I recently watched “a Thousand Words”, a comedy movie. Jack McCall, played by Eddie Murphy, finds an unusual tree with 1000 leaves in his backyard. After discovering that with each word he speaks, a leaf drops off of the tree, Jack refuses to speak at all, as doing so will keep the tree, and him, alive. Words coming out of our mouth return us in a disturbing way if we do not control them. This movie reminded me the beautiful saying of Fethullah Gulen: “Thinking before talking is no more different than chewing before swallowing.” (MFG)