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A reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev Dr Craig Gardiner.

Good morning.

On this day, in 1922 Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone passed away in Nova Scotia, Canada. There’s some debate over who actually invented the device, but Bell is credited with the design patent for a machine capable of transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically. US patent number 174, 465 is arguably the most valuable single invention ever registered.

Of course, our phones have come a long way since then: what was in my childhood a heavy piece of equipment hardwired to the wall, has become the smart phone in my pocket.

But while we’ve been quick to develop technology, we’ve not always been so responsible with the quality and reliability of what we actually say. If the rhetoric of political campaigns and celebrity court cases regularly sets dubious standards of veracity and vitriol, so too can how we talk to one another in our more private conversations. It’s not just sticks and stones, it’s words as well that hurt us.

The apostle James once warned his fellow Christians that it was hard to tame a venomous tongue, but more positively the writer of the Bible’s book of Proverbs reminds us that ‘Gracious words are like a honeycomb, they bring sweetness to the soul and health to the body.’

Whether it was on the phone or face to face, hopefully we can all remember a time when someone spoke to us in such a way, a compliment, an affirmation that lifted our spirits and left a good taste in our soul. Such goodness can linger with us for the day, and soon that human longing to communicate will give us the chance to pass the honey on to someone else.

God of all words
Guard what we say
and how we say it,
soften our tongues
that we might bring sweetness to others
and healing to our wounded world
Amen