The Tongue of Angels

This is another story from my book, Rise, with Healing in Our Wings. It is available on Amazon and other internet sites. It's also available on my website, https://www.paulschneiter.com/

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Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

That rhyme and chant from the school yards of our childhoods is, as we all know, certifiably false. Words, whether spoken or written, can maim and mortify. They can also undercut self-confidence and unhinge hope. Indeed, when voiced with vitriol. they can scar the psyche.

When I was 11, I had a flight of fancy: I vowed to build a model airplane as well as my older brother could. I bought a kit for the P-47 Thunderbolt, a WWII fighter. I read the instructions and scanned the diagrams until I understood each step of the process. Some of my senior peers will recall that process. Flyable models of that day were made of sticks of balsa wood glued together with "airplane cement." The models had plastic propellers powered by wound-up rubber bands. After all the parts were assembled,"modelers" applied tissue paper and moistened it. As the paper dried, it stretched tightly acrosss a plane's framework. The effect was pleasing.

My completed model was no match for my brother's craftmanship; still, it was a start. Before I launched the plane and risked crashing it, I decided to show it to my prospective brother-in-law, Reed, who was strolling with my sister in the backyard. I rushed outside, hungry to hear praise from a male 10 years my senior. Surely, he would validate my effort.

"Hey, Reed, look at what I've made." I handed him the model. His eyes narrowed as he turned it in his hands. There was an awkward pause. He cleared his throat. My sister suddenly found something to look at on the horizon.

"You know, Paul, anything worth doing is worth doing well. Better luck next time." More than half a century of summers have passed since that day, but his words linger. They were as the blows of boulders bludgeonfng my self-esteem. Did he intend to hurt me? No. But that is precisely the point. All of us at one time or another have unintentionally spoken hurtful words to others. Those words can echo endlessly, and achingly, in memory.

We can be honest with one anorther without being hurtful. Every worthy human endeavor embodies elements that are praiseworthy; indeed, the decision to attempt something new or challenging or unexplored is, by itself, cause for commendation, regardless of the outcome.

So, even as we acknowledge that words can wound, let us acknowledge something singularly more significant--that we can use words to nurture, to inspire, to enrich, to rescue. Indeed, if the Holy Spirit is in our lives, we can, as Nephi promised, "speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels." (2 Nephi 31:14)

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