How To Prevent Words That Wound With This Simple 3-Step Test

by Candace Chellew in Sermons

Forgiving the sticks, stones and words that wound

A Rosh Hashanah meditation

Preached at the Unitarian Church in Charleston, S.C.

I am the youngest of five children. The baby. I have a brother who is two years older than I am. Then, there is a six-year gap between him and my next brother, and only a couple of years’ difference between him and my oldest two sisters. After my mom and dad divorced when I was nine years old, my dad declared to my mother: “Barbara, Linda, and John are my kids. Doug and Candace are yours.”

That declaration of being disowned by my father has stuck with me for 51 years. As kids, we learn to say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” But that’s simply not true.

Words do hurt. They sting. They wound. They leave a mark on our psyche and our spirit. They shape the people we become, especially when they are spoken to us at a tender age.

Someone who is easy to leave became an identity for me because of the deep wound I received from my father’s words. It took me well into my late 30s, through good therapy and some tough spiritual work, to arrive at a place of forgiveness for my father.

I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church — where my father, ironically, was a minister who preached against adultery until he didn’t. In my Christian tradition, I was raised to think of forgiveness as a practice of “turning the other cheek.” Forgiveness was an act you did — not so much for the other person, but for yourself, so you could find the peace of mind you needed to go on. Forgiveness didn’t require any action from the other party. In fact, they didn’t even have to know that they had harmed you or that you had forgiven them for anything at all.

Jewish concepts of forgiveness

This is different from  Jewish concepts of forgiveness, as far as I understand them as a Gentile. From what I’ve read, forgiveness is necessarily a two-way street, and something you practice during Rosh Hashanah so you can begin the new year afresh, releasing old grievances and seeking forgiveness from those you may have wronged.

It’s not a “turn the other cheek” situation. This kind of forgiveness requires not just the offender to ask to be forgiven, but also requires the aggrieved party to grant the request. If they do not, forgiveness is not bestowed.

As Elizabeth Lerner Maclay writes in Jewish Voices in Unitarian Universalism,:“This is a human-based religious system of forgiveness. For those of us ultimately concerned with how we live in this world, that makes its ethical dimension very powerful. It is a theological system of right relations that says we are under obligation to those we’ve hurt.”

It was too late for me to go to my father and ask him to accept my forgiveness. He died when I was 17 years old.

I wanted to make my amends, though, so I traveled to his grave. As I stood in a warm drizzle that afternoon in Georgia, emotion washed over me. We had not seen or spoken to each other in years, and I had so much to say to him, but only a headstone remained. I used the only thing I could at that moment to bestow my forgiveness — my voice. If anyone had passed by, they might have thought I was crazy, talking — sometimes yelling — at a headstone. But it was the only avenue I had left.

After I said — or yelled — everything I could think of, I took a deep breath. I went there for a reason, and I needed to do it. I finally said, “Dad. I forgive you.” I am not lying when I tell you that at that very moment, the drizzle stopped, the clouds above me parted, and the sun glowed brightly in the blue sky.

All that was missing was an audible chorus of angels. I took that as a sign that the broken relationship with my father had finally been healed.

Some may quibble with my conclusion, but what this experience reinforced for me was the power of words. My father’s words had cut me deeply and destroyed my sense of security for many years. Finding my voice to tell him that — even if it was to his gravestone — empowered me to forgive him and to seek, posthumously, reconciliation.

Words can both destroy and create

Sticks and stones may be effective at breaking bones — but words have the power to both destroy and create. Genesis says our entire world was called into existence by the power of God’s words. As we survey our society today, I dare say we can clearly see the destructive power of words. From the top of our political system, we hear words of destruction, of discrimination, of grievance, and domination. These words — right now — are creating an entirely new reality for all of us, whether we agree with those words or not.

These words are already affecting the younger generation as they are propagated on social media — radicalizing some of them to harm or kill those around them. We don’t have to look far for examples of how words are creating a dangerous world for all of us.

The animal world knows how to communicate with each other, but words are unique to human beings. When Adam is created by God, the Torah calls him “a living soul,” but the rabbis of the first century recast that phrase in Aramaic to mean “speaking spirits.” The very essence of our humanity is our ability to speak. With words, we can reference the past and create the future, which gives us immeasurable power that we can choose to use either for good or for evil.

In this New Year, then, let us remember the power of our words and use them as a vehicle for holiness — to make talking a spiritual practice. No special equipment or training is needed for this spiritual practice. Instead, all we need is awareness and a few simple tools that we can carry around in our hearts and minds as reminders to use our words wisely and compassionately.

