Key to Happiness: Kind Words and Thought – 09.13.09 – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr

Scripture: James 3:1-12

James 3

Taming the Tongue
1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt[a] water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

On the corner of 14th street N.W. in Washington, D.C., a couple of summers ago, you might have heard a sound that would make even the most street wise city dwellers slow down their frantic pace and lower their Starbuck lattes for a moment. It was a sound, a happy sound… it was the sound of a compliment. Ding- dong a chime cuts through the noise, followed by a pleasant voice saying to a passerby, “You create a brighter future.”

Where did that voice come from? There on 14th Street was a bright red and white stripped box perched on a platform of bricks, with a speaker at eye level and a grid of ventilation holes in the side. A small sign read, “The Compliment Machine.” The official look of the box made it look like it was put there by the city, or given the massages emanating from it, some other, shadow government agency such as say, “The Ministry of Happiness.”

Ding-dong! “People are drawn to your positive energy!” You can almost imagine some government lawyer preoccupied to get to work on time, suddenly stopping for a moment and wondering, “What was that? Is it talking about me? Really me?”

The Compliment Machine was a project of Tom Greaves, a local visual artist. It was part of SitesProject D.C., an exhibit by the Washington Project for the Arts?Corcoarn, which featured a collection of public art along 14th Street between P and V streets.

“People can believe it or not,” said Greaves about the hundred messages he recorded on an iPod Nan in his own neutral voice. (Kind of like the voice that warns you in airports that you are coming to the end of the walkway.)

So did people believe it? Well, Tom Minter, a playwright and resident of nearby Q Street who walked past the Compliment Machine regularly said, “It really makes you feel good. If I’m having a really bad moment while I’m walking down this street, and it penetrates the fog, it’s a good thing.”

Initially, Greaves thought of making some of the compliments subversive but had a change of heart. “Why not make it completely positive? Everyone deserves to have a compliment paid to them.” And so the Compliment Machine had kind words for everyone who walked by. “Maybe if the compliment doesn’t apply to them, they’ll want to change that, “ said Greaves. If the machine said, “You leave things better than you find them” or “You are on a constant quest for knowledge” then maybe, just maybe, the recipient might have been inspired to improve one little thing about themselves.

Let me ask you a question. At the top of your bulletin I put some quotes from the Compliment Machine. Then I asked which was your favorite. (Have people raise hands as you read them off…) What happened to me when I was doing this myself, is that I would go back and forth trying to decide on my favorite, then as I settled in on one, I felt my mood lift. I became more happy. This is the first in a series of sermons that I am doing on The Keys to Happiness. There is a new field of psychology that studies the science of happiness. Before now psychologists just studied pathologies. People who we mentally ill. But, happiness is not just the absence of mental illness. They are discovering that truly happy people tend to have certain common characteristics. One is that they say happy things to themselves and others. It is the old question, “Is the cup half empty, or half full.” The happy people were the ones that would say it was half full. Now, you might think, well that is because they were happy in the first place. But, the interesting thing is that they discovered that just saying positive words, no matter what mood you are in, begins to elevate your mood. Saying good things, thinking good things, makes you happier. The mind effects the body.

This is what the letter of James it telling us in today’s scripture (James 3:1-12). He says that if we can control our tongues we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every way. He didn’t say, well you have to wait until you get in the right mood. No, he was saying, the things you say to yourself and to others will affect your mood and your actions. He tells us to look a horse. It is a huge animal, much bigger than a human. But, this huge animal can be controlled by the small bit in his mouth, no more than a few inches long. We can tell the horse to go wherever we want. Or, take a rudder on a ship. No matter how strong the winds are. No matter how big the ship is. The rudder, the small flat piece that hangs into the water off the back, will steer the ship. Saying good things to ourselves and others is like the bit in the mouth of the horse. It will turn the whole animal.

Jesus himself was full of compliments. You know the Staples store “That was Easy Button?” (Show demonstration) You hit the big red button and it says “That was easy!” I was thinking wouldn’t it be cool if we could make a similar button but one liners compliments that we find in the Bible. For instance – “You are a child of God.” “You are a royal priesthood.” “I no longer call you servants but friends.” “Your faith has made you well.” “You are the light of the world.” “Your name is written on the palm of God’s hand.”

Are you married? This will help your marriage out too. John Gottman, Ph.D. studied marriages. In particular, he studied marriages that fail and marriages that are successful. One of the distinctive characteristics of successful marriages is that the couple has positive thoughts towards each other. The point is, it wasn’t that the partner was somehow more special than anyone else in the world. Certainly the partner would have many faults. None the less, successful and happy couples would simply look on the bright side. There is a wide body of research in the power of rehearsing positive thoughts. It has proven to be highly successful in overcoming depression. Some exercises he suggests for couples are : List one characteristic you find endearing or lovable. Pick one good time and write a sentence about it. Think of one physical attribute you like. Write down one characteristic that makes you proud. Do this for 7 weeks every day and you will find your perspective on your marriage is much sunnier. (The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Gottman.)

