The Rising Popularity of the "H" Word

I didn't understand while I was growing up that I lived in a household that was very much like other lower-middle-class families' households in the '60s, but very different in one significant and life-altering way. My father was strong, loving, and hard-working. He cared for us deeply. Mama loved us, too, but she had something going for her that was a rarity then and especially now. Mama had a deep-seated understanding as part of her faith and her past, that words had great power, not only in meaning but also in their effects on the outcome. 

Mama realized that words came from thoughts and thoughts generated action. I can still hear her voice breaking into our conversations with the words, "that's not a lovely thought". She said it more with an informative tone than one of chastisement. That voice of clarity started when we were young and followed us into our adulthood. We often laughed it off, but it stuck to us like glue. Even looking back on it, I don't view it as thought control. I see Mama teaching us a hard-learned and often never acquired lesson that we are in control of our thoughts and our words. Both matter deeply in how we perceive and deal with the world.

Mama taught us how to change our sentences to kinder more loving ideas. She turned phrases such as my use of the term "mister mean" into "mister strong". She took "cuss" words off the table completely and much to my sister Mary's and my mirth one evening, she would not put the letter "F" in front of "art" to get a triple word score during a game of Scrabble. It was "not a lovely thought." She did not just preach it; she lived it. 

Some commonly used words in our house were forbidden, at least in the presence of Mama; we were not perfect kids all the time. We were not allowed to use the phrase "shut-up", and we could NEVER say "I hate you!" In our house, the word hate was the "H" word. I think that is why I take issue with seeing it used far too often today. It has become part of what I call "slogan" thought:  if you are not for us, you "hate" us. If you disagree with me, you "hate" me. I am not naive enough to believe that some people do not harbor hate. However, maybe because of Mama's lessons, I wish we would change those statements into something more positive and leave the "H" word out of our conversations completely. I learned from Mama that the words we speak repetitively do shape the outcomes in our life, and our world right now needs to see in writing and hear a lot more spoken words of love and a whole lot less "H".

Peace. Love, Linda