Sticks and stones

I grew up memorizing a saying that perhaps you remember as well:

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

We know, of course, that it isn't true; that words can and do indeed hurt. I've been hurt by words, just as I know that I've used words against other people that have hurt. Sometimes I've said things on purpose, with the intent to hurt; sometimes I've said things inadvertently that I didn't know would hurt. But it hurt just the same.

That's one of the reasons the Bible says a lot about our words.

Proverbs says, "Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." In Peter writes (in 1 Peter), "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no lies."

James writes one of the most profound lessons on the human tongue (and words), "Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison...."

That's pretty strong language in itself, and does a great job of letting us know the power of our words. As Uncle Ben is given credit for saying in "The Amazing Spider Man," "With great power comes great responsibility." Our tongue and our words are a great power; we need to understand and respect the responsibility that comes with language and communication.

That being said ...

While I now understand that the childhood proverb about "words" is not necessarily true, more and more I realize the point of the proverb was valuable.

One, it says words won't hurt me. It implies that I can make a choice on being insulted. If I tell myself that the words won't hurt, maybe I can limit (if not in some cases eliminate) the hurt they cause. We can choose to not be insulted - or, more realistically, we can chose after we've been insulted to not let the insult fester or to respond in kind. It's not easy, but the proverb was one that drilled into my head when I was a kid that because words couldn't physically hurt me, I didn't have to fear what people said.

The second point is the better one; usually we said that phrase in response to something someone said to us that we found hurtful, or was meant to hurt. Maybe the words being said did, indeed, hurt, but by saying "your words will never hurt me" we turned it back on our attacker. There is nothing worse than knowing you don't matter to someone, and to say "your words don't bother me" is to essentially say to them, "you have no control over me, my life, my feelings." When someone offends me, the "sticks and stones" phrase taught me to throw it back at them by not repaying evil with evil but by ignoring it. Refuse to acknowledge it. You know, if you like me or you hate me, at least I know that you know I exist and have some power in your life. But to be not just ignored by you but to be told you don't even think about me? That what I say or do never enters into your thoughts? - that's really powerful. To realize you don't even acknowledge my existence is as if I don't exist, that I don't have any meaning or purpose, that - to you, anyway - I may as well never have been born.

(The better response really is another Proverb: "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head ..." That's the old idea of killing them with kindness, a much better response, to be truthful.)

I think we should go back to teaching our kids that while someone can take sticks and stones and physically hurt us, we have some power over whether their words affect us.

There was another saying I remember from my youth. When someone said something particularly vile, you'd hear someone say, "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

That's pretty good, too. It's the idea that we use the same mouth to say hateful things as we do to say (or do) loving things. Or, as James says further along the passage above, "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ..."

No, it shouldn't. We do need to be aware to be responsible with our words and how we use them, what we say and who we say things too.

I have always tried to be a strong enough individual not let your words hurt me.

But more importantly, I pray that I become wise enough not to let my words hurt you.

*It occurs to me that sometimes we have to say things that will offend people. That's part of caring for them; "speaking the truth in love." Sometimes really caring for someone is to tell them something they need to hear, for their protection or correction or edification. That's a whole 'nother post, of ocurse, of how we do that.
But when it comes to words, as George Orwell once wrote, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear."