A few hours ago, after the vote confirming Joe Biden’s election was finally certified, Barry C. Black, the Senate chaplain, said a prayer in the chamber that acknowledged the violence.

“These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the power of life and death is in the tongue,” he said.

May we consider whether our own words contribute to shalom or merely to our own individual agendas, and may we have both the wisdom to know the difference and the self restraint to speak or be silent accordingly.