The Danger of Words

“Words divide reality between either/or, living experiences are both/and.” ~ Richard Rohr 

Words are a necessary part of life. We must have words to function in society.  Not to mention to know people and be known by them; to communicate ideas and thoughts so others will know what is going on inside of us. Even people who cannot talk have a language all their own where they use their hands to communicate. If you have ever traveled to a foreign country you know the problem of not speaking the language. You are reduced to hand signals or facial expression, or speaking your own language louder as if the problem is their hearing and not your words. Not having words in life produces chaos. 

However, there is another problem. Words divide reality and cause us to see things as we want to see them. In a simple illustration let’s use a chair. Once I call a chair a “chair” I reduce it to something I sit on. But in the coffee shop I am at, the chair in front of me right now has my feet in it, the one next to me holds my backpack. So the chair is also a stool and a table. Also these chairs are made of metal and wood, they are put together well. Someone designed them to be sturdy and to last for a long time. But if I took one of the chairs apart and spread all the parts out on the floor it would no longer be a chair, per se, it would just be a pile of wood and metal, but it would have the potential to be a chair again. So really the chair isn't a chair, it just has a “chairness” about it. 

How about a more serious illustration, what about when we label people? When we assign a word to someone we immediately assign a kind of worth or value to the person. For instance, when I say, “That sure is a pretty lady” I am saying everything about her is pretty. She never has an ugly moment, she wakes up pretty, she is always pretty. Or if I say , “That is a nice guy” I do the same thing. In a sense I pass a kind of judgement on said person. I may not be judging on purpose, but I am saying they are a particular “something”. Derogatory comments work the same. I may say, “He is just a redneck” I am assuming some things about this person which may or may not be true, yet in my mind (and maybe verbally to others) I have placed my definition of reality on this person. I have now reduced this person to just a few bad character traits. I am assigning him the reality of the “him” I see. My reality, my viewpoint.  When we use racially slang words to this process it gets even uglier. People  are always complex and the product of many issues in childhood and on. We must know the whole person in order to “know” them. 

What about when we do the same thing to God? What about when we place words on God we think are truth about him?  If humans are complex, God is infinitely complex. I will address words about God in another post, but we need to think about these things. If we are going to love God and each other the way Jesus called us to, we must think before we speak and try to see people from multiple view points; not just the one most obvious or most in line with our worldview.

In order to love one another we have to see the both/and of each other. We have to realize people are good and bad all wrapped up together in many different ways; and we all struggle in our own battles. We have to see the woman on welfare who is trying to mother 3 children; and also broken over her mistakes; and also deals with depression and a lack of education. We have to see the man who works all the time and neglects his kids and wife because he is striving to please the ghost of his father who was never satisfied. We cannot stay stuck in our either/or thinking of each other if we are ever going to love as Jesus called us to love. 

The key is to see each person as Jesus sees them, his creation, who he loves, he died for and he cares for. Before you speak a word about people make sure you are seeing them through many points of view. How God sees them. This is the only way we will ever get past hate and hurt in the world and take on each others burdens to see change. Jesus paid for our sins by taking them on himself, maybe we can get over each others sins by sharing the burden of them together. We have to see from multiply points of view. 

“If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.” James 1:26

A viewpoint is a view from a point

The other day as I drove with my wife and 21 year old daughter, we started discussing gas prices.  My daughter said something that made me giggle. She said, "I used to wonder what the big deal was about gas prices. I mean, we have to buy it no matter what. But then I had to start paying for it!" We all had a good laugh because she had been enlightened. I had a similar experience when I first moved out of my parent’s home and recieved my first utility bills. I thought, "What in the world?!? They charge for this stuff?" Up until then my parents had handled all of that. From my point of view, and my daughter’s, to worry about those things was ridiculous. Until the point we were viewing them from changed. 

A point of view is the way we see things from where we are. People say, "You can't see the forest for the trees" which is the same thing. Some times life has us at a point where we cannot clearly see and sometimes we have to move to be able to see what matters. Humanity, however, tends to not want to move. Moving means change and change means stepping into the uncertain. We don't like uncertain, we want certainty. Richard Rohr says, "When we give into the fear of uncertainty life becomes a series of insurance policies.” This is truth, when we will not allow ourselves to step boldly into uncertainty we spend most of our time trying to insure no one or no thing will upset our certainty and life becomes defensive.  (More on this later)

I went mountain biking with a friend the other day, we were talking about critical thinking and how it has become a lost art. He said the most profound thing, "In order to think critically we have to remove ourselves from ourselves and objectively put ourselves into someone else's position and see from their point of view." We have all heard this, its called, "walk a mile in my shoes" or empathy. 

Every point of view is a view from a point. And every point of view has a life of experiences and beliefs behind it. Every person on the earth has a view on things and that view is from a point of experience. But just like my daughter with gas prices, once your beginning point changes, your view changes. Once you have moved from one point to another things become clearer or more obscure. Once my daughter moved from having her gas paid for to having to pay for her gas her view of gas prices changed.

Jesus taught this. In Matthew 7:1-5 he said, "Judge not lest you be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brothers eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the log out of your brother's eye." There is so much in here I can't even begin to write about it in one blog post (maybe there will be more on this) but there is one important point Jesus teaches here- before you can see clearly to help anyone, you have to look at yourself first. The blind cannot lead the blind.

Most of us are much more comfortable telling everyone else what they need to do instead of figuring out what we need to do ourselves. I am the world’s worst about this. I can see other’s faults much clearer than my own. I have to look for mine, search for them and dig them out. It’s a hard job, and it requires changing my point of view. As hard as this is I want to give a pointer on how I have begun this process.

In my years of studying about and thinking about Jesus and his teachings there is one little trick I have learned to be effective in growing, it’s pretty simple but also profound at the same time, as many deep things are. When we see Jesus teach something as emphatic as "The measure by which you judge you will be judged" it tells us something about his teaching. What I like to do it turn that around on itself. So I may say, "The measure by which I am judging everyone else, I need to judge myself with." Here is how that works. Say I am around someone who talks over everyone and it gets on my nerves and I say to myself "what a loud belligerent jerk" I find if I will just ask myself "Do I do that?" I usually see I do! So I realize that my point needs to move so I can clearly see myself! Once I get "me" out of it, then I can effectively help someone else out of the same problem, if they want me to.

This is important as Christians because if we are not careful we tend to be the morality police. We tell everyone else what they need to be and not be doing, but yet cannot control ourselves in the process. So we tell people to not have monogamous same sex marriages, but Christianity's history has been plagued by sexual sin. We tell people to love their enemy, but Christians can be perceived as sign-carrying haters of opposing people groups. Christians must get the plank from our own eye before we attempt to help anyone with a speck or very simply keep our mouths shut.

How do we start? With ourself. If we come to terms with our own brokenness, failures, sin, hate and points of view which are wrong, we can start to move our points. When we realize we do not have the corner on truth, and sometimes someone's life is not as simple as right and wrong, we start to see the person, and not just the action. We start to move our "point". And when we move our "points" our view will become more clear, and gas prices will make more sense.