The Power of Words - Part II

Last night, we were sitting at the dining room table, eating dinner. Our middle child turned to me and said, "Daddy, is it "life's buttocks is green?" I replied, "WHAT????". He repeated himself, and I said, "I don't know what you're talking about!" Neither did anyone else sitting at the table. He said, "You know, "Row, row, row your boat gentee down duh stream; merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life's buttocks is green." At this point, everyone burst out laughing.

In my last post, I wrote in generalities about the power of words - but my son reminded me that what we say (or think we say) is not necessarily what the listener hears. Each week, as people leave the church building following worship, I hear about one sermon nugget from one person, a different nugget from another couple, and something that I think has nothing to do with my sermon from yet another person.

Words are transmitted by the giver and receiver in many different ways, depending upon several variables. Individual variables are too many to name, but I would like to highlight a couple. First, not everyone gains the same thing from tone and inflection. This concept is particularly the case for listeners who do not know the speaker or the speaker's style of communication. Second, external variables affect both the speaker and listener; illness, stress, family issues, school, work, or lack of sleep can be distracting and not allow us to use our best communication skills.

At times, we can simply laugh away the mis-communication (sometimes in gut-wrenching ways) when "life's buttocks is green." However, as often as we can laugh it off, misunderstandings can lead to broken relationships, hurt feelings, and divisions. As I've said previously, words have the power to heal (in this case, through laughter), but words also have the power to inflict pain. No matter the words we choose, keep the listener in mind. Do your best to know their life situations - their stresses, joys, and concerns, because you can tailor your words to work within the parameters so that they can hear what you've said; and, even when they cannot, you stand a better chance of rolling on the floor, laughing your heads off!