hard won wisdom

One day I am going to need to say something to one of my children. It will be something really important. They will be on the brink of making one of those very poor decisions in life that only bring disaster and take many unnecessary years to correct. There will come a time when I am really going to need to use my words and have them have their intended affect. Those words are going to have to not lack any potency. They cannot be allowed to be heaped upon a huge dusty pile of other words that the children were forced to listen to over the years. Going forward I will be very sparing with words lest they begin to loose their power. Given the choice between calling to someone from across the room and getting up out of my chair I will choose the later, even if I am tired. If I do have to give commands, I will give non verbal commands. If I do have to give verbal commands I will try to pare them down to one or two word directives before uttering them. If there is to be no parental verbal haze in the heads of these children it is my responsibility to shepherd through this world and into the next, I will have to hold my tongue about ninety percent of the time.