Lasting Impressions

Words mean things -- a seemingly obvious statement. It's true nonetheless: words mean things. Whether penned or spoken or even thought words have power, influence, impact, meaning. It's easy to think that the only words we need concern ourselves with are those we put down for posterity, in permanence; perhaps too we are conscious of those words that, in their very being, are not nice. But what about the rest? The words that aren't permenant -- mere slips of the tongue in passing conversation; what about those words? Should we also think on these? Consider these? What about the words that aren't inherently mean, hateful, not nice? Should we consider these too? Can these words bruise, wound, knock down as quickly and efficiently as the cruel ones?

The answer of course is in the affirmative. Even these quickly passing, seemingly neutral words can wound. Too often we loose our tongues and let fly thoughts that we fail to recognize as hurtful. It was a joke or not meant in that way. But still it lingers, that comment we hoped was temporal. It bumps around in the psyche of it's recipient. When the long fingers of night creep across the land, those words come out loud and strong to inflict the damage we didn't anticipate.

How many times in Proverbs are we warned that the wise man holds his tongue but the fool fails to realize the need? How many times do we ignore this warning, do we let go and let loose? Perhaps if we thought more and spoke less, held on tighter and sought to impress less, we wouldn't bruise, wouldn't hurt, wouldn't wound each other so frequently, so powerfully. And too perhaps, if tongues were stilled more often, held tight, reined in -- perhaps then we might walk a little closer, might get a little dustier, might look a little more like our Rabbi.