On the way to the gym at lunch yesterday, I was lost in thoughts of work and responsibilities—grown up stuff. From the radio Mick Jagger sang wistfully about a girl he was missing while he waited for her call. Traffic was sparse, at least compared to the usual array of vehicles I normally encounter as I wind my way through the stop signs and obligatory traffic lights we call Canal Street. It was a bright day, with temperatures much warmer than those in recent memory. I pulled into a January-packed parking lot and cut the engine, grabbed my bag and headed for the entrance to the cruel gym, ready to sweat away some unwanted calories through my daily ritual of ‘fitness training’.
Sometimes I get displaced mentally, and do things for no apparent reason other than I am who I am, complete with all of my terminal nuances. As I weaved between parked cars, probably subliminal but maybe not, I spoke aloud a line from the heretofore unfinished Rolling Stones’ song which was still hanging around in my consciousness due to the sudden silencing of the radio. I blurted out to the quiet parking lot, in my best Mick simulacrum, “Whatsamatter wit you boy?”
Harmless, of course, and nothing to it. In most cases.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a teenage-girl sitting in a car I happened to be walking by at that very moment, with her window down. Egad! She looked up at me with no little curiosity, yet a lot of apprehension (fear?) written on her face. I could say nothing; it was too late and I walked on, refusing to meet her eyes—after all, I had evolved into a crazy middle-aged man muttering to himself in ghetto-slang. Not just in my mind, because I am certain the feeling was mutual from her vantage point. I regretted my sudden outburst and found myself wishing for an ever-elusive rewind button. The next time I will be more observant toward my surroundings before I haphazardly burst forth in the unknown lyrics of songs from days bygone.
Because you can never be sure who is watching or listening.
The Psalmist reminds us: “For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.” It’s proven easy for me to goof up and say things in front of others that I wish later I had never said. And once it leaves your mouth, there is no retrieval system for idle words spoken in haste or in anger. More importantly, it is impossible to hide those words from G_d.
The incident in the parking lot yesterday, though humorous, is a great example of my idle words and the affect they can have on others. Who knows what that girl actually thought of me, and sadly, first impressions are usually the lasting impressions in life. Fortunately, other than looking a tad bit silly (or senile), I said nothing to hurt that nameless person as she sat innocently inside her car.
But how many other examples I could give of times when the things I said at an inopportune moment affected friendships and relationships in my past! The list could go on and on. What about the times I promised more than I could deliver, and ended up letting somebody down as the result of making assurances for things I had no control over in the first place? There are also countless instances I can recall where my fine-edged critique would have been better left unsaid or unnoted.
It’s hard to control the tongue, and impossible to do so without strenuous amounts of consideration and forethought. I can’t live in fear of saying the wrong things at the wrong times and to the wrong people for the rest of my life, although to become a mere spectator in life is the only sure way to escape the suffering in life. But who wants to do that?
Lord, please guard my wandering thoughts and control my uncontrollable tongue, for I cannot do so by my own accord. And I’ll stick to whistling those old Stones tunes and do my best not to vocalize them, at least not publicly, in the future. Amen.
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