Pursue No Woman to Her Tears

Caroline Watkins
Caroline Watkins

This phrase came from a poem entitled “The Honor Men” by James Hay, Jr. who graduated from the University of Virginia in 1903. The poem in its entirely was published in a blog responding to the recent article in Rolling Stone recounting a brutal rape at a UVa fraternity house in 2012. The writer of the blog has this poem hanging on his wall and wrote that never before did this particular line strike him so poignantly.

I have read many blogs and articles as well as listened to and watched a number of interviews regarding the aforementioned report; the prevalence of sexual violence against women on college campuses; and the desperate need for a change in both the collegiate – and cultural mindset – as well as policy. I’m not going to write about any of that today.

What I’d like to write about is simply our words, which is where I believe violence in any form begins whether it be sexual, psychological, emotional and even physical. Scripture teaches us that the tongue is like fire. And author Frederick Buechner offers this: “In Hebrew the term ‘dabar’ means both ‘word’ and ‘deed.’ Thus to say something is to do something. I love you. I hate you. I forgive you. I am afraid. Who knows what such words do, but whatever it is, it can never be undone. Something that lay hidden in the heart is irrevocably released through speech into time, is given substance and tossed like a stone into the pool of history, where the concentric rings lap out endlessly.”

Wow.

I will, however, say one thing about the Rolling Stone article. In it were published the full lyrics of a song called “Rugby Road,” the existence of which I never knew either as an undergraduate or alumnus. Just a collection of words, right? Demeaning, degrading, despicable…words.

For some reason I recalled another collection of words recently – those being in the context of a love letter from my mother to my father in 1959, 11 years after they were married. Both of my parents are gone now, and after my father died in 2011, my sister Mary, discovered this letter in my father’s safe deposit box at the local bank. It was labeled his “most precious treasure,” and it was the ONLY item there. No other documents, no money, nothing. As a matter of fact, there was nothing at all in my father’s name when he died- well, except for a Jeep which was filled with lingering fumes from an old collection of weed eaters, chain saws and gas cans. It must have taken my brother in law, Bill weeks to clean out that odiferous “inheritance.”

Nevertheless, without disclosing the contents of my mother’s letter, I can assure you it honored my father so beautifully as a husband, father, business man, son, son-in-law and man of deep, abiding faith. Just a collection of words, right? My father’s most precious treasure.

How about your words? Do they build up or tear down? You may be thinking of the ones you speak. Consider the ones you write: in a letter – however antiquated that notion is – or in “just” an e-mail, social media post or text.

My long-time CPA and friend, Robert told me the other day that he thinks these electronic communications especially can be a “sword of the passive aggressive used not to communicate but to inflict pain.” And I heard not long ago that passive aggressive is, in fact, the most aggressive aggressive. Yes, sarcasm too. My dear children think I don’t get it. The truth is I just don’t like it!

Yesterday I watched a moving short video about a deaf teenager in northern Uganda named Patrick who had lived his whole life in silence, without language of any type. He had never heard nor spoken a word in 15 years. A deaf man in the village who knew sign language began teaching it to other deaf people in the area – ranging in age from 9 to 80 years old – some of whom walked miles to attend his class. When Patrick learned one “sign word” – just one – his whole countenance changed from fearful and despondent to joyful and bordering on triumphant. The narrator concludes with, “He has just been baptized into a whole new world . . . “

A word – just one – gave Patrick life. It reminds me of The Word which was in The Beginning and which became flesh for us in God’s only son, who came that we may have life and have it abundantly.

A word can evoke tears. Fan the flame. Crush. A word – even a truthful one spoken in love – can exhilarate, soothe and heal. A word can give life . . . or take it away.

So let us choose our’s oh so carefully . . . each and every one.

– Caroline Watkins

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