Speaking to You

Well, if you're listening to this in the morning, folks, I'll say it like my Irish ancestors would have said, at the top of the morning to you, glad to have you here. This is Dicpo. We are working our way through the little book that Ruth and I wrote some years back, called, known, finding deep friendships in a shallow world. We're on chapter 11, we're in that section on affirmation. And last time we were together in the book, at least, we talked about speaking to God as the highest form of affirmation, and you pray for somebody highest form of affirmation. This is the second kind of affirmation, and it's speaking to you. This is how ancient writing that you find in Proverbs says it. The right word, at the right time, is like a custom-made piece of jewelry. And a wise friend's timely reprimand is like a gold ring slipped on your finger. I want to read that again, here we go. The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry. And a wise friend's timely reprimand is like a gold ring slipped on your finger. It's a paraphrase of Proverbs from the Old Testament in a book called The Message. It's hardly anything better than a third-party affirmation. I don't know how many times it happened that we'd walk into that home on Carver Road in Modesto to see Ruth's parents sitting at the kitchen table. That's Modesto, California Central Valley. With a quick glance, they'd see one of our kids with us, and the conversation would quickly shift into something like, Mother, I was thinking about Chris just the other day. She'd respond, yes, Daddy, isn't he just the best? That would continue for a few moments, then they would welcome all of us standing in the entryway. That brief exchange within the hearing of a child makes the heart sore. We have a way with words, don't we? Words can be gifts or weapons. When their gifts are lives are never the same. When their weapons are lives are never the same. Language moves us to the heights or take us to the depths, going to the depths when you're angry with someone might feel like the way to go, but it can really come back to bite you. For years I kept a piece of free verse by Carl Sandberg on my desk. I did it because I sat in the chair of power in that particular institution. I wasn't responsible for thousands of people with several hundred. Some would come to me for advice, counsel, and decisions. It's so easy when you sit in the cat bird seat, as we used to say, to wield authority for your own benefit, just because you can. In primary lesson, Sandberg wrote, look out how you use proud words. When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back. They wear long boots, hard boots, they walk off proud. They can't hear you calling. Look out how you use proud words. Proud words and friendships can't occupy the same space for very long. Sure friends have disagreements and sometimes even fight, scrap, and come to loggerheads, as we would once say. But in the end, they come around and still like each other. Encouraging words, challenging words, gentle words are the food of friendship. They can be direct or subtle, louder, soft, single words or sentences, but they will carry a tone that boys the spirit. Words between friends can be jokes or soft sarcasm, which are okay if the tone is right. Things have shown that about 80% of communication is not just found in words spoken, but in the tone used. The tone of language. Some years ago I walked into the house and said something to Ruth in a poor tone. I was young and excited in changing the whole world, right? Some younger people were actually following me, I thought, so I must be pretty good. And that full of myself moment, I said something in a way that was offensive. The words were okay, but my tone was condescending. Ruth's response was, do you know how it makes me feel when you use that tone with me? I didn't know what using that tone did to this lovely woman my best friend. I was the less for it. We were both the less for it. Words with a positive tone are a tremendous gift. I love the story of Sally, a little girl who had been born with a cleft palate. As you can imagine, herself image took a hit each time she looked in the mirror. Every year the teacher at her school conducted a hearing test in the class by having each student by turn go across the room and stand facing the door. She then would whisper a phrase to judge the acuity of the child's hearing. The day came when it was Sally's turn to be tested and the teacher told her to go stand by the door and face away from her. The words Sally heard next were the most wonderful, life-changing words anyone had ever spoken to her. Her teacher simply whispered, I wish you were my little girl. Sometimes in emails with emojis and exclamation points can certainly convey positive thoughts and feelings, but nothing takes the place of what I hear in your voice. Your voice is one of a kind. I don't need spectrographic analysis to know the variations in your timbre and inflection. When you say hello, I know who it is. Just a voice of calm, authority and a stressful moment can mean the world. Being with a friend one day or retired major general in the army, I said, Bob, as you look back on your whole career, what is the one thing for which you're most grateful? He thought a moment then said that my men knew my voice in the dark. That sounded like Jesus. He used all kinds of metaphors when he spoke of the relationship we had with him. They reflect his context, fields and labors, vineyards and wine presses, fish and fishermen. Tax collectors, religious types, perhaps most particularly shepherds and sheep. He is the good shepherd and we are the sheep. This is how he described the interaction. