It wasn’t that long ago when the ways of communicating were fairly limited.
Face to face, telephone call and a letter. Perhaps those were your options. Sure there was a telegram, but that was for the posh folks. There was also the fax which again was reserved for those considerably richer than me. Usually those were the main ways of communicating.
Today it can be by WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Google Hangouts, Vonage, Skype, Messenger, and that what must appear quaint and antiquated way of the email. Those are just some of the electronic means designed to make communication efficient and far wider in scope. Now I can not just text or talk, but there are video links and opportunities to share documents, work on presentations and do other office-type stuff.
In as much as the options are now more numerous than ever and the range and ease of access is greater than before, there is still nothing that provides us with the one thing we need for using all these means.
There are tutorials and instruction manuals for the technical aspects of these resources, but there’s little to nothing available to guide us what we say and how we say it once we’ve got it.
This is why we have the unfortunate issue of cyber-bullying. Whatever the contraption or device, it just appears to be another route through which the less than pleasant aspects of the human condition emerge.
This is not just about cyber-bullying, it’s about saying things in haste and once we click send it’s done and there’s nothing we can do to erase it from the forum where its posted.
There are plenty of proverbs that speak about the danger of the tongue. Warning after warning is given to make sure we don’t live to say something we regret. Whoever said sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never harm you has swallowed a significant lie. Much of what we experience negatively has come from words that have not been applied properly.
Whether it’s a blessing to others, or knowing when to keep your mouth shut, there’s a lot to be said about how wise folks make it in life because they know when to speak, and they know what to speak when they speak. Sometimes because there’s a platform, the sound advice can go out of the window in the desire to get the point across. Also in a world that suggests there’s little wrong you can say, there’s much exploration of what you can say. Wise people, however, are noted for their capacity to use their words with great care.
I recognise the temptation to follow a whim can actually come back and haunt you. If we take the words of Jesus seriously, He’ll assess us on what we said. Imagine how cheaply we use talk, but how expensive it is to God.
This is why it’s worth remembering again that talking is so pivotal to who we are it remains very important to respect ourselves enough to just check ourselves before a FB status update gets posted that we didn’t want, or someone on Twitter read something that might blow your socks off.
Listening to others make a fool of themselves does not mean we have to join them.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 