You sure you want to say that?
A few years ago, I saw a Twitter post asking how a Latter-day Saint might respond to a situation involving family and same-sex marriage. It was a great question, so I reposted it with my brief thoughts about the tricky balance of love and faith and how I might respond, and then I happily went to bed. I had no idea what was about to happen.
A progressive Latter-day Saint influencer re-posted my post with his upset commentary, and it made the rounds. Within a few hours, a prominent LGBTQ activist in England had picked it up and sent it out to his followers. My inbox was soon flooded with bitterness, vitriol, and threats against me and my family. An LGBTQ magazine wrote a snide article about my post. Ward members saw their favorite influencers sharing about the "bigoted Matthew Watkins" in their Instagram feeds. And finally, the company where I worked hauled me in front of HR to discuss my continued employment. It was one of the most stressful times of my life.
The weight of words
I want to be clear: I stand by the intent of that controversial post. It was a charitable expression of my sincere religious belief. What I immensely regret is that I didn't take 5 minutes to more carefully craft my wording. Because of character limits, time-sensitivity, and short attention spans, in the reactive world of social media, "we are encouraged to speak before thinking." This generates clicks and revenue, but also disastrous consequences (like I experienced). Too late, I learned the truth of this poem shared by Pres. Packer:
Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds; You can call back your kites, but you can’t call back your words. “Careful with fire” is good advice, we know; “Careful with words” is ten times doubly so. Thoughts unexpressed will often fall back dead. But God Himself can’t kill them, once they are said!
The Lord is very adamant about the power of words. Our words can "heal the wounded soul" or they can "enlarge the wounds of those who are already wounded" and "pierce their souls" (Jacob 2:8-9). And it's not just the angry, bitter words that "defileth a man" (Matt. 15:11);" but also "every idle [poorly-considered] word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matt. 12:36).
Yes, the Lord encourages us to "cast away our idle thoughts" (D&C 88:69), but He has attached a special warning about our idle words. Why is that?
Speaking > thinking
Four years ago, the Church published the "#HearHim" video series. The most impactful video for me featured Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. Give it a watch:
He further elaborated on the message he received from God during his recent near-death experience during his RootsTech address just last month (you can watch that here).
If you don't have time to watch those, here's the gist: people say "It doesn't matter how you pray, God hears even a silent prayer in your heart!" That's only partially true. Yes, God hears our silent prayers, but our prayers are more powerful when we put forth the effort to put our thoughts into spoken words. We need more "muscular prayer," and there is a power and a "concreteness" to our prayers that we cannot achieve if we do not put those prayers into spoken words.
This is a well-known principle in my world of software development. The story goes that an engineering lead found much of his time was taken up by his team members coming to him with technical problems they'd wrestled with for hours. Halfway through explaining the problem to him, they'd suddenly realize the solution and often run back to their desks in mid-sentence without the lead even fully understanding what the problem was.
One day, when an engineer came to him with another vexing problem, he picked up a rubber duck toy off his computer monitor and handed it to the engineer. "Go and explain your problem in detail to this duck. Then, if you still don't know how to proceed, come back and we'll talk."
Ask any software engineer about "rubber duck debugging," and they'll know exactly what you're talking about. Talking through a problem clears your mind and forces you to stay on a single train of thought. Half the time my wife thinks I'm on a call, pairing with another engineer, I'm actually just talking to myself, throwing the full 100% of my brain at a problem.
It's the same principle behind the adage: "The best way to learn something is to teach it." That's why I started the Conference Talk Podcast and this blog; I get much more out of my study when I'm preparing insights to share with others.
Writing > speaking
This week in Come, Follow Me, we studied D&C 28. It's an interesting section. The fledgling Church was grappling with an existential crisis. Hiram Page had been deceived by a false seer stone and set himself up as a competing source of revelation to the Church. The Lord, through the Prophet, had to tactfully put everyone in their place, including the Second Elder of the Church, Oliver Cowdery.
D&C 28 restricts Oliver's privileges as co-president of the Church. While he was granted broad license to teach and speak to the Church, his writings were not to be considered binding on the Church. Writing commandments was to be the prerogative of the Prophet alone.
From the Lord's perspective, words take on a new weight when we write them down. The Nephites understood this:
We know that the things which we write upon plates must remain; But whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away.
This was also true in 1830. If a Church leader got too cavalier in his wording, told a joke that didn't land, or wandered off into doctrinal speculation, the blast radius was small– just a few dozen people in unreliable short-term memory. But I think if D&C 28 were received today, it would be even more restrictive. Have you noticed how modern Apostles seem much more guarded in their interactions with the Church than leaders of decades past? I think it's because they know at every stake conference, and every interaction in public, someone is likely recording them, potentially etching their every word into the permanent digital record. One sloppy turn of phrase, and by sundown the Church is trending on TikTok and excoriated in the Salt Lake Tribune (more than usual, I mean).
Looking forward
Let's be clear: the main problem in the Church is members not being involved enough in defending the faith. The Brethren are explicitly asking us to do more in the arena of public discussion. But there are some (like me) who already blog and podcast and tweet about the Gospel all the time who could do better in emulating the restraint we see from our Apostles. I don't need to write less– I need to think more. 😉
This week as we gear up for my version of the Super Bowl (General Conference), take a moment to reflect on the words you're about to hear. Our leaders usually go through dozens of drafts of a talk before they submit it. Their words are chosen precisely and carefully. Pay attention to what they say… and what they choose to leave unsaid.