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. To hear, to know and to follow are intimately connected. Can you imagine the tone of Paul's voice when he affirmed his friends in Philippi in the introductory paragraphs of his letter? Listen to him. It's right for me to feel this way about all of you because I hold you in my heart. For you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness how I yearn for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. His choice of words carries the emotion even if we can't actually hear the tone. It is right for me to feel this way. I hold you in my heart, how I yearn for you all. I read these phrases and say to myself, is this the Paul I know from his story? Is this the Saul who breathed threatening and slaughter before he was transformed? Is this the Paul that faced down city leaders and authorities in place after place without fear and with great intensity? Is this the Paul who, when his apostolic authority was challenged in 2 Corinthians 11 called as accusers out by saying, okay, boys, let's take off our shirts and compare scars from Roman cat and intails that we carry on our backs for the sake of the gospel. Then we can talk. Is this the let's walk across Turkey and spend time in their jails guy? What was he doing using language and tone so infused with feeling and hope? Simple. He was talking to friends. That's how friends do it. They affirm at every opportunity. They encourage and lift up. They challenge and reflect. Their words are gifts to be cherished and stored like treasures. They are life whisperers. Isn't it interesting how one sentence can change your world? When Ruth and I were becoming friends in the early 1960s, we attended college about 80 miles south of San Francisco near Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay. I had been a stutterer since my earliest British boarding school days in South India. Though I'd learned to mask it in some ways and trigger speech in others, as many stutterers learned to do justice survive, it was a royal pain for me. I saw it as a non-communicable social disease. One evening, as we drove down Westcliffe Drive along the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz, I wanted to say to her, I don't know if you want to keep going out with me because I stutter. The words tumbled over each other with short pauses. She looked over at me smile sweetly and said some great words. Oh, really? I hadn't noticed. The jail door swung open. The antidote to the disease was injected. I can still hear the words and her lovely tone. Now, that's what I'm talking about. As a friend, isn't it amazing how words actually paint pictures? What amazes me is the speed with which positive words can change a tense atmosphere or how affirming language can transform someone's life. There were 300 of us in the ballroom of the Holiday Inn in St. Louis, Missouri, participating in small group training conducted by serendipity workshops back in the early 1970s. We've been placed randomly in small groups of six. The morning had been spent telling our stories. It's amazing how much you can learn about someone's history when the right kinds of questions are asked. Anyway, after lunch, we reassembled according to this instruction, arrange five chairs and a horseshoe, then place the sixth chair inside the open end of the horseshoe. All six of you will take your turn in that sixth chair over the course of the next hour. It is there that the other five members of the group will take time to speak to you. On the basis of what you've learned about each other in the hours before this, you'll be affirmed using positive phrases or in terms of a color or in terms of an animal. It'll be positive and all you can say is thank you. This person in the affirmation chair was an 18-year-old boy. As we went around the horseshoe, you could see how much he was enjoying the things that were said until we came to a young woman about his own age. She looked at him and said, you remind me of a dog. He rolled his eyes and exclaimed, dog, great. Then she went on, no, no, this is good. I have a dog at home, a golden cacrospania with big brown eyes like yours, and I like to hold them on my lap and pet him. At that point, the young man blurted out with a great laugh, well, that's more like it. It was a wonderful, hilarious moment. Then it came time for a young woman to take the chair. As she had received a negative critique in her first year on the job, and apparently her employer felt she could use the experiences provided by the serendipity day to improve her social skills. In short, she was there under duress. She was clear in her words, her tone, her body language, and her nervous chain smoking all morning long that she'd rather be any place in the world other than with us doing this stuff. Again, we went around the horseshoe with affirmations. They were good words, but limited in some ways because she hadn't given us much to work with in the morning until we got to that same young woman with the golden cacros. That was a moment. She looked at the woman in the affirmation chair and said, I see you as the color of your dress. It was fall, and the dress was silky and full of color, golds, umbers, reds, and browns. I see you as a warm and spontaneous person. And those colors remind me of a fire in my fireplace at my home in Rockford, Illinois. She went on, I would like to take you there on a snowy winter night and centered front of the fire. We could eat popcorn and drink hot chocolate, and I could just get to know you. With that last phrase, the woman in the pretty dress dropped her cigarette on the towel floor, grounded out with her shoe. She looked up at the girl and said, say that one more time. The girl did. By the time she finished tears were streaming down the other woman's face, as she forced out the words, nobody in my whole life has ever wanted to spend an evening with me just to get to know me. I don't know where that frustrated angry woman went. The one conveying her displeasure at every turn, because the woman we sat with the rest of the afternoon was delightful, a mature young girl's affirming words and unlocked her heart and let her out into life. It hardly seemed possible, but it happened. I heard it. I saw it. I felt like I was with Jesus and Simon Peter when Jesus looked at him and said, I'm going to change your name to Cephas, Peter, the rock. On you and on your statement, I'm going to build my church. What a stunner. The other 11 guys around them had to be thinking, what? They knew Peter as a leader, but he was moody and unreliable. Great intent, but poor execution. Stable like a rock is not the descriptive language they would use. All through the Gospel story, we see the unstable Simon. When Jesus is on trial, we see it in full force. Jesus either saw something in Peter that he was calling out of him or he saw a need that he filled by his words either way. Through those words, he gave Simon soon to be Peter, hope, and a future that day. That is what affirming words do. They fuel hope and give us a future. That's it for now. I just think affirming words are a bomb to the soul. Affirming words are like cold watermelon in a hot summer afternoon. Affirming words can sue us, inspire us, wrap us like a warm blanket on a frigid day and give us a sense of purpose that perhaps we either have never had or have not had in a long time. So I encourage you in the next few days, find a way to affirm with your language because your language is who you are. That's it for now. Thanks for continuing to listen, perhaps subscribing on the platform on which you're listening and we'll pick it up with you next week. God bless. Have a great week.