Words we speak

The Words we speak

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            How much do we know about our internet friends? That is a question we ought to ponder as we speak to one another on the internet. I am not worried that we need to be extra careful or we will be taken advantage of by another. My concern is the opposite. If I am not careful I may wound someone without realizing it or intending to do so. Or I might do far less good than I could by framing my words and thoughts poorly. Which is the greater sin? Is the greater sin doing harm to someone? Or is it an even greater sin to fail to do a greater good for someone when it was within our power? Are the greater sins the wrongs we commit or the good we omit?

            I am pondering my own actions on the internet. Life is difficult, perhaps in every age, and we know it is so in our own age. There are people who feel themselves isolated and alone. They have lost their way as to reaching out and building friendships. A computer that opens the door to a guarded relationship may be far from ideal but at least a beginning. Sometimes a computer screen offers a guarded entrance into a world of potential friendships until a wounded soul feels healthy enough to step into a real friendship. The story of Cyrano de Bergerac preceded our computer times. Letters and pen pals once provided the way for wounded souls to heal until they were ready to take their friendships for walks in the fresh air.

            I enjoy occasionally responding to a total stranger on the internet who has a way of writing funny words and unique thoughts. But I really don’t know the person to whom I am writing. The comedian can often be the wounded soul who smiles carrying pain and anguish they wish they could flee. The one who makes light of every matter might carry the burden of everything. The cynical questioner of everything might only be the wounded being that has simply lost most of his or her hope for healing.

            I can remember many years ago when I was in a church where some of the young leaders would have their conversations among one another. Sometimes they would enter conversations matching sparring wits. Men seem especially prone to that sort of repartee. An older man warned them that they only thought they knew one another well enough to make such remarks without eventually causing mistrust. Eventually wounds occurred, divisions took place, and a church was divided with varied groups following varied leaders of the pack. We often don’t know others near well enough to cease being careful with our words.

            On the internet we often really don’t know the person whose tweets or Facebook page we are reading. Sometimes we don’t even know the old friends with which we reconnect whose lives have changed as have ours over the years since we knew them. We often have our issues that we like to promote on our computer screens. That is fine. But the computer screen is a persona of information we choose to promote and never the whole self. Even in real life we try to project images. This is not said to attack us for doing so, but only to say we seldom know others in a way we are tempted to believe we know them. The skins we are in are as much to hide our vulnerabilities as to project our realities. So if we are wise we speak our words carefully to another.

            I think of myself as a religious man. I fail in many ways. I carry that with me in my soul. I have my own wounds, fears, areas of cynicism, and likewise fragile hopes and dreams. Sometimes we imagine that others don’t have all these intense personal emotions and outlooks, fears and hopes. But probably they do, at least their own variations of them. That is why when speaking with another, whether we disagree with another or rejoice in agreement our words when possible ought to be bridges to build trust between people. They should be careful words, whether words of humor, seriousness, even witty words showing the failure of another idea. It is too easy I believe to speak right on every issue while destroying and wounding souls with our good ideas and ideals. I think this week I may have spoken to someone’s sense of humor, meaning to be humorous only to rub against a possibly vulnerable point of being. I don’t even know that for sure, but after I said something I remembered the words of the older man reminding someone they didn’t know this person that well.

            We can’t always be silent. We will always make our shares of mistakes with our words. But being careful to be kind should always be in style whatever our writing genres might be.