Several years ago, large sailing ships spent a week in Duluth, open for tours. I went just to look at ships…and learned lots. Sails, lines, hulls, decks and all the paraphernalia can be made with ancient or modern materials, but vessels old and new still share much.
My favorite quip of insight was this: You can tell when the pilot has moved the rudder by seeing the ship’s direction.
It has stuck with me because I was with my friend Alice, a marvelous woman of good words and good deeds, whose husband is now a retired pastor. That day, Alice told me about the family challenge brought by one of her teenage daughters. I was expecting a troubled teen story, but it was another kind of challenge. Their daughter wanted to help make a better world and had said at dinner, “What if everyone would keep watch over their own tongue, their own words?”
The family decided to try it, and found it excruciating. Each could quickly hear someone else be negative about the weather, the day, the world; could easily point out when someone else (family member, political leader, neighbor, fellow student, co-worker, newscaster, person in a store, etc.) was critical to sound knowledgeable, down-putting to sound smart, hurtful to sound strong. But, to notice one’s own words and the direction they showed—ouch!
Harder yet was the next challenge: not only notice, but change.
As we talked about the sentence, “You can tell when the pilot has moved the rudder by the ship’s direction,” Alice added this from her own sailing knowledge. “Thinking about the direction before moving the rudder makes all the difference; it’s the same with the tongue.”
And then she recalled the book of James, in the New Testament, “…Look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue, it is small, but…”
What does all of this have to do with “spiritual reflection”? Spiritual reflection isn’t only a chat with God about the beauty of sails and oceans and sunsets… it is about trying to live more fully in God’s image.
Spend a moment and reflect: “What have my words, inflections, conversations been telling? What direction does the world see when it hears what my tongue speaks?” Self-examination isn’t much fun! It is far easier to know others by what they say than to take stock of ourselves, but try taking on the challenge from that wise teenager.
God, who is forgiving, merciful, abounding in steadfast love, calls on us to live well together and gives us directions for doing so, even when it isn’t our first choice. Jesus said, “Peace be with you,” and we are invited by God’s gift of forgiveness and mercy to extend the same to others, with words and inflection as well as action.
We must be passionate, even when disagreeing, about letting a deeper direction of life be made visible and hearable. This “ain’t easy”— it is far harder than turning the stiffest rudder, turning the largest ship. Nevertheless, make the effort. “Let’s each keep watch over our own words, our own tongue.”
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey of Trinity Lutheran, Hovland.
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