Article November 4, 2013 Issue

Clear communication

Emma Jane Pendleton

Last summer, just before my freshman year in college, I worked as an engineering intern at a manufacturing plant in Oklahoma. The company I worked for makes machines that fuse pipes together. I worked with men in the prototype shop, who were all fun and laid-back people. I really enjoyed watching them design machine parts and helping them actually make the parts. I learned a lot about mechanical engineering as they taught me how to use the mills and machines.

After working around these men for a while, I realized that there was one thing they did that made me unhappy and uncomfortable. Many of the men I worked with in the shop used a lot of curse words in their sentences, and I heard a lot of profanity. It seemed to just be a habit for them—I don’t think they ever thought there was anything wrong with using these words. At first I just tried to ignore the profanity. But as I continued to hear it day after day, my love for my work began to wane. My parents had taught me not to use curse words, and they didn’t use them either, so I’d never heard this kind of language so constantly before. It really bothered me and diminished the happiness of the environment.

When I realized that these men were going to continue using this kind of language, I thought of what I’d learned in Christian Science about how man—meaning all men and women—was really created. The Bible says that man was made by God, who is the only cause and creator (see Genesis, chapter 1). Once I realized this, I also knew that the only thing that the men in the shop could reflect was constant righteousness and good coming directly from God. 

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