MIND THE TONGUE

I'm Blind, Jamestown, NC
It's a Beautiful Day, Jamestown, NC

One of the ubiquitous signs throughout the city of London reminds everyone, especially tourists, to “Mind the Gap” at all the train tube stations. They are reminders that we should be constantly aware of the danger of the gap between the station platforms and the arriving and departing trains. The apostle James also stresses the importance for all of us to “Mind the Tongue” in our daily discourse with each other.

-- “For we all often stumble and fall and offend in many things. And if anyone does not offend in speech, he is a fully developed character and a perfect man, able to control his whole body and to curb his entire nature.”—James 3:2

There’s an old story about a young man that has a lot of trouble controlling his words so he decides to join a monastery where they take a vow of abstinence to only say two words a year. After the first year, he has his annual review with the head friar and says, "Hard Bed!" The young monk returns after the second year and says, "Bad Food!". He returns after his third year and tells the friar, "I Quit!" The friar looks up and says, "Well, I'm not surprised. All you've been doing since you arrived here is complain!"

--“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it.” (death or life) —Proverbs 18:21

An old Kansas folk saying reminds us to "Make sure your words are sweet and pure, because you may have to eat them the next morning for breakfast!"

I ran across a short YouTube video clip a few years ago that illustrates the power of words which was created by an online company that uses words to enhance their customers’ web site content and get them noticed. At the time, the clip had gone viral and been viewed over 6 million times. Since I was facilitating our adult Sunday class on the Third Chapter of James regarding words and wisdom, I remembered the clip and looked it up again. Not too surprisingly, the clip has now been viewed almost 26 million times. It’s based on “The Story of a Sign” by Alonso Alvarez Barreda.

An elderly man was sitting on a city square with an empty food can and simple cardboard sign that read “I’m blind. Please help”. He wasn’t getting much action from those passing by. Then a young woman in a business suit stopped, wrote on the back of his sign, and left. Almost immediately, people were tossing lots of coins in the can. When she returned, the blind man softly asked, “What’d you do to my sign”? And the young woman replied, “I wrote the same, only different words”. As she walked away the old man thanked her and the camera slowly panned over to the new sign which read “It’s a beautiful day, but I can’t see it”. The final graphic read “Change your words. Change your world”.

I suppose most of us have lived long enough to understand the power of our words, especially those used in our day to day relationships with others:

Kind words continue to echo long after they’re spoken.

Words have the power to hurt and the power to heal.

They have the power to demoralize and the power to inspire.

They embrace the power to hate and the power to love.

They have the power to teach lies and the power to instill eternal truth.

And many times, they’re most potent when they’re used sparingly or simply not spoken at all. It’s possible that the most powerful message we will ever deliver is the unspoken language of our life. That would be a nice legacy.