Watching our Words

Some thoughts on the election mania.

Words are amazing and hold such incredible power and energy. In a world of technological wonders of communication there seems to be little understanding of the energy the words we are speaking and writing have to create or to destroy, to give or to take life. Words are functioning as a mirror of the soul revealing the essence of who we are as human beings. They are showing in the most visible way the depth and the paradox of the human struggle that is being revealed. In that mirror we see and we hear the darkest of our evil and the brightest vision of our good. Yes! The primal conflict of ancient God's and Goddesses are at war within ourselves and our culture and are showing no intention of a truce or a ceasefire
.The word came to the human family as a gift from the Divine Creator.'in the beginning was the word and the word was with God' is the teaching of ancient scripture. With the 'word of God' all creation was brought into being. And everything created was pronounced 'good' and sacred.

Something has happened to the good word, the sacred word that gives creative life. Daily our lives are bombarded with words of hate and blame, persuasion and manipulation, judgement and ridicule, coming from political and religious leaders, spewed out from talk show hosts,musicians and even by children on the playground etc.The list is endless. All of these are death taking and death dealing, killing ever so slowly the creative spirit which is our natural birthright.

Words of compassion, encouragement, appreciation which call forth life giving energies are viewed as suspect. Is there something of a conspiracy against life itself happening here? Have we become as Eric Fromm observed, a death seeking society? Have we on a primal energy level made what a early writer talked about as a 'pac with the devil' the darkest of the dark side of ourselves. If so, we are watering seeds in our soul's soil which we can make a decision to change. We do have the ability to make a conscious decision of aborting their growth. So let us look carefully and mindfully into the mirror of our words and the values they are showing us.Some teachers speak of this process as deep looking and mindful speech. Some, confession and discernment. Whatever term we may give to this deep inner work about the words we speak, the question is, Are they giving life or are they destroying life? Whatever we give out to others, we are also giving to ourselves.

Thoughts ?