Words That Kill

High school is a shock for most of us. I went from a small Catholic grade school to a much larger public junior high school. Students were brought in from one or two other towns and farms around the county. Those three junior high grades were larger than the eight grades of my previous school.

Shortly after arriving I was diagnosed with a stutter, a stammer and a lisp by a teacher and the school speech therapist. My parents immediately denied it. My eldest brother bullied them into getting me the help I needed. He insisted my teacher and the therapist were right. My brother did not rant and rave. He simply told my parents they were stupid if they didn’t take care of my speech problem. Especially — and here he hit them in their wallet — since their taxes were already paying the therapist’s salary.

I spent the year going to speech therapy, practicing how to speak in front of a mirror and listening to painful tape recordings of my voice. I also soaked up all I could about Winston Churchill and others who had lived with these challenges, learning how often a lisp accompanies a stutter. As an adult I continue to hear the high-pitched voice of an adolescent with a stutter, a stammer and a lisp any time someone records my voice.

It’s a struggle not to be embarrassed, even though those impediments have long since receded into the background.

Simultaneously, I was going through the unrelieved hell of puberty. (Is there anything nice to say about puberty other than it ends?) Unlike most boys, I already knew I was different in some ways. I lived under constant threat of physical punishment if I told anybody about my conversations with God and angels.

I was also becoming increasingly aware that my attraction towards males was not shared by all other males.

One day after another tortuous physical education class, I was coming out of the showers with a new friend, running to get dressed to make my next class on time. Without warning my new friend turned and told the school tough (who was actually not a bully, but a very nice guy) to beat me up because I was a fag.

I was shocked.

The tough kid was shocked.

My supposed friend was laughing and urging the other boy on. Right up to the point the tough guy looked at me and refused. He said I was alright.

Shaken to my core, I walked away. As fast as humanly possible, I dressed and went to class. It was impossible to look at or speak with the boy whose words had endangered my life.

The next day the boy who had been a friend asked my forgiveness. I told him not to speak to me ever again. His actions had threatened my life. That boy tried several times during the year to change my mind. It never happened.

My speech defects came roaring back. It took hours and hours of hard work to deal with each blow I received whether emotional, physical or verbal.

Words can kill.

We live in a world where people lacking knowledge and experience make unwise comments. Commentators write and say things about people and places in this time of great social foment. Think back to the summer of 1968. Welcome to instant replay.

That was the year when America and much of the world went through unrest similar to today. That was the year a boy in my high school endangered my life.

Our tongues hold the power to cause physical harm and even death to others.

Our tongues have the power to bring our own spiritual death.

Verbally harming another person is evil. It brings greater darkness to our souls than any void we might imagine.

We have choices each day whether to live good lives or bad lives. We can choose whether to bring good or evil (and subsequent spiritual death) into our lives.

Does something need to be said?

Does it need to be said by me?

Does it need to be said by me now?