The Words We Speak

I've been thinking about words a lot lately.  As a singer, teacher, and writer, words are my life.  The words we choose and how we use them can carry tremendous power.  But words are not as specific as we would like to think.  Sure, you can look up a word in the dictionary and then use it completely correctly, but the word alone still doesn't say everything you want to say.  Meaning and intent are added by the way you form the consonants and vowels, your inflection, and the way your body moves when you speak those words.  With careful study of diction, elocution, and non-verbal communication, a skilled speaker can talk with a fairly high level of specificity, but without further discussion with the listener, the speaker can not be sure that his intent has be effectively communicated.  

Word carry meanings beyond those listed in the dictionary.  When we hear or read words, we don't just think of the dictionary definition.  We filter it through our life experiences.  Words come with emotions and memories attached.  Thus, two people could be in complete agreement about the dictionary definition of the word, but still have markedly different responses to the use of that word.

Here's a recent example from my own life:  I loved the movie Frozen.  It wasn't just,  "Wow! That was a great show."  I actually paid to see it 3 times in the theatre (I rarely go the theatre for any movie even once) and I now own the DVD.  Everybody (and their dog) has written a blog post or review.  This one bothered me and it took me a long time to clearly articulate why. Right at the top, they talk about the abusive parents.  Abusive.  That word hurt.  I didn't see them as abusive at all.  I saw them as really loving their children and doing the best they could to protect them, even if in the end, their solutions caused more problems than they might have fixed.  My reaction to the use of the word "abusive" went deeper though.  My therapist and I have discussed at length situations that I have been in that she has labeled abusive.  With one exception, I pushed back against that label.  I saw those people as well-meaning and loving, even with the damage they did to my life.  I defined abuse as intentionally, cruelly, hurting someone, and I honestly don't think they intended to hurt me.  It took a Disney movie to help me redefine that word and my own experiences.  Looking at abuse now, I would say that the majority of abuse is not intentional, but the intent does not change the damage that is inflicted.  Damage, not intent, is at the core of the meaning of the word abuse, or at least my current meaning.  Elsa was abused, and I was abused.

As an intelligent human being, there are times that I can spout off long sermons about certain words.  But intelligence doesn't help me feel the meaning, it only makes memorizing definitions easier.  To truly know and understand something, I must feel it.  I have to find that thing...that quality...that can't be put into words.  I think I've mentioned before that I can give a great lesson about repentance, using all the right words, describing the process perfectly, but I don't really know and feel what that word means in the context of my religion.  I've had to find my own way with this one, borrowing from other faith traditions and philosophies.  I think I'm doing OK with it, so rather than getting frustrated when I hear it at church for the 9,745,354th time, I either just let it go, or do a quick translation in my head.

It's getting harder though.  Too many of the words at church carry meanings for me that I know they don't have to carry, but I can't let go and translate to something else.  Last week, there was a talk on the atonement, another word that I can tell you a lot about, but I'm not sure I know what it means.  I did some reading in the Bible Dictionary.  There is some good stuff there, but also some words that evoke negative and painful feelings and memories.  Many people, actually, I suspect most people I go to church with, would not see or feel the things that I experienced while reading that.

For the last several years, I've tried to re-learn words, letting go of their painful parts and focusing on the best and most beautiful parts.  It's been through my non-church activities that I've actually been most successful with this.  In this post last fall, I wrote about some of the re-framing that I've been doing.  I'm glad I looked it up today.  I wanted draw your attention to the part about prayer, but was pleasantly surprised to find my refined definition of "atonement" in the post too.  Those words might sound a little crazy and out there to my mainstream Mormon friends, but it speaks peace to my heart where the words I hear at church don't.

So what do we do if words mean different things to different people?  Do we just give up and hide?  (Honestly, I'd like to sometimes.)  Fortunately, that is not the only answer.  We can talk.  We can ask questions.  We can say, "I get where you're coming from, but here's what it feels like to me."  I've been lucky to find a community (mostly online) where we can do just that.  We talk about the hard stuff.  It's not uncommon to see someone comment that they really like something and have another person comment that the same thing hurt them.  We learn and grow and make better choice about the words we use as we try to understand how all of the people that hear or read our words respond.

I have to give a huge shout out here to Natasha Helfer Parker.  She is a Mormon and a Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist.  She is doing a short series covering the recent General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  From her perspective as a therapist, she is sharing the things she loved about what she heard, the things that might need further clarification or nuancing, especially with the clients she sees, and then things that, although well-intentioned, have the potential to cause harm.  These are the kind of discussions I wish we could have more frequently.  These are the things that help use to understand each other better and communicate in more loving ways.

Our words matter.  Our intent matters.  And understanding how others receive our words matters.