Got Anything to Say?

The vast majority of us enjoy the gift of speech. Even those who speak with their hands delight in the connection communication affords us. Some of us talk a lot while others of us are more conservative with our words. Some people seldom stop talking, even when others are trying to say something. But filling the air with the sound of one’s voice isn’t the same thing as having something to say.

Some people talk because they are uncomfortable with silence. Some people talk because they believe others need to listen to them. Some people talk because they can’t help themselves. Some people talk because they live alone and delight in having an audience of the human variety. We all use words as we are able, and we seldom fully appreciate the marvelous instruments they are.

But there are times in this exotic enterprise of living when we search for something to say and come up empty mouthed. Such occasions don’t pop up often but when they do we find ourselves struggling for any words to say. We hear of a close friend’s sudden death. We learn that our identity has been stolen. We are asked by a family member what we believe about a thorny religious issue. We receive a spontaneous invitation to offer words at a large gathering of community leaders. We dig around in our heads, we dive into our memory banks, we sift through quotes we thought we knew by heart, we squirm in the uncomfortable space, we mumble to ourselves in our mortification, and we tumble into that awkward place where there are no words. No. Words. How could that happen?

And then there’s the flip side. We stand before indescribable beauty barely breathing and certainly not speaking. We hold a long-awaited newborn in our arms and can manage only a cooing sound. We are chosen by our peers without our awareness to receive an award or acknowledgement and discover that our amazement caused our vocabulary to evaporate. We have nothing to say. There are simply no words. No. Words. But we’ve always got something to say! Except when we don’t.

As we pay closer attention to our words, we may come to realize that we don’t always have much of anything to say. Sure, we talk. But do we truly communicate or express effectively? Genuinely? Meaningfully? Perhaps we will learn to be a little more careful with these marvelous instruments entrusted to us and a little more caring in how we unleash them out into the world among others of our kind. And perhaps we’ll give two of them away more often: thank you. That’s always something worth saying!