ASSESSMENT

NOTE: The next few blogs are about words. I invite you to stop walking with sandals in hand along the shoreline of the Communication Ocean. Wade or dive in – get feet, knees, or your whole body wet. I will share some of my journey, but you know you better than anyone else…Here goes.

A recent word of truth delivered to me from the lips of my husband of almost four decades made me think again about words as did the recent incident involving two well-known Hollywood personalities. He said, “you have trouble using words to express your feelings.” This wasn’t the first time I had heard this. My therapist had pushed me to do a better job with speaking my feelings.

The written word is my preferred mode of communication. Writing helps me to make “right” my thoughts and feelings before they are exposed to the world. Whether it is acknowledged or not, spoken or written, words have power and energy. Sincere words are the only way another can know what is going on with me! They can see me but not know who I am or what I may be feeling.

In reality, words can be used to communicate who and what we think others want us to be.

Words are a unique gift that only humans have been given. Other species communicate with us in their own way, but language (words) is uniquely human.

I strive to write, not as one who has a bank of “divinely given” knowledge about anything from which to withdraw wisdom, but from the place of seeking. Upon finding a morsel of something, letting it live in me. Therefore, I have a responsibility to the reader to choose words that accurately express my findings. From my brain to paper, from paper to the reader and from the reader to action.

The expression of my thoughts verbally takes another route – from my brain to my mouth, to the hearer’s ear and to their brain. This is when things can get off track. What is heard may or may not be what has been said and that scares me.

I ponder and refine my written words. I erase (delete) and start over. I don’t get to do much refining in the spoken arena. So, if asked, “how are you feeling?” my response is short and concise, “fine, okay, or great,” which is highly likely to tell the questioner absolutely nothing.

Fortunately, I have people in my life who push back. A “fine or okay,” is met with, “and what does that mean. I am learning to be more verbally expressive.

Proverbs 25:11-12

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---Rumi, “A tongue has one customer, the ear.”