It's All In How You Say It

Rachel Watkins ponders how the Blessed Mother responded to the angel Gabriel's interruption of her plans.

Are you familiar with the saying, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it”? Over the years, I have run a number of theater programs for homeschool kids. As a part of teaching kids to see their voices, tone, and body language as a vital part of their actor’s toolbox I use a simple exercise illustrating this truth. Gathering the kids around me, I ask them to repeat a familiar song such as “Happy Birthday," but do it in a variety of emotional ways.

I go first, showing them how to sing "Happy Birthday" as if I were really sad. Without having to think about what I am saying, I can highlight the fake tears, heaving shoulders and the breaking voice of real sadness. There is nothing happy about this birthday song.

Try it yourself with your kids. Pick a familiar song and an easy emotion such as anger. Watch each other as you sing a happy song without a happy tone. You quickly see it really isn’t what is being said that captures your attention, but how it is being said. You might be singing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” but with the harsh tone, tight face and the fisted hands of someone who is really mad, all you feel is the anger.

We even have examples of this from Scripture. Think back to Advent, where we have the Blessed Mother and Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, who both appear to ask the same question upon being interrupted in their days with the unexpected news of an unexpected baby.

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Both stories are highlighted in the Gospel of Luke. We hear from Zechariah first. Lighting the incense in the sanctuary he has just heard from an angel that his barren wife, Elizabeth will conceive and bear a son:

Then Zechariah said to the [unnamed] angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” (Luke 1:18)

Later, we have Gabriel delivering similar news as Mary, not yet living with Joseph, is hailed as the mother of the Savior.

But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” (Luke 1:34)

Take a closer look at what they say. They both ask “how?” and they both seem to have legitimate reasons for that question; Zechariah is an old man while Mary has no relations with a man. Is there any difference? Then how is it that Zechariah is rendered speechless until the birth of his son while Mary is able to give us her beautiful Magnificat when she travels to visit the now pregnant Elizabeth?

Could it be all in their tone? Their body language? Most theologians think it is exactly that; in a column for Our Sunday Visitor, Msgr. Charles Pope observes:

As for Mary’s and Zechariah’s reply being similar, but only Zechariah being punished, we must remember that written texts are tone deaf. Mary’s reply may well have been humble and merely seeking clarification, whereas Zechariah’s tone may well have been more rhetorical, dubious or scoffing. (Our Sunday Visitor 12/26/2019)

And for us, today? We are interrupted every day, time and again, not by angels but people who may have their own questions and their own announcements. How is our tone when approached?

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We are interrupted every day, time and again, not by angels but people who may have their own questions and their own announcements. #catholicmom

I know for myself, I can get testy when I’m interrupted and I’m not even doing something as important as lighting incense before the Lord. Whether it’s folding laundry or wasting time online, I do not like being interrupted and my tone will often reveal that. It will not matter what I am saying, how I am saying it will lean towards harsh and unkind.

“Yes, you can have a cookie,” I’ll snap. “We’re having spaghetti for dinner,” I say abruptly to my husband, who only wants to help cook. It’s not what I am saying, but how I am saying it. And the result to those approaching me? They are hearing the tone and not the words, and often walk away feeling hurt. Not a feeling I ever want to cause to anyone, much less someone I love!

Of course, it can be hard to remember the weight and power of our tone as getting interrupted is annoying but we can work on it. We can take a page from the book of James