Choosing Your Words Carefully

This week's quotation, by Julius Stinde, wins my personal prize of the month for an unusual simile. "A good deed is like lavender, which, as you know, smells lifelong."

I understand what he means, but such an odd way of putting it. My mind tried to find a connection between good deeds and lavender, and went on strike. Maybe it's just me...

But it made me think about my own writing. Regular readers will know that in my down time, I write novels. My first, One Foot in Front of the Other,  is going to be published on 1st October, which is very exciting! And I'm currently working on the first volume of a fantasy, set in a fictional world where magic and religion intertwine in what I hope is an interesting way. My son is my first reader, and when he sends each chapter back to me, it is full of insightful comments, which have helped enormously.

Most useful of all have been the comments "I don't understand..." or "Why?" Because that shows me that I haven't explained what is happening well enough, or not set up a situation properly. So I go back to the manuscript and revise it gratefully.

Words have power. They can paint a picture in a reader's or listener's mind, influence them for good or ill, even rush off and change their lives. So it is vital that we who make our livings through words are careful about what we write, what we share. And I don't mean only authors of fiction, I also mean journalists, non-fiction writers, storytellers, teachers, lecturers, even ministers. We need to always bear in mind the influence that our words might have on the reader or listener.

This is also true in conversation, for everyone. And doubly true when posting on social media. The saying I learned in the playground, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words can never hurt me" is the most inaccurate maxim I have ever heard. Bones mend, bruises heal, but harsh words, teasing words, belittling words, words filled with hate, can leave scars that never heal. They have a real and very evil power. Even when the person saying them thinks they are doing it in jest.

Another saying from my childhood, often quoted by my mother, was, "If you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything." I've often seen a quote about right speech, "If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?" attributed to the Buddha, so I googled it just now, and found a fascinating article on a blog called Fake Buddha Quotes. The author gave a genuine quote, translated from the Vaca Sutta, written in Pali, by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, which is even better, if not as snappy, as the fake quote:

"Monks, a statement endowed with five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken. It is blameless and unfaulted by knowledgeable people. Which five?

• It is spoken at the right time. 
• It is spoken in truth. 
• It is spoken affectionately. 
• It is spoken beneficially. 
• It is spoken with a mind of goodwill."

Such words are a power for good.

Laughter: a Flash of Joy in the Soul

Such a gorgeous uplifting quotation this week, by Dante Alighieri, "Laughter is a weather-lightening flash of joy in the soul, a flickering of the Light outside, as it shines inside."

It is so true! No matter what is happening to us, laughter will lighten our mood. So long as it is true laughter, coming from a place of inner joy. I have never forgotten a passage in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, in which he divides the causes of human laughter into "Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy." He goes on, "You will see the first among friends and lovers reunited on the eve of a holiday. Among adults some pretext in the way of Jokes is usually provided, but the facility with which the smallest witticisms produce laughter at such a time shows that they are not the real cause."

Screwtape describes Fun as being "closely related to Joy - a sort of emotional froth arising from the play instinct. It is very little use to us." (us being devils trying to tempt humans away from God). He continues, "In itself it has wholly undesirable tendencies; it promotes charity, courage, contentment, and many other evils."

But the Joke Proper, Screwtape says, "which turns on sudden perception of incongruity, is a much more promising field. ... The real use of Jokes or Humour is... specially promising among the English who take their 'sense of humour' so seriously that a deficiency in this sense is almost the only deficiency at which they feel shame. Humour is for them the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing grace of life. Hence it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. ... Mere cowardice is shameful; cowardice boasted of with humourous exaggerations and grotesque gestures can be passed off as funny. Cruelty is shameful - unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke."

He concludes, "But Flippancy is the bst of all. In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk *as if* virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. ... It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practise it."

Reading this again has made me appreciate how much of the "humour" and comments on Facebook and other social media, and on TV, come from a place of Flippancy (or cynicism), or at best, the "sudden perception of incongruity" on which Jokes rely. I wonder whether we can return to places of Joy and Fun, and laugh because we are happy, not because someone has played a practical joke on us, or made a cynical remark about the world we live in, and the way in which others are responding to it...

