Thinking About Words

Thoughtful Books

I have been reading two books on words, and they couldn’t be more different. The first one is called The Lost Words, written by Robert MacFarlane, a fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. MacFarlane researches Geohumanities as a scholar in English, and his work is preoccupied by what the natural world can teach us about ourselves. This book has beautiful illustrations by artist Jackie Morris, who won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for her work on this book.

It is beautiful, poignant, and surprising—dandelion is one of the lost words, becoming lost to children. The book is coffee-table size. Actually, it sits on my side desk, where I can take a peek every day at another lost word. There are fewer than two dozen lost words in this book, but the book is too big to hold and read.

The second book I have been studying is On Tyranny, written by Yale scholar Dr. Timothy Snyder. Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. His work concerns history and what we can learn from the Twentieth Century.

It is a clear-cut set of Twenty Lessons, which he hopes will allow us to learn from our collective world experience. It is a tiny book that fits easily into my small purse. Snyder is also economical with the number of words, but every word counts. Furthurmore, he is also concerned with lost words of a different kind.

Words can be used as gifts or as weapons.

We can splurge with our words and tell those we love what we admire about them. Let’s not wait until they are gone. Every day, with every encounter, we can offer word gifts to strangers and friends—in the grocery store, at home, or at the workplace. Consequently, we get to lighten someone’s day.

When words are weaponized in the public sphere, it is critical to consider words that matter to us.  And it goes without saying that our words matter. We can use words to speak the truth.  And we can pause before we say the first thing that comes to mind. We surely don’t want to lose the word civility.

Gossip

 I appreciate this old Jewish folktale, on the power of words.

It goes like this:

The words we use can hurt as well as heal…yet there is more to kind speech than saying nice things.

There was once a man who loved to gossip. He loved the attention it brought him, and could not stop himself from speaking about others, sometimes sharing the good they did, but most often sharing the mistakes they had made.

In time, however, he realized the harm his speech was causing and he sought to make amends. He went to his rabbi and explained the situation, and asked how he could make amends.

The rabbi thought for a moment and instructed the man to go to the marketplace and purchase two of the finest feather pillows he could find. He should then take his pillows to the top of the mountain overlooking the village, tear them open, and spill the feathers into the wind.

The man was surprised and pleased at the rabbi’s advice. He thought repentance would be much harder than this. So he ran to the marketplace, purchased his pillows, and within an hour had scattered their feathers to the wind.

He returned to the rabbi all aglow. He was ready to be forgiven for his gossiping. Not just yet, the rabbi told him. There was one more thing to do. He had to return to the mountain and repack the pillows with the feathers he had scattered.

“But that’s impossible,” the man said. “Those feathers have gone everywhere, there is no way I can take them back now.”

The rabbi nodded solemnly and said, “What is true of feathers is true of words. Once spoken they can never be retrieved. The harm caused by gossip cannot be undone.”

Taken from Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s book, “the sacred art of Lovingkindness preparing to practice.”

Blaming words

The old nursery rhyme about how words can never hurt you is debunked everyday, word by word.  As we hurl words at each other, in the public and private sectors, we duck, not because they break our bones but because they can break our hearts, and our spirits. We have never been more capable of hurting each other with words, than we are now.

People diagnosed with serious illness are too often struck by words. Just like the young woman, who, when asked what surprised her most about cancer said this: “I never thought I would be blamed for my cancer.”  This doesn’t happen to everyone but it happens too frequently, in my opinion, especially with young adults and those with lung cancer.  The hurtful assumptions about “what you did wrong,” or some variation on that theme, can even be posed by a well-meaning and misinformed friend.

Our words are important and worthy of consideration – they make a difference in the lives of others.

“Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”….I met his gaze and I did not blink. “Words of comfort.”

Abraham Verghese,  American physician, author, Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, from his book,  Cutting For Stone.

Notes:

1:) A different sound – Willy Nelson and Kenny Rogers performing award award-winning Blue Skies

2:) I almost forgot to tell you again that I am teaching my annual program with the ToDo Institute in April. A lovely gift for all of us is that Kate Karius from Switzerland will be co-facilitating this program with me. You can find out additional  details here. Note that the fees are discounted for alumni and or members of the non-profit ToDo Institute. April 3-May 1

3:) Thank you for all the word gifts you have given me over these years. I deeply appreciate you keeping me company. I send all my best wishes for a spring in your step and a waterfall of contentment and equanimity as we make our way through our everyday precious lives. Warmly, Trudy