Scum

Recently, we were at a family gathering where my boys learned a new card game from their older second cousins. Well, not a new game exactly since it's the same card game I learned to play in high school, but new to them and with a different name. The game, called Scum, is fairly simple with the basic premise that a person always needs to play a card that is at least one better or higher than the card the previous person played. The goal is to collect as many cards as possible and you do that by being the last person able to play a higher card. Here's the catch: a two, which is usually the lowest card, or the rare annoying joker, will trump the highest card and get to keep the stack of cards.

 

I was thinking about that game yesterday when it felt like that game played out in reality, with words instead of cards. I had been given many “cards” of compliments and encouragement about a particular thing, stacking up the deck. Then yesterday, one person muttered a discouraging, derogatory comment under his breath, but with the intention to be heard, and it felt to me like that joker with his low “two” trumped the whole stack. His one nasty comment, which was probably true for him, felt like a personal affront and wiped out the truth of all the previous positive comments.

So while I sit here and lick my wounds for a bit, the deeper, more wise side of me can also appreciate this experience as a good reminder to guard what comes out of my own mouth. To be encouraging, to be honest, to offer criticism in a helpful way rather than in biting comments muttered under my breath, to keep in mind the unfortunate weight of a “low card.”

A soothing tongue is a tree of life,

but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.

Proverbs 15:4

The tongue has the power of life and death,

and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Proverbs 18:21

Gracious words are a honeycomb,

sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

Proverbs 16:24