Words Matter

Years ago I read a sentence that has stuck with me, as if, so it seems, to prove itself true. That sentence went something like this, “Words matter, not because of what they say, but because of what they set in motion.”

I fear for what our words–our many, many words–are setting in motion in our nation and world. Specifically, I fear for what words of hatred and distrust and division are releasing into our future. They threaten to drown out words of love, of hope, of human community. Words founded upon our fears threaten to overwhelm words grounded in hope.

Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision on the administration's “ban” on immigration from predominantly Muslim countries. That decision and the dissents it provoked were stated in carefully-wrought words intended to justify very different points of view on the matter.

Giving the majority the benefit of doubt, I believe it really believes that what it said faithfully interprets the Constitution and the law in the only way possible.

But I also believe the majority deliberated in a kind of vacuum. The five justices read the President’s Executive Order and the Constitution and the appropriate laws while wearing blinders and ear plugs, as if the documents exist apart from daily life and political and social realities. They did not consider what their words have already set into motion: more distrust, more despair, more injustice, more anger. “The law’s the law; it doesn’t matter when it opens the door to making things worse than they already are.”

About the same time, Representative Maxine Waters urged confronting government leaders and officials personally wherever we see them, and Representative Steven King darkly hinted that we may be looking at another civil war. Loose talk, but talk that can set into motion dire events that will lead to no good end and certainly not strengthen our democracy. 

I struggle to find words that might set good into motion, that might release the power of love and compassion and justice into the world, that might channel my outrage over this current crisis into messages that point to a better way. I am not sure I know how to do this, but somehow I must.