Living Twice

The first century CE Roman poet, Martial, wrote, "Those who live in such a way that they can look back on their past lives with pleasure, live twice."

I love the photo that the Harenberg Kalender people have chosen to accompany this quotation, a beautiful barn owl sitting on a fence near some poppies - wisdom and remembrance combined.

But I do wonder whether any of us can truly look back on every aspect of our past lives with unalloyed pleasure... because life is never perfect, unsullied bliss. It is messy and complicated, with highs and lows, joys and sorrows, bad decisions as well as good ones. So I think that looking back with inevitably be with a mixture of pleasure and regret.

Part of growing older (and I'm 60 now) is coming to terms with our lives up to this time. If we are wise, it should be a time of self-examination, in which we learn to look with clear eyes at what we have done, how we have loved, what has gone right and what has gone wrong, and become reconciled with what we regret, learn from both those experiences and from what has nourished us, and move on with a new serenity.

I'm currently doing a course with the Charter for Compassion Education Institute, called Growing Whole, Not Old.  This week's lesson included a beautiful poem called Becoming an Elder by Cathy Carmody, which has shown me a new way of looking at my life:

Leaving behind my journey of struggling and racing through

the white water of many rivers, I become the river,

creating my own unique way.

Leaving behind my self-imposed role as a tree upon

which others have leaned, I now become the wind,

with the greedom to blow whenever and wherever I choose.

Leaving behind the boxes I've created in my life, 

crammed with roles, responsibilities, rules and fears,

I become the wild and unpredictable space

within which flowers sprout and grow.

Leaving behind the years of yearning for others

to see me as somebody,

I soften into becoming my future,

with permission from SELF to

continually unfold as I choose, without concern

for how others may see me.

Leaving behind years of telling and teaching,

I become instead a mirror

into which others can peer and

view reflections of themselves to consider.

Leaving behind the urge to provide answers for others,

I become - in the silence of this forest retreaat

- the question.

Leaving behind the rigor of my intellect,

I become a single candle in the 

darkness, offering myself as a beacon for others

to create their own path. I become an elder.

Faith *and* Persistence

Samuel Johnson wrote, "Great works are accomplished not through faith, but through persistence." Hmm. Not with you on that one, Mr. Johnson.

Let me explain. I completely agree that any great work can only be accomplished "through persistence", BUT I believe that without faith, the persistence will be much harder to maintain. And I don't necessarily mean religious faith either. I mean belief in yourself, in the project, in why it is necessary to add it to the world's treasures. Whether the project is a book, a poem, a picture, a craft item, a piece of music or a stunning building, such as those in the Forum in Rome (pictured above). 

All creators, of whatever stripe, need both faith and persistence to complete their creations. All creations begin with an idea, an inspiration. And I believe that there are many, many unfinished creations lurking in desk drawers, dark cupboards, or which never "left the drawing board", either because the creator and/or their financial backers did not have faith in it, or because the creator lacked the persistence to carry on working on the project until it was complete.

Beginning a creative project, a "great work" is relatively easy. Bringing it to successful completion is another. I think that both faith and persistence are needed to accomplish this goal. The creator needs faith in themselves, and in what they are creating, not to listen to what Brené Brown calls "the gremlins" - those little voices in your head that sneer at you, saying that your work is rubbish, that you are no good at it, that "Who do you think *you* are, to call yourself a writer / artist / creator of any kind?" 

And they need persistence, to get through the inevitable dry times, when the Inspiration Fairy has gone AWOL, and the blank page or blank canvas is taunting them about their lack of accomplishment. A great deal of persistence is needed to break through this wall and continue to create, putting word by word down on the page, paint stroke by paint stroke, stitch by stitch, note by note. 

And people need both, to bring whatever work they have in hand to completion. Which may mean working on a relationship, practising a piano piece, exploring their inner selves. It applies to all areas of human activity, not creation alone.

Faith *and* persistence. Both are needed.