For a couple of weeks now I have been thinking about a
blog. It came to me while I was in
Florida. It came to me at
different times and in different ways.
It kept coming to me – and I did nothing with it. Today may be the day.
It had to do with words. Words are everywhere and they come to us in different
ways. They can be written or
spoken. They can be unsaid. They can be unheard. They can be un-responded to. But, they are there and they surround
us. On this particular vacation –
for some reason – words were on my mind.
As I thought about words, I thought about a book that many
educators are familiar with. It is
titled The Power of Our Words.
Reading that book causes us to contemplate the words that we use and
the impact that they have on others.
I know that I read it and thought about it a great deal. I would like to say that I always
practice what I know to be true from that book, but that would be an untruth.
I digress. What
was the catalyst that got me thinking about words? There were many.
Several of them came to me prior to vacation, so perhaps the pump was
primed.
I have a habit of reading the obituaries on a daily
basis. I think it is to make sure
that I am not listed there.
Many describe people who have done wonderful things. As I read those words, my thoughts go
in two directions. If I knew the
person being memorialized, those words might clearly remind me of the person
and the things that I knew about them.
If they are written about someone I did not know, I sometimes find
myself wanting to know more about the person behind the words. What did they do to cause those
specific words to be used as descriptors of them as living and breathing human
beings?
I then found a new gimmick on the Internet. There is a site where you can learn
about your classmates. I played
around with it for a while – until it got to the point where it was going to
cost me money. Then I stopped. At one point, I was offered the
opportunity to fill out a checklist on former classmates. It supplied a list of words that I
could check off as describing that person. I chose my old friend, Forrest Kimball – and attempted to
work my way through that list. It
was almost as difficult as working through the Graduate Record Exams. I kept asking myself questions such
as: “What does that word really
mean?” “Which day am I thinking
about when I would use that word to describe him”?
In my mind, I actually went back to a time years ago when I
was teaching elementary school.
The TABA method was used in the educational field. Hilda Taba had created a strategy where
students would brainstorm a list of words to describe a topic. They would then be broken down into categories. Students had to create the categories
from looking at the list.
They then used this process to flesh out their topic and choose a
prescribed number of words from the various categories. (Anybody old enough to remember this
besides me?) They would then need
to write a report that included those words correctly. They would need to share their report
and they would be responsible for the spelling and correct usage. I could create categories about
my friend and I could put many of the descriptors into categories – but it did
not help me give a full picture of that person.
 |
| I could not help but wonder if the people who stopped to sit ever read the words on the back of this bench. |
 |
| I wondered what the difference that this person had made was. |
On our vacation, we stayed at the Jupiter Reef Club. Some days, we would walk the
beach. Other days, we would walk
the highway route to the Juno Pier.
I noticed that there were signs and benches along the way. Each had been given in memory of
someone who had died. Each
contained words. Some were
lengthy; some were short. David
got rather cross with me the day that I brought the camera and stopped to take
pictures of some of the memorials.
I guess it slowed our pace.
He did not say anything – yet I knew that he was cross. It made me realize that our words are
powerful – even when they are implied.
 |
| This one touched me the most. You can not see it, but it holds several surf boards and eloquently describes the young man who had been lost too soon. |
One hotel caught my eye. It was named CORINTHIANS. I smiled when I saw that. We used readings from that at our wedding and at our vow
renewal ceremony. I had to have a
picture of it. I have since
discovered that it is not a hotel.
It is a condo where people live!
I wonder if living in a space with that word for a name helps you live
the type of life described in Corinthians? I was surprised when we attended Church that Sunday and the
reading included: “Love is
patient. Love is kind.” Words – easily spoken…sometimes
difficult to live.
Later that week, I was thumbing through a local
newspaper. A woman had written an
article about her recent trip to New York. She described the day where she was having lunch with a
younger friend whom she had not seen in years. They were so busy talking that they were not reading the
menu. The third time the waiter
came back, he
looked at the younger patron whom he knew and jokingly started to say “are you
holding this be…” when he looked at the second person and said “nice lady”. Something in his tone or his
expression made her feel that he was going to say beautiful lady – until he
looked at her. She actually went
on to say that she thought he was going to say ‘beautiful, young lady’. Whether he was or not, I will never
know. But the author – in that
moment – perceived that. She stated that in that very moment, it was as if a
mirror was placed in front of her and illuminated every wrinkle and line that
she had accumulated over the years.
My vacation – as always, was filled with what some might call
“junk reading”. I guess those
could be considered powerful words.
I was reading the book Heartbroken by Lisa Unger. The book centered on a family in a time
of crisis. The mom was going
through a difficult time supporting her children through the aging process and dealing
with her own mother who seemed to only have negative thoughts and words in her
repertoire. At one point, the mom
rephrased a quote that I know we have all heard. After an extremely negative interaction with her mother she
said: “Sticks and stones can break
my bones, but words can break my heart.”
Ahhhh, the power of words.
My goal for the week is to choose a positive word each day – and
live it. And I will try to remember the famous words of my mother: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