Are you a manager at work? Do you work for a manager? Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager, highlights the importance of maintaining a four-to-one ratio of positive to negative statements. In one research study, bosses intentionally praised and criticized employees according to 1/1 ratio. Most of these employees reported having a totally negative relationship with their boss. When the ratio was changed to 2/1 they still felt their boss was all over them. Only when their ration hit 4/1 did employees relax and report having a good relationship with their supervisor.

Now, I am going to give you a really good way of practicing kind words and thoughts. I made it up for a sermon I delivered here many years ago. Instead of “road rage” I call it “road praise!” It is the practice of seeing the good in other drivers instead of seeing the bad in them. It sounds corny, but it works.

Take this scenario. You are going 65 miles per hour on the highway. A person cuts in front of you. You are the only car on the high way. He could have simply waited until you passed and the pulled in. Now, he cuts in and is suddenly only about 2 feet from your front bumper. Immediately you start muttering to yourself, “Who does he think he is? He things he is the only important one out here. He is a road hog!” Then you imagine honking your horn, and flashing your lights. Your blood is pumping. You are sweating. You are mad.
Has that every happened to you? It can get your blood pumping just thinking of it. Now, try this one on for size. You are going 65 miles per hour and a person cuts in fron of you. Immediately, you wonder, “Gee he seems really stressed out. Something must be going on in his life that he is in such a rush. I think I’ll leave him some extra room here.” You are not sweating. You are not mad. You are feeling, can it be compassion? Can it be someone closer to the commandment of Jesus “Love one another?”

Now we do not know what the situation of the guy in the car ahead of us really is. It is all projection. But, one very important thing to notice here is that we are not doing ourselves a favor, let alone him a favor, by immediately projecting on to him negative motives. Judging him does us no good. In fact it makes us feel angry, stuck, and bitter. On the other hand, if we project on to him positive things we actually feel better. We feel relaxed, with possibilities opening up, rather than closing in on us. Maybe you will wave to him in a friendly sort of way when you pass him on the left.

In mysticism this is called “Sweetening the judgments.” By opening our hearts to the love and compassion of God. We are then making room for the unpredictable and the miraculous to occur. We, to say the least, become happy.

The letter of James said it in the Bible and now studies are proving that if we rehears anger in our minds, go over and over scenarios about how mad we are at somebody, we are not getting it off our chest. Rather studies show that we are rehearsing the anger and making it worse. Nothing gets better. Nothing gets resolved. It simply digs a deeper hole into your gut.

On the other hand great benefits come from repeating scenarios of compassion in your mind. Instead of anger choose peace and joy. And, as always, practice makes perfect. You can even have some fun with it in the car.

Instead of stopping at, “Gee that man seems really stressed…” you might get creative and say “Gee, I wonder if he is rushing home to see his wife. I wonder if she is pregnant and going into labor. Maybe it is their first child! I am so glad he cut in front of me!”

Or, “Those old people in the car ahead of me are probably talking about their 65th wedding anniversary. They are so happy together that they have forgotten to switch their left blinker off. That thing has been blinking left for the past 10 miles. They are never ever going to turn left. I see that now. They are going straight to the beach to watch the sunset together.”

Or, “Gee that guy with his car burning oil so that it looks like a coal train. He is probably struggling to get through school and is working a night job. He is probably scrapping every penny together and hopes his car holds ona little longer until he graduates.”
It is actually a fun game. You can do it with your kids. We might think this is terribly corny. But, why do we not give credibility to our good thoughts and give so much credibility to our automatic judgments. Road rage or road praise? Which would you rather do?

Let me end with a joke that I thought was really funny. It is about a parrot who had a hard time saying kind things.

A fellow has a parrot who swears like an old salt. The bird is a pistol. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself. Trouble is, the guy who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and the bird’s foul mouth is driving him nuts.

One day, it just get to be too much. The guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard and yells, “QUIT IT!” But this just makes the bird mad, and he swears more than ever.

Then the guy gets angry and say, “Okay for you” and locks the bird into the kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird, who claws and scratches. When the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a sailor blush.

At this point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer; Fro the first few seconds, there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly gets very quiet.

At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minute of silence, he’s so worried that he opens the freezer door.

The bird meekly climbs onto the man’s outstretched arm and says, “Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I’ll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on.”

The man is astounded and amazed at the transformation that has come over the parrot.

Then the parrot says, “By the way, what did the chicken do?”