Looking for the Good

BY PRESIDENT DIETER F.UCHTDORF

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"We have a choice. We can seek for the bad in others. Or we can make peace and work to extend to others the understanding, fairness, and forgiveness we so desperately desire for ourselves. It is our choice; for whatever we seek, that we will certainly find."

"I don't like that man.  I must get to know him better."  

~Abraham Lincoln

"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him." 

~Galileo Galilei

Nay, Speak No Ill

 Nay, speak no ill; a kindly word

Can never leave a sting behind;

And, oh, to breathe each tale we’ve heard

Is far beneath a noble mind.

Full oft a better seed is sown

By choosing thus the kinder plan,

For, if but little good is known,

Still let us speak the best we can.

 Give me the heart that fain would hide,

Would fain another’s faults efface.

How can it please the human pride

To prove humanity but base?

No, let us reach a higher mood,

A nobler estimate of man;

Be earnest in the search for good,

And speak of all the best we can.

Then speak no ill, but lenient be

To others’ failings as your own.

If you’re the first a fault to see,

Be not the first to make it known,

For life is but a passing day;

No lip may tell how brief its span.

Then, oh, the little time we stay,

Let’s speak of all the best we can.

Text and music: Anon., ca. 1853

 29Let no corrupt ^acommunication proceed out of your mouth, 

but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

 30And ^agrieve not the holy ^bSpirit of God, 

whereby ye are^csealed unto the day of redemption.

 31Let all bitterness, and wrath, and ^aanger, and clamour, 

and^bevil ^cspeaking, be put away from you, with all ^dmalice:

 32And be ye ^akind one to another, tenderhearted, 

^bforgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

Ephesians 4:29–32