When I was in college, I worked at a restaurant where the manager was a tyrant. On any given night, the scene in the galley would include Tom yelling at someone and that someone either yelling back, ignoring Tom or slinking away in tears.
During that time, I probably did more reading that I could ever dream of doing now, and in the course of that reading, I found a nugget of truth that I've quoted many times since.
I so loved this nugget that I wrote it boldly on a piece of cardstock, puncuated it with a smiley face, and tacked it above the window where the chef passed the food to the servers.
As soon as Tom saw it, he snatched it from its prominent location and tossed it in the trash.
The phrase was "Behavior breeds behavior."
Tom knew that his grumpiness and impatience caused grumpiness and impatience among his staff, but he didn't want anyone else to know. He seemed to prefer being bossy and nasty.
His bossiness eventually closed the doors of the restaurant for good.
I've been reminded of my favorite phrase quite often today. I awoke this morning to find that my voice was completely gone. I can barely raise it to a whisper.
This isn't the first time this has happened. I seem to lose my voice around this time every year. Twice I've lost my voice just after being asked to do a radio interview.
Losing my voice always causes me to take pause. It makes me realize how much I use--and abuse--this tool that God gave me. Rather than wishing my voice would come back, I sometimes wish it wouldn't. I've often believed that if I could be a quieter person, my kids would also be quieter people. I don't seem to be able to force this in myself, but when laryngitis strikes, I see that it's likely true.
Because the interesting thing about voice loss is that when I whisper to my family, they whisper back. Sometimes they do it to be silly. But sometimes they do it without even realizing that they're doing it.
Losing my voice tends to take away the things that most offend me about myself; yelling, responding with a sharp tone, calling for people from other rooms or from the other side of the house, being quick to speak instead of quick to act.
So, while I do appreciate my voice, I think it might be nice to lose it for a longer period of time--say, about three months. Long enough to establish new habits and patterns that I could retain after my voice returned. And if God felt that I was straying from those habits, He could take my voice away again until I straightened up.
I doubt that I have months to be voiceless, though. It's likely only days. But in that time, I'm enjoying the fact that I don't have to answer the phone, that people have to come and find me instead of hollering for me and expecting me to holler back, and that I can justify e-mailing instead of phoning.
For just this brief period of time, I get a chance to see what it's like to be a quiet person, and how that behavior can breed quiet behavior in others. And I like it. I hope I can figure out a way to make the behavior stick even after the vocal chords have healed.
Here's to peace and quiet, whatever it takes to get it.
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