as plainly as possible, so she would leave us alone.
. . .So she would be left alone at an awkward age when peer group is Everything.
I cringe to tell this story. The "cool girls'" rejection slip to hapless Alice, written on behalf of three or four of us, was brief and cruel, and signed by me. What was I thinking? I may have been an honor roll student, but was suffering from a severe deficit of compassion and empathy. I had no history of bullying; I was a born "people pleaser," wanting everyone to like me. Suddenly, I was in a mean season.
Back in ancient history (my childhood), when you waded into troubled waters at school, you were doomed to drowning in them at home. In short, parental punishment (including the apology letter to Alice) and the principal's discipline (a penitent phone call to Alice's righteously indignant mother), forever tattooed on my heart: "Words Matter." Tears of shame and humiliation baptized me for the ages, because along with the sin revealed was the vow to never, ever, write to someone words I might regret later.
Alice and I made peace, but never did become friends. A few years after, thankfully, I truly found a friend in Jesus.
Today, I am singing along with Hawk Nelson on the radio:
Words can build us up
Words can break us down
Start a fire in our hearts or
Put it out.
Let my words be life
Let my words by truth
I don't wanna say a word
Unless it points the world back to You."
Build us up or break us down? Alice taught me about word choices, and decades later, I'm stunned at the verbal hurricane season we are enduring on social media. What has happened to us? Facebooked and tweeted tirades, often toward persons we don't know at all, make me shudder. What became of the time-honored advice I call WISOIRIM? (Write it, sleep on it, review in morning.)
As I once taught my high school students, why not scribble feelings in a journal, to help sort out what needs to be said, then possibly tear up the page later when the storm has passed. How many times have we wanted to stuff words back in our mouths, but can't? WISOIRIM.
So, I'm choosey now. As I write a poem, I sometimes spend days working toward the one right word. Whatever the genre, those of us who write are constantly laboring over our choices. Literal meaning, connotation, sound, rhyme. . . because we need to communicate exactly what expresses our inner voice. Then, the self-check. Will my words do harm?
I will never know if Alice carried my hateful words inside her all these years. How, at the time, could I not imagine the hot flush on thirteen-year-old cheeks, as she probably rushed to hide in a bathroom stall? Did she unfold the tight square of notebook paper, stare at my holier-than-thou penmanship, reading and re-reading the words slicing through her, straining to silence her sobs. Leave us alone. . . we don't want you around us. . . How could I not feel her abandonment? I will always wonder if she later shrugged it off to middle school madness, but know I may have left a scar. With repentance, I know I am forgiven. Some things, though, are never forgotten.
If you have ever had a Waterloo with words and want to share, I'm here. Maybe you were an "Alice." It's not easy to tell some of our stories, but isn't it a relief when you know someone else has traveled that stony road? I welcome your thoughts, and I will do my best to respond if you leave your email.
Let my words be life!
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29