professional hazards

“In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression;” Proverbs 10:19 ASV

Lawyers live in fear of that lapsed word, that oversight of precise language that could cost someone his fortune, his home, or his reputation. No matter how much good they may have done on behalf of a multitude of clients, tomorrow could reveal a calamitous error. Doctors, too, go home each day and pray they have made the right call as they prescribe small portions of healing drugs from closets full to overflowing with deadly toxins of every kind. Preachers step down from pulpits and immediately are plagued with doubts about the “rightness” of their pronouncements that hang somewhere between heaven and earth. And each must mount that cockpit again and again daring to speak for God to the world all the while secretly wondering how preposterous a task that must be for any of Adam’s race.

Preachers, teachers, and writers, all who live by the words of their mouths, whose stock and trade is an endless stream of pungent vocabulary formulated into wishful sense and meaning, are condemned to co-exist with the constant dread of error and offense. Facts come out incomplete, judgments are ill-conceived, and words trip up even the most astute and knowledgeable. We who speak daily, write weekly, or lead constantly are conscious of the two-edged sword that hangs over their heads. At any moment our words can fall upon us and cut in deadly fashion. If any are not duly humbled by that daily possibility, there is truly something very deeply wrong and dangerous about them, and they should be barred from all of the above.

Just last week I stumbled badly in my use of language that gave offense where none was intended. A friend also was reeling as his efforts at leadership were constantly being sidetracked by a whole series of misunderstandings, words run off the rails by unseen and undetected sensitivities. I watched two other highly trained and capable individuals labor and strain to understand one another. This all was happening around me in the span of one short week. It is enough to make one despair at the prospect of ever constructing accurate and effective communication. Oh, to be an artist painting in a solitary studio whose only dialogue is with pigment and palette. Oh, to have the simple life of an assembly line worker who can look with satisfaction at a thousand widgets well made at the end of a day.

But where would we be without lawyers fearlessly exercising their craft to create a world of law and order? How well would we live without doctors who dare to cut through flesh and bone or deal in life saving medicines? And where would we be without preachers and teachers who go where angels fear to tread, laying down the unseen measuring lines whereupon we build our lives?

Lest you pity too much these professions and the daily perils they face, remember that we as parents have equal hazards to our trade. We, too, pour out a torrent of words upon our children every day, their meaning loaded with the freight of tone and grimace. We correct, admonish, train, reinforce, encourage, and address them powerfully in our many different roles. So, too, the potential for catastrophe is there with words said in ignorance or haste resulting in wounded spirits, or at a minimum, have the potential to stir up strident responses. No wonder some parents would rather retreat to a world of passive permissiveness than dare to conduct those daily interdictions that call for incisive language in an effort to bend young lives to receive and shoulder the yoke of responsibility.

To speak words of truth is to claim a moral high ground, one fraught with risk. May we be courageous enough to try when the time comes to defend our corner of the wall; and humble enough to admit the possibility of error so endemic to us all.

(to be continued)