«There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health» (Proverbs 12:18).
AT THE BEGINNING of the fall of 1941, there began in Europe what would be one of the most difficult, sad, and incomprehensible events of all human history: the rise of Nazism. Hitler, with his hateful discourse, convinced a nation to exterminate approximately six million Jews who died not only in gas chambers, but also from being shot and suffering starvation, cold, and abuses of every type. Their bodies, many of them, were buried in common graves, forests, ravines, and ditches; barely ashes remained from the others. How could one come to believe that a race is the cause of all the evils of a country or a continent? How can a discourse of hatred move so many people to action as if they had a wholesome, just, and good motive?
I know that it will be difficult for you to connect your life with what happened so long ago and so far, away; I know that you will be thinking that this meditation is not for you. But, do you know what? The seed of a harmful discourse is in each one of us, and we have to learn not to nourish it. There are many ways of «killing one’s neighbor»; one of them is with our words.
«There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health» (Proverbs 12:18). What are your words like? Are they, perhaps, a sword that wounds, a slap delivered on an enemy’s face, a lashing that painfully marks the consciences of your children? Or are they medicine, a balm, a source of peace for the people around you?
A woman who had an impulsive character decided to go to a psychologist to get help. It was impossible for her to control her tongue whenever she got angry. After listening to her, the psychologist gave her a piece of paper and said, «Crumple it up.» Surprised, she obeyed and made that piece of paper into a ball. Then the psychologist said, «Return it to how it was before.» As much as she tried, she could not; the paper was still full of creases. Tien the psychologist concluded, «People’s hearts are like that paper. The impression that you leave on the heart you hurt will be as impossible to erase as are these creases. Even if we try to remedy the situation, there will already be a mark left. If we throw out words like swords, we will be sorry, but we will not be able to backtrack: the damage will already be done.»
Let us avoid doing that harm.
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Take From: Daily Devotions for Women’s 2020
«One Day at a Time»
From: Patricia Muñoz Bertozzi
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Magda Sanz T