The power of the pause

The first tool we need is the ability to pause before we speak. This requires a deep awareness of how emotion arises within us. Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says when we feel the stirring of a strong emotion such as anger, we must learn to meet it with mindfulness and “embrace the anger like a mother, a loving mother holding her baby very gently.”

This pause, in which we hold our strong emotion with gentleness, is the time when we need to consider three questions before we speak, Hanh says. First, we ask, is what we are about to say truthful? Then we ask, is it kind? Finally, we ask, is it helpful? Then, as Mahatma Gandhi once said, we can “Speak only if it improves the silence.”

My father’s words five decades ago could not pass this simple test, yet they were spoken aloud and wounded me deeply. I invite you to think of the deep wounds in your own life that harsh words spoken to you have caused. Maybe they were uttered decades ago, but they remain as part of you. I also invite you to think of the words spoken to you that have passed through these three gates of truthfulness, kindness and helpfulness. Think how those words still nurture your soul, even years later.

This is the power of words to create and destroy. It may also be enlightening to ask those around you what words they hear from you most often — and what words you have said that have stuck with them for a long time. Would you be willing to hear both the good and the bad words that have impacted those around you?

From this moment forward, before sharing a critique, a rebuke, or even just a passing comment, I invite you to pause and review this list: Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary? Wouldn’t this be a worthy spiritual discipline?

What if you had a limited number of words?

My favorite new speech as a spiritual practice exercise, though, comes from a sermon by Rabbi Amy Schwartzman, who relates the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, the legendary founder of Hasidic Judaism. Rabbi Schwartzman says that he “teaches that every person is allocated a set number of words to use for our entire lifetime. Once we reach our quota, we depart from this world.”

Think about that for a minute — we only have a limited number of words to speak! I find this a truly compelling idea! How would our everyday speech change if we really believed this? Since we don’t know how many words we were born to speak or how many we have left, do we really want to waste our last words saying, “You’re an idiot!” or worse?

Schwartzman reminds us that Jewish tradition says, “words are like arrows, once released they cannot be taken back, and arriving at their target, they burrow deep inside.” I know my father’s words burrowed deep within me, and they festered until they created within me an angry, cynical person who lashed out at the world to avoid the pain of being abandoned again.

It was only through the act of forgiveness that I was able to heal the wound and bring a sense of peace and reconciliation into my heart for and with my father.

What soul-destroying words still remain deep within you today that you need to forgive someone for saying? What destructive words have you said to others that you need forgiveness for? This season invites you to examine those wounds you have received and the ones you have given. Forgiveness is a two-way street. We all need to forgive and to be forgiven. Without this form of reconciliation, we cannot move forward together as individuals, as communities, and dare I say, as a nation.

I invite you, then, to take on this new spiritual practice of what the Buddhists call “right speech.” Whenever you feel triggered, which may be often in the world today, become aware of your rising emotion and before you speak — or post on social media — ask these three questions: Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary?

Then, remember, if we have only a set number of words to speak in our lifetime, what words do we want to leave as our legacy? What if the words we are about to speak are our last words? What do we want them to be — words of anger and division, or words of love and unity?

Ask yourself 3 questions

Here’s the most important thing to remember, though: You will fail at this spiritual practice. A lot. Before you feel guilty or use hurtful words against yourself, ask these three questions: Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary? Chances are those words won’t pass this test. Do not berate yourself, just rededicate yourself to the practice and move on.

And there’s one more point I want to make about the power of words. As Gandhi points out, sometimes silence cannot be improved upon.

One of the political pundits I read regularly wrote recently: “You don’t have to say something about every damned terrible thing that happened… When people are on a knife-edge, even what you think are the most carefully selected words can spark an adverse, fight-or-flight reaction and provide a rationalization to escalate. We wouldn’t survive for very long as a civilization if we didn’t provide for cooling-off periods.”

This is the wisdom of the third question: “Is it necessary?” In this world, where we can all have our say instantly on social media, we must closely consider whether our piling on is necessary, even if the words we want to say are true and kind.

No spiritual practice is ever easy, and we will often get it wrong, but remember that discretion is the better part of valor. Often, silence, allowing the situation to be what it is and seeing where it may go without our input, may be the wisest and most loving thing we can do. Our silence in these times is not complicity; it is strength. And when it becomes necessary for us to speak, the words we say will be those of healing and reconciliation.

So, may we dedicate ourselves to using our words to uplift those around us, to speak with integrity, to remain silent when necessary, and to forgive ourselves and each other.

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