- EDITORIAL 10/08/99
- Remember, a beautiful life is merely prayer in motion, and a world without prayer has no center to it. God bless us all.
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WORD POWER
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- prickbastardredneckyellowdevilfrospearchuckerslutgookgeronimozapatafreaseriteydrunkrishwhitetrashtacobuttpirateleapfroggerniplaundrylumpermuskrathomo
Remember when your teacher taught that stupid, banal, irrelevant saying of
'STICKS AND STONES MIGHT BREAK MY BONES BUT WORDS WILL NEVER HURT ME'?
Those teachers hopefully know better by now. Throwing sticks and stones might make for playground problems, but no war was ever started over sticks and stones. No child was ever neglected by a parent's sticks or stones, and no homeless person ever got there because of sticks and stones. Wars HAVE begun by the use of words. Children heal from physical abuse, as horrible as it is. The mental stigma, plus the words that are generally delivered to the child are what never really heals. Homeless people are categorized and therefore less able to maneuver in this world due to those worded categories. Indeed, horrible words, painful words, words associated with tragedy, words heard in a heated moment, can, and and often serve as triggers to anger, hurt, violence, depression, loss of self esteem, and conversely, joy, happiness, pleasure, love, understanding, and inner peace. But they're just words.
The words above are just little letters on a screen, but looking at them spurs certain emotions or recall of experiences in each of us, regardless of our background, color, or social position. But they're just words.....
This all came to mind when yesterday, someone made an innocuous comment about putting a gun to one's head and forcing them to do something they don't want to do. The expression, phrase, or whatever you choose to call it would not be offensive to those who had no violent experience with guns. But to a family who had experienced a robbery, murder, suicide by weapon, war, personal violence, these words can trigger anger, hurt, depression, and experiential recall. This is exactly what happened in my personal situation. I know the person who said it was simply being ignorant, even though he was aware of my son's death. I know he meant no harm by what he said. But nevertheless, it cut me to my shoes. But they were just words......
Often times when we are out on tour, we'll have people come up and say, "OOOOHHHH, I just LOVE Indians." Like we are pets or something. Again, no harm is meant, but the mere delineation of 'what they love' coupled with the way they say it breeds contempt or suggests condescension. But they're just words....
Words between an angry employee and his supervisor led the employee to go home and get his gun, returning to his place of employment with that weapon, opening fire and killing 3 people. Words that hurt 2 students motivated them to build bombs, load guns, and take them to school, killing and maiming before taking their own lives. Words built the courage of 4 drunken college students, strength to the point that they took a young man out into the wild, strapped him to a fence, mutilated him, and left him to die. Words urged a man to abuse his 4 year old son in a carwash, when the manager of the carwash attempted to intervene due to the fathers language to his son, the carwash manager was pushed into a trough, losing his left hand. But they're just words......
Words in great books inspire us to greatness. Words from the lips of those we admire propel us to emotional flight. Words in music create feelings of self worth, peace, and value. Words on billboards urging us to become better, do more, become. Words in a diary sharing one's most innermost intimacies. Words expressed between a family may weave the fabric that makes that family strong. But they're just words......
Some cultures, including some indigenous cultures, play instruments and perform sacred ceremonies with their noses, rather than their mouths. Why? Because the nose is incapable of speech. Therefore it is more pure, more holy.
The Dine' have a saying about 'speaking beautifully of all things, at all times. In this way, your life will always be beautiful'. It might be difficult to speak beautifully at all times, but imagine if we tried? John Lennon once said, "Imagine". Walt Disney once said, "if you can imagine it, it can become reality." What a beautiful concept. But these are all just words.....
I submit to you, as a fan, friend, or merely a passerby that got caught in our web pages, if we were to substitute one word for all the words found above, and for all other degrading, delineating, categorizing words, we'd be a much, much happier, safer, cleaner, and clear world. And that one, simple word, is
"HUMAN"
