When I was in grade school a girl on my school bus pulverized me with her lunch box. If you’re my age or older, you remember lunch boxes from the 1970’s. They usually had some theme like the Brady Bunch or the Jackson Five, and they were made out of a combination of industrial steel and lead. This girl also had a matching thermos inside the lunch box, so when she decked me with the thing I’m pretty sure she flattened one side of my head.
All that to say, with my ears ringing I felt that I was entitled to let loose with a mean spirited verbal tirade against my classmate. I was sure that I was justified when I responded with a club made out of words.
Word got back to my mother about the exchange. Soon enough, I was sentenced to my room to memorize a poem. Thirty years later one line sticks in my mind. “Boys flying kites haul in their white winged birds, but you can’t do that with flying words.”
At the time, my mom helped me realize that the little tap on the head I got from a lunch box may have been out of line. But, verbal sticks and stones do break bones. And, communication is irreversible. Words cannot be unsaid.
Mothers Day is coming up. Mothers, remember: the creative instruction you give today may be remembered by your children decades later. Be encouraged, there is no greater call than being a mother.
