Teach Me the Use of Silence

The day before I attended Quaker Meeting last week, I was forwarded a link to a segment of the Bill Moyers Journal, exploring the motivations behind the July shooting spree in a Tennessee Unitarian Universalist church which was speculated to have been fueled by "shock jock" radio.

The introduction to the segment framed the intention of this presentation to drive home the underestimated power of words.

From Moyers, taken from the introduction:

"...the American author Oliver Wendell Holmes said that language is sacred, and wrote that its abuse should be as criminal as murder. He called it "...verbicide...violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning..." America has yet to make "verbicide" a hanging offense. Indeed under the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, pretty much anything goes. There are some limits — Holmes' son was the Supreme Court justice who noted in a famous opinion that you cannot falsely shout fire in a crowded theater. That's because words have consequences and not just in politics."

I've been trying, and failing, since that day to put my response into words. In listening to the voices and rhetoric portrayed in this clip.. which I never had before, nor care to again... I was filled with mixed emotions, surprisingly none resembling anger, but more along the lines of grief and heartache.

The obstacle I faced in trying to articulate my message, I think, was in separating out the action and the alleged motivation from the underlying question concerning exercising one's freedom of speech.

Our beloved First Amendment.

Like all of our 'freedoms', I tend to believe they were secured with an assumption of an understanding of personal responsibility. That while these amendments grant us freedom as individuals, they still must be exercised within the context of the larger society. Just because you have the right to say something, doesn't always mean that you should. And just because there's no legal responsibility should you incite enough emotion in an already distraught human being with your words so that he opens fire in a crowded church, doesn't mean that there isn't cause to check in with your own conscience and sense of ethics to determine whether or not you are using your media platform responsibly.

We don't know how others will react to our words, even when offered with good intentions. Supportive and loving, or negative and hurtful, words are an extremely powerful vehicle... far beyond what we realize. And why is that? If we were to reflect even momentarily on how words have affected our own emotional state for good or ill, we might learn to be more conscious of what comes out of our mouths.

The day after viewing this video, I went to Meeting, hoping to get some clarity on what I could take away as a lesson from all this. Not surprisingly, most of the 'messages' delivered that day happened to echo sentiments of gratitude among several members for the Quaker way of silence and reflection. That Quakers believe in the presence of "that of God in everyone", and espouse the practice of looking within oneself in silence before opening one's mouth illustrates their understanding of the responsibility of consciously choosing words exchanged with our fellow human beings.

I am also reminded of the Eightfold Path in Buddhism: eight principles to live by for the cessation of suffering -- among them, "Right Speech".

Buddha defines right speech as:

1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully,
2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others,
   
3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and
4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth.
   

Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary. (Thanks to thebigview.com for this excerpt.)

Referring back to Quaker Meeting that day, we had opened with a selected hymn which had given rise to the messages shared, entitled "Teach Me to Stop and Listen", written by Ken Medena.

"Teach me to stop and listen
Teach me to center down
Teach me the use of silence
Teach me where peace is found

Teach me to hear your calling
Teach me to search your word
Teach me to hear in silence
Things I have never heard."

Given that I have a voice, and a mouth, and a computer with internet capability, it has been no less a challenge for me to weigh my desire of whatever pops into my head against the wisdom of saying it... and to maintain constant vigilance over whether or not my words will reflect my greater intention of being a force for peace and a channel of grace in this world.

May god help me.