On the moral responsibility of speaking truthfully in a world of spectacle.
There are times when the world seems awash with words, tumbling over one another in noisy floods—statements, slogans, denials, distractions. And yet, for all the speaking, one cannot help but feel that something weighty is missing. Words, once clothed in meaning and bearing the marks of their passage through the soul, now float about like feathers in a wind tunnel. They touch everything and land nowhere.
In such an atmosphere, to speak with care is not simply a style, it is a form of resistance.
When I was a boy, I remember overhearing my grandfather speak with slow deliberation to a neighbour whose dog had, once again, trampled the vegetable patch. There was no fury, no flourish, just a quiet liturgy of honesty and restraint. “Words,” he once told me, “are like chisels. Use them gently and they’ll shape something solid. Use them carelessly, and they’ll shatter what you didn’t mean to touch.” I didn’t understand him then, but I think I do now.
We live in what some have called an age of linguistic lightness. Everything must be instantaneous, digestible, performative. Public speech is rewarded not for its substance, but for its velocity and reach. The loudest voice, the sharpest barb, the shortest clip, these win the day. But in this race to be heard, we have sacrificed the slow, difficult labour of meaning-making. We have forgotten that words are not just signals, but vessels. They carry truth, memory, history, and possibility.
The danger, of course, is that when speech becomes too light, it can no longer carry the weight of what matters. We end up with hollow consensus, brittle discourse, and the deep ache of being unheard even in the midst of noise.
To be a steward of the word, then, is to resist this cultural thinning. It is to take seriously the moral burden of language. Words do not float freely above consequence. They build or destroy, invite or exclude, reveal or obscure. To speak well is not merely to be eloquent, but to be faithful.
The philosopher Paul Ricoeur once wrote of the “surplus of meaning” that language can contain, that beautiful idea that our words, when chosen carefully, can mean more than we knew they could. But the opposite is also true. Language can be emptied of meaning through overuse, manipulation, or indifference. What we say matters, yes, but so does how we say it, and why.
And here, perhaps, we must begin with silence.
Before we speak, we must learn to wait. Silence is not the absence of speech, but the condition that gives it shape. It is the breath before the vow, the hush before the confession, the stillness in which listening becomes possible. To speak truthfully, one must first have listened long enough to recognise what is true.
This is not a counsel of caution alone. It is a call to depth. We need not fewer words, but fuller ones. Language that emerges from the well of inner life, not the churn of digital ephemera. Language that remembers, honours, attends.
And so I return to my grandfather and his chisel. He was not afraid to speak hard truths, but he shaped them slowly, carefully, in service of something larger than himself. I think of that now when I sit to write or stand to speak. The weight of a word is measured not only in its impact, but in its integrity.
We do not all speak from podiums or pulpits. But we all have words entrusted to us. In kitchens, classrooms, street corners, and email threads, we choose what kind of world we are building with our language. Will we flatten or deepen? Will we posture or witness? Will we echo the noise, or speak with quiet conviction?
This is not a call to solemnity or self-importance. There is room—God knows—for laughter, play, and joy in our words. But even our joy must be grounded. Even levity, if it is to last, must be held with care.
Let us, then, speak as stewards. Let us treat words not as throwaways, but as tools of formation and repair. Let us make space for truth that cannot be rushed, and meaning that resists the market. And above all, let us remember that every word we speak has the power to draw another closer to love, or further into loneliness.
In a world where speech has grown thin, perhaps the deepest act of courage is to speak with weight.
