Angry Words

Angry Words

Leaving a local restaurant after a pleasant lunch, I noticed a scrap of paper pressed on my car’s windshield, secured by one wiper blade. It was a handwritten note, and the greeting was not standard: “You stupid [bleep],” it began. “Learn how to park so I can get in my car, you [bleeping bleep].”

I didn’t remember having difficulty getting into the spot I’d parked in, and clearly the vocabulary-limited writer was now gone, because the driver’s side of the car next to mine was accessible. I can’t count the number of times I’ve returned to my car only to have to climb in on the passenger’s side. I’m surprised there was never a Seinfeld episode about it. Even so, I’ve never left an angry message like this in retaliation.

The note felt like an attack from an invisible assailant, and it hurt. I would have apologized, but I couldn’t. My verbal assailant’s act of “word rage” left me no room for response. And truth be told, it made me a little heartsick. I thought about the words off and on for the rest of the day and wondered about the person who left them. Did the person feel better after spewing profanity in my direction? Were they any less inconvenienced? Did they regret their outburst later or continue the day angry: snapping at others, flipping the bird in traffic, slamming doors, and squealing tires? How much anger vented is enough?

Words are strong, powerful things. They live longer than their spoken sound or their written ink or the recycle bin on my computer. They have staying power. And because I know I have left too many of the wrong sort behind and need to think before I do so again, I’m actually becoming sort of grateful for the message my unseen attacker left me. Their angry words weren’t meant to remind me, but they did: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14).

And let me know when I, too, have said more than enough.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.

James 3:9-10, NIV