H O P E

One of my favorite expressions: “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.”  It’s from the Talmud.  Words develop a life of their own.  Once uttered, they become infused with all kinds of real and imagined energy.  They change people.  For life.  Also, as everyone has experienced, once spoken…there is no taking words back.  Apologize as much as we want, the damage is done and, as the Good Book says, “there is no way to make straight the crooked.”

Most of us, thank God, will never be called upon to kill another being.  Reading the account of one Ranger thrown into Mogadishu, Somalia during the US attempt to arrest warlord Mohammed Farrah Adid, decades ago, the solider said, “When war starts, a solider wants like *!@!!  to be there, but once he’s there, he wants like !@!!. to come home.” 

Many of us may imagine ourselves to be a Schwartzennegger, blasting away all the bad guys.  To be truthful, we are on the battlefield every day of our lives –rushing to be the first to the bank teller, to be first in line at the checkout, to be in front of one more car on the highway, to make more money than the next guy.  The excitement and the adrenaline produced by such encounters is the stuff of imagination, not reality.  In fact, it is as painful to be the one cut off as it is to be the one doing the cutting off. 

The wars we usually wage are where we feel ourselves pitted against the person next to us.  Our weapon of choice?  Words.  They level opponents.  Reduce them to sniveling creatures.  They exaggerate and weigh mightily against the enemy while reinforcing us.

Inasmuch as words raze and destroy, they are also great healers, givers of life.  Recently sent to me was the following exchange:

As I ate breakfast one morning, I overheard two oncologists conversing.  One complained bitterly, “You know, Bob, I just don’t understand it.  We use the same drugs, the same dosage, the same schedule and the same entry criteria.  Yet I got a 22 percent response and you got a 74 percent.  That’s unheard of for metastatic cancer.  How do you do it?”

His colleague replied, “We’re both using Etoposide, Platinum, Oncovin and Hydroxurea.  You call your EPOH.  I tell my patients I’m giving them HOPE.  As dismal as the statistics are, I emphasize that we have a chance.”

Life, regeneration and love are all waiting to be given voice.