Before the Senate impeachment hearings this week, Senate Chaplain Barry Black offered this prayer:
Almighty God … abide with our lawmakers.
Teach them to speak the right words at the right time.
Make their speech like precious gold set in silver.
May they seek to persuade with patient and gentle words.
Give them the wisdom to be friends of that which is eternal and abiding.
Fill them with reverence for the transcendent …
The prayer calmed and focused me. And it reminded me of the power of words. In the first chapter of the Hebrew Bible it is written, “God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light.” With words our world was created.
Speech is not just God’s tool, but ours as well. We can use it to inspire or to denigrate; to tear down, or to lift up. By striving “to speak the right words at the right time;” to make our words like “precious gold set in silver,” we can shape our world.
But it’s not easy. It’s hard to speak “patient and gentle words” when our hearts are often enflamed, when we feel weak and threatened. How do we discern when passionate speech comes not from conviction, but from fear? Or from a desire to lift ourselves up in the eyes of others?
Chaplain Black’s prayer reminded me that beyond this realm of human, interpersonal challenge, there is something “transcendent, eternal and abiding.” Recognizing that, we can turn to the world that is right here in front of us, all around us, the one we get to shape.
We are all creators of our world.
Shosh Dworsky
Associate Chaplain for Jewish and Interfaith Life