Many children have experienced the divorce of their parents. About half of us have, statistics show.  For those who have gone through that experience, there is a common transition that usually takes place with each of the parents. It’s one pronoun that changes so much. That pronoun is “your.” Where a father once might have said to his children, “Mom is at the grocery store,” after the divorce, a “your” gets added. “Your mom will pick you up after school.” It’s subtle but communicates such a difference. It is a relational shift. A distancing. 

Enmity has a way of adding pronouns. It reveals the chasm and depersonalizes the people who were once so close to us.

When the older brother sees the celebration taking place for his younger brother, his bitter and hateful heart is revealed through his choice of pronoun. He says to his father, “This son of yours.”  

We can fall into the trap of objectifying our enemies through the language we use. If we separate ourselves through our language, we can more easily mistreat them, disregard them or treat them as “the other.” The Enemy thrives on using our language to create distance, division and hate.  

Reflection: Who have you turned into “them”? Who have you stopped calling “brother,” “sister,” “neighbor,” or simply “someone God loves”? Sometimes the first step toward reconciliation isn’t changing what we do. It’s changing how we see and even how we speak.