So what would it look like to do some quality assurance on how we speak? How would we evaluate the quality of the words we exchange with others? Can we asses and evidence the tone and content, the intention and the impact of what we say and how we say it, and why, and to whom?
Is there a form of evaluation which might at least require us to think about how we speak, what we say? Indeed could there be an evaluation form that helps us critically review a day's speaking? During Lent it might be interesting, or it might be dispiriting, to review a day's speaking using the fruit of the Spirit as a grid that quality controls an entire day's conversation. It wouldn't matter that I don't recall very much of what precisely I said - there'll be a big enough remembered sample!
Now of course this could become hilariously serious, ludicrously moralistic, not to mention ridiculously close to semantic OCD! But as a thought experiment, a broad spectrum diagnostic scan, just for a laugh, go on Jim, have a go at the Fruit of the Spirit Speech Quality Control Grid.
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Love |
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Joy |
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Peace |
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Patience |
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Kindness |
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Goodness |
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Faithfulness |
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Gentleness |
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Self Control |
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This is how it works. I start every time with a perfect score of 5 stars for all 9 fruits of the Spirit. Let's not overdo the guilt thing. Then I have to take away one star for each occasion I can think of when what I said was deficient in one or other of these 9 dispositions.
So for example my negativity and moaning, however justified, doesn't exactly enhance the joy of others I live with, work with, speak to at the Supermarket checkout. Lose a joy star for every time I recall dumping my complaints on someone else.
This could be fun! Sarcasm is a common if sometimes cruel humour; I'm good at it - a day's worth of that bumps the kindness credit into deficit.
Someone else comes at me with their problem, their turn to be negative. I half listen but wish they'd change the subject or go away, and make that clear by my peremptoriness (if that's a word). Goodness! That one knocks back love, patience, kindness and gentleness in the blink of a sentence.
OK. So that's the idea. A diagnostic of my habits of speech. Will I do this every day for Lent? No. That would be an exercise in guilt manufacture! But just imagining how it might work on this post, suggests it might provide an interesting hour spent on retreat. Then I might be encouraged to think positively how to use words transformatively;
to make other people feel valued (love), to lift their day (joy), to reassure (peace), to show I'm listening (patience), to comfort and encourage (kindness), to make someone feel better (goodness), to affirm and respect (faithfulness), to recognise vulnerability (gentleness), and to avoid hurting (self control).
The photo was taken on the flagstone path which winds towards the 5000 year old Yew tree in Fortingall; it indicates the likely dates on the 5000 year time line, when Collegial Scholarship began to flourish in Scotland. The relation of the photo to this post is the tenuous opinion that I hold, that those who are charged with upholding standards of scholarship, are those who are obliged to be stewards of language, disposed to courtesy in speaking, considerate of the potency of words, and exemplars of that intellectual humility which has no need to dominate or silence others.
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