Politics of Change, II

“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” John 7:24

Conservative or progressive? I decided last week that I prefer G.K. Chesterton’s appellation of “reformer” to either of the two more traditional viewpoints concerning change. Change is the hinge pin upon which all this debate, both modern and ancient, revolves. In what direction are we moving? Is it good or bad? Who decides?

As Christians, we are uniquely situated between this world and the next to offer both friendship and judgment. We embrace this world as God’s gift to us both to use and to tend, fallen though it may be. But we also have a picture of what it was supposed to look like and what it will be when fully redeemed and restored. No one else can offer this perspective of where we came from and where we need to go. Our sense of “change” has a fixed standard, an eternal vision, by which we can measure true progress. Francis Bacon, the father of modern science, wrote back in 1620, “For man by the fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over creation. Both of these losses however can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences.” No need to apologize. We stand in good company.

To make judgments against our culture is the epitome of bad manners these days. The very word, “judgment,” is loaded with sinister connotations and will quickly make for embarrassed looks at modern day dinner parties. Yet that is clearly what we are called to do in the traditions of all the prophetic voices of Scripture. It may mean standing on a street corner and calling on fellow travelers to repent, but more likely, it will impel us to just examine on a daily basis the choices and the voices that confront us and decide which are of God and which are not. To judge is simply to discern truth from error. Those who deny the dichotomy of truth and error are hopelessly lost in an endless maze of aimless confusion. They are to be pitied; not emulated.

But the essential part of discernment is to have a clear vision of what the eternal non-negotiables are. I was raised to never attend movies in a theater. That protest against Hollywood lifestyles died when movies came into everyone’s home on TV. What is the standard that we are communicating, and where do we draw the line? As our culture and technology change around us, we have to have fresh insights into what exactly we are to cling to and what we should reject. This calls for constant, new-wineskin thinking. It is probably the most difficult challenge that each generation faces; to hand down the visions we cherish so dearly to a new generation without the chaff of outmoded forms and traditions. Even for myself, I need to have my visions of faith and stewardship reborn anew as I fight the stultifying agents of age and routine.

So, too, education must never become encrusted with unquestioning, rote repetition of the past. But neither should it be allowed to become a free-for-all sandbox of new and untested theories where innovation is prized for its own sake. Take the field of English for example (as I promised). I continue to believe that words have both power and meaning. (That can be revolutionary enough in some circles.) I do not believe that words should be allowed to fall into the hands of slick lawyers or querulous intellectuals who would shred their meaning for selfish purposes. I do not think they should be allowed to fall into the grasp of skeptics who would lace them with a thousand doubts. And I pledge to resist the perversion of language by pornographic perpetrators in the name of realism or the cheapening of language by trendy shortcuts that deny the power of the narrative or the poetic. I believe that the printed page still can represent the highest ends and accomplishments of mankind and can lead us to the Book of Books that continues to illumine our pathway home. This is my vision that I hope will guide me through the tumultuous waters of change already lapping at the boat we know of as “language arts.” It is also the vision I hope to impart to the next generation, whether they kindle, text, tweet, or blog (four words which were not even in our vocabulary ten years ago).

Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe

my space

I am well known to my family and friends as someone who is both glad and despondent over the new media that invests our lives at every point. The invention of word processing was truly an incredible blessing especially for all of us who remember manual typewriters, carbon copies, and white out. E-mail has also been a development that has revolutionized cross country and international communications. I still have a box of daily letters my wife and I exchanged while I was stationed in Korea. A phone call home at that time would have cost a day’s wages. Ham radio operators were the only practical means of communicating with missionaries abroad. For just these two developments alone, I count myself fortunate to have lived to see them. They rank right up there with the telephone, the airplane, and velcro. Yet, the dark side of the new media is with us as well, and we have yet to learn how to cope with it all. We cope, yes, in that life goes on. The struggle comes in determining just how much of our lives we will invest in it and in discovering to what extent it is affecting us for good or ill. These things are not readily apparent and take time to analyze.

