When our kids were young and in the midst of a bit of a grumpy mood, we would need to remind them sometimes, “Use your words.” Maybe you have had to do the same. Maybe you have had to be reminded of this too!
Well today’s readings could be summed up in two words: words matter. I recently saw this quote that got me thinking,
“When we speak or write, we use words to carry our meaning, as well as energy. We may be speaking to our baby, our boss, or to an audience of 500 people. We may be writing a love letter, a work-related memo, or an entry in our own diary. Whatever the case, each word we use has a life of its own, a vibratory signature that creates waves in the same way that a note of music creates waves. And like musical notes, our words live in communities of other words and change in relation to the words that surround them. When we are conscious of the energy behind our words, we become capable of making beautiful music in the world. If we are unconscious of the power of words, we run the risk of creating a noisy disturbance [and creating harm].”
In our first reading God says that her words go out into the world and do not come back until they have done what they need to do. These words are energy that are set forth into the world with a mission.
Then in the gospel, Jesus is pointing out the people praying publicly saying all kinds of loud babbling prayers. Jesus says, “Don’t be like that.” Instead, he says to his followers, “Say something like this instead…,” and goes on to give them what we now call the “Our Father” or “The Lord’s Prayer.”
We could and probably should spend an entire reflection on the content of the prayer he taught (!) but for today’s purposes I’ll just say that these words are purposeful, focused and powerful. They draw from other very familiar Jewish prayers that Jesus and his friends would have known by heart and are meant to set certain things in motion in our hearts and in the world.
Words matter. They are a form of energy that has power. What we say to others and how we talk to ourselves matters. It has consequences and shapes things. Our words can heal or harm.
The Buddha, like Jesus, gave instructions for speech and said that “right speech” must be timely, true, gentle, beneficial, and spoken with a mind of goodwill. Furthermore, Buddha said that if we are to say something disagreeable, make sure that it is true and beneficial and spoken at the right time.
A lot of us might not speak very often, eh?
Perhaps for today we can be very mindful of our language – both what we say out loud, what we post on social media, what we write in a text or email as well as what we say inside our heads. What do these words set in motion?