Faith: Angry words should be allowed to marinate

Two or three folders stuffed with little pieces of paper covered in scrawled notes. A computer file folder named “ColumnSeed” with files named “ColSeed0001” and on up, presently, to “ColSeed0334.”

What each of those folders holds, of course, are ideas for newspaper columns/blogs and, now, podcasts.

The column-starter ideas submerged in them (though most are relatively benevolent) are a bit like the nuclear missiles resting in submarines and silos: they are usually out of sight, but I feel better knowing they are there.

I almost never look at them. When I do, I am reminded of why I almost never look at them.

Most of them seemed good to me at the time, but now seem weak, at best, and completely unneeded and uninteresting, at worst.

More than a few of them seemed timely at the time. That time is not now. The week I handed a diploma to a son, a few of those ideas were fresh, and I wrote about one of them. The week each of my grandchildren was born, I was overflowing with gratitude. Still am. But it’s another time in those sweet lives.

Even the “bug emergency” a granddaughter brought to my attention regarding bugs adrift at sea in our backyard wading pool, well, was an emergency then. And I wrote about it, and I’m glad.

But a few such noted moments are notes past their “sell by” date now.

Most of my column-starter notes, as I mentioned, are benevolent in tone, but not all.

Some of my not-so-benevolent notes are actually complete columns that I wrote while ticked off. Writing them delivered me of a gut-load of fury - righteous, self-righteous, or otherwise - but they never needed to see the light of day. I am not, you understand, saying they were untrue. But Scripture tells us that truth-speaking should be done “in love.”

Even if your point is ever so true and desperately needs to be made, skewering someone with pointed truth heated by blistering anger is much more “aggression” than it is “love.” It never helps.

So the angry columns — and, I’m pleased to say they are few in number - helped me at the time but will help others only by staying where they are. All of which, by the way, is a good reminder that anything you write quickly as a text, a social media “shot” or reply, etc., should be allowed to marinate a bit before you fire it off.

Curtis Shelburne writes about faith for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at

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