Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?

Geez, I should just stop blogging altogether and let you all write here because you’re all ten times as wise as I. Krista wrote about how illuminating a family wedding can be, how it can highlight our own weaknesses and cracks. In my case, one weakness is a tendency to sink into my own anxieties about aging, motherhood, weight, or even how “nice” (or not) I am. Which is so not the point this week. This week is really about the wedding. The people getting married. Not about me. This is very true and something I need to remember. To concentrate on. And get off (as my mother would say) the pity pot. Lisa wrote that if I am being harder on myself than I would be on a friend who came to me with the same situation, then that is wrong. Indeed, it is not kind and trying to be kind is what I am thinking most about. How can I be kind out there, and not kind in here? In some ways, I find it harder to be kind to myself.

Then Pauline wrote in the comments that she had been taught as a child to think before speaking by asking herself these three questions.

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

So much of what I say is possibly one of these things, but little is all three. Life is so filled with noise, the static of living. Sometimes I consciously try to remain polite with the children and sometimes what comes out is just pollution that I long to rake back in. With Ed too, sometimes all the anxieties and stress of the day flood over into sharp words, terse comments. If I could learn to pause, breathe and ask myself these questions, I think I’d be quiet a lot more. And probably to the good.

As today wended on I kept coming back to these three questions and how dramatically they would change how I speak.

Is it true? Well, much of what I say is true. In fact, the little lies often stick in my throat and although I have been known in years gone past to take refuge in big lies, since I realized that the way not to lie was to do nothing I wanted to lie about, I lie a lot less.

Is it necessary? How crucial is it that I say this at all? Do I have to speak? The children get talked at a lot, and a lot of what they hear is both true and necessary. But sometimes, well, sometimes I could let things slide more. Sometimes I could choose not to speak. Not to scold or harangue. Or even to interrupt. Just to let them be in silence and be next to them, in silence. So much else too is only barely necessary. Gossip and nattering. Storytelling and woolgathering. Criticizing and faultfinding. Worrying and fretting.

Is it kind? Will I, by saying this, being letting flowers drop from my lips, or toads, like the two girls in the story. Do you know the story? One girl is kind to the old woman and is graced with having flowers and gems fall from her mouth whenever she speaks. Her sister is bad-tempered and ill-mannered and is cursed by having toads and snakes leap from her lips whenever she opens her mouth. Flowers or toads?

How about blueberries?

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