Eat My Words (Respect #2)

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! ... With [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? - James 3:5, 9-11

It burned... the thing I wanted to say. I could feel the words in my mouth and in my throat. They were explosive. I wanted to say them sharply so they would hurt, wound. I felt hurt and wounded and I wanted to do it back.

I screwed up my lips, grimacing.

How could I not say these words? It was actually fairly important in this small, intimate meeting to control what I was saying, to be attentive to my emotions, and to let kindness and honesty reign over my impulsive reptilian brain.

In a move that I have never done before, I scribbled the words I wanted to say on the corner of the piece of paper. Then I tore off that corner, crumpled it, and put it in my mouth. The other two people in the meeting stared.

One asked, "How did that taste?"

"Like eating my feelings," I mumbled around the dry paper that I was trying to coat with spit.

"Why did you do that?" asked the other.

"Because I needed to get it out," I said. "I wanted it out, but I didn't want it to hurt anyone else. So I got it out and then I put it back in and now it can come out another way."

I was still rolling the small ball in my mouth, moistening it. Finally, I swallowed it.

About four minutes later, I realized that I couldn't remember what I had written down unless I forced myself to think of it.

The thing that I had burned to say, that I was itching to say, that I desperately wanted to use to carve a groove, a scar in the other person... was forgotten when I literally swallowed it. If I force myself to remember the words, I remember why I was hurt and why I wanted to say them. But they weren't as important as trying to keep working with the people in that room. The brief thrill of oneupmanship that would have been achieved would have created so much more pain in the long run.

It was a dramatic move, but it actually taught me something that I didn't expect to learn.

Sometimes we live to eat our words, regretting our haste.

If we can learn to eat them first (before we say them), we can live.

Religious Holidays in Anchorage

You may have read in the Anchorage Daily News about a new policy regarding certain religious holidays and the scheduling of school activities. If not, a link to the article is here . The new rules do not mean that school will be out on these new holiday inclusions, but that the Anchorage School District will avoid scheduling activities, like sporting events, on these days. The new list includes Passover, Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Eid al - Fitr and Eid al - Adha . They are added to a list which includes New Year's, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The new holidays may be unfamiliar to some: Passover is a Jewish celebration, in the springtime, that commemorates the events in Egypt that led up to the Exodus. The name of the holiday comes specifically from the fact that the angel of death "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the plague which killed the eldest sons of the Egyptians. Passover is a holiday

Latibule

I like words and I recently discovered Save the Words , a website which allows you to adopt words that have faded from the English lexicon and are endanger of being dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. When you adopt a word, you agree to use it in conversation and writing in an attempt to re-introduce said word back into regular usage. It is exactly as geeky as it sounds. And I love it. A latibule is a hiding place. Use it in a sentence, please. After my son goes to bed, I pull out the good chocolate from my latibule and have a "mommy moment". The perfect latibule was just behind the northwest corner of the barn, where one had a clear view during "Kick the Can". She tucked the movie stub into an old chocolate box, her latibule for sentimental souvenirs. I like the sound of latibule, though I think I would spend more time defining it and defending myself than actually using it. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how often I use the

When the Body of Christ is Fat

Bitmoji Julia enjoys tea Within a very short amount of time, two people whom I love were called "fat ass". One of these slurs occurred in the church building and the other occurred in the same building and within the context of worship. Both incidents were the result of a person with already impaired judgment lashing out at the person who was in front of them, perceiving them to be unhelpful or denying aid or service. Regardless of the "why", the reality is that the name was uncalled for, hurtful, and aimed to be a deep cut. The reality is that a person who is under the influence of legal or illegal substances and often displays impaired judgment can still tell that body shaming- comments about shape, appearance, or size- is a way to lash out at someone who is frustrating you. That means those words and that way of using them are deeply rooted in our culture. An additional truth is that when we, as a congregation, attempted to console and listen to those who h

Faith, Grace, and Hope

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