Words have long fascinated me, since childhood really, when one got me into a heap of trouble. I was four years old and my older sister, Tati, and I were playing with our mother’s doll. We were visiting our grandparents and Eddie (a life-like doll that could wear real baby clothes) had come out of their storage room and was destined to become our eldest sister’s. The concession to us two younger girls was an afternoon to play with him before he would sadly go off-limits to us for the rest of our natural lives. We split the time into five-minute segments. It was Tati’s turn and she swung Eddie around holding him by his balled-up little fists and then his legs caught the lamp and knocked it over. Crash!
Tati looked at me and then made the most generous offer I’d ever had from her—the only offer really as she usually demanded things from me. “Will you take the blame?” she asked. It didn’t really occur to me that I had no idea what “blame” meant. I really only heard, “Will you take?” Anything that she had to give had to be good, because as the older sister everything she had always seemed a world better than what I had. I immediately agreed.
Moments later, our beloved grandfather arrived, beckoned by the sound of something in his house shattering. Tati pointed to me and said, “She’s to blame!”
Without going into the sad, sordid details, I’ll just conclude that it didn’t go well for me after that. But I did learn something most valuable and that is that words have tremendous power.
I discovered the positive power that words hold when I wrote a gratitude poem for that same grandfather who had always seemed so tough and yet my words brought tears to his eyes.
This Thursday at Mindful Meditation Group, I plan to talk about the power of words; about how words have evolved from the short utterances our primitive forbearers used to reflect their simple world—eat, yes, no, hot, cold, run! —to the more sophisticated words that have risen up to express complex ideas.
The word commonly used in meditation “OM” is described as a sacred word that when spoken correctly contains all sounds of language, thus, all words. The Bible tells us in the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Bible tells us that God used words to create our world.
Words have the power to create, to harm, to heal.
It can be tiring to always be thinking and mindful of what we are saying, what we are hearing and whose voice we are listening to in our thoughts, but ultimately it is a discipline worth cultivating. I’ve seen and experienced for myself how one word from someone can start my heart beating faster, can turn my cheeks red, quicken my breathing or take my breath away.
So go ahead and give it a try—watch your words. There are so many to choose from—why not take the best ones and then share them with others. You may be astonished at what your words create.
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