I tremble, tip toeing where angels fear to tread, in challenging some conventional thinking regarding the social websites and the place they have come to occupy especially in the lives of our children. I have caught a glimpse or two into the world of adolescent ‘face-booking’ and have not been comforted. I had a hard time discerning the difference between it and the silly notes we used to pass in class in elementary school except that these are high tech in full color with photos. So, is that so bad? I had to think on that one. Obviously, the potential for cyber-bullying is incredible for ruining a reputation with a photo, rumor, or a total lie. None of us, I would hope, would allow our children to participate in this whole social networking thing unmonitored nor permit them to participate in cyber-assassination in any shape or form. This is not where my struggle is.

I am concerned about good kids just being their silly selves and having access to such a powerful interactive tool. Why? I am worried on two counts. First of all, both myspace and facebook require that all participants be 13 years of age or older. I suspect that I would be a rich man if I had a dollar for every less-than-thirteen year old with a myspace account. We need to re-examine our commitments to honesty and forthrightness if we are aiding and abetting access to these social network sites by our children. If these sites were as free of peril that some Christians might imagine, we should ask ourselves why it is that a purely secular company has put such age restrictions in place. It is a direct contradiction of our River’s Edge priorities to enable or allow our underage students to practice deception of this kind.

Secondly, I fear the propensity of on-line socializing to widen the chasm that separates teens from adult society. We know that given enough time and opportunity, teens will create their own sub-culture apart from the real world. What we now talk of as the “teen culture” is a relatively new phenomena that came about in the 1950s as a result of greater leisure time, increased prosperity, and the growing media. The markets picked up on the disposable income in the pockets of teenagers, and they became a target focusing on their interests and fads.

I would ask myself as a parent if I want to facilitate this social isolation which only seems to serve up in spades the most banal of adolescent dialogue. Scripture says that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. I am still discovering pockets of it tucked away in the nooks and crannies of my life. Anytime we allow children to pull apart and set up their own community unmolested by adult values, we should not expect much. At worst, we can look to “The Lord of the Flies” to see what can happen. And marvel not at the abilities of teens to speak in code, a new language safe from adult interception. Do you really know what your kids are saying?

professional hazards II

“The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life:” Proverbs 10:11 KJV

Last week I talked about the perils of communication. Pro. 10 tells us, “In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression,but he that refraineth his lips is wise.” This we know quite well from experience. We all remember, with embarrassment and pain, times when we have hurt or been hurt through well meaning exchanges with even good friends. The lesson that echoes through our hearts is to “keep our peace,” to just not say what comes to mind even when we know that someone ought to say something. True enough, Scripture abounds in advice in matters of the tongue and reminds us that “the heart of the righteous studies how to answer.” But that is far, so very far, from calling us to a vow of silence in a world full of troubles.

In the very same chapter where we are told that in the multitude of words there is peril, we are also told that wisdom is found in the lips of him that has understanding, that the tongue of the just is as choice silver, that the lips of the righteous feed many, that the mouth of the just brings forth wisdom, that the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, and that the mouth of the righteous is a well of life. Much of Scripture contains paradoxical truth. A paradox is troubling in that it calls us to think and weigh out opposing elements with a judicial eye. It is also comforting in that truth is seldom simple, a reassurance to us that the Word of God is a real-world testament and contains deep wisdom.

How interesting that in a single chapter there are six verses that praise a right word fitly spoken and only one that calls for caution yet we remember the one most clearly. ‘Tis a mark of our humanity that we are forever conscious of our own frailty and remain to our core a bundle of fears. We fear others, and failure, yet we are called to be instruments of God’s truth in a world of confusion and falsity. But we would be like Jonah, preferring flight to a storm tossed sea rather than be a truth bearer and confront a world gone wrong. How much safer it is to avoid the battle altogether than speak a word for righteousness sake into the lives of a neighbor, a co-worker, or even our own children.

While there is much to learn about being the wise one who speaks with grace, making knowledge acceptable, being a truth speaker is the ultimate in risky behavior. Jesus did it as well as anyone ever could, but we all know where it got him. What makes the difference between the eventual success of a Jonah-message and the martyrdom of Stephen, both of whom spoke the truth in love? No one knows for sure, but I read a lot about the prophets being stoned in Scripture. Yet we know that God’s truth brings life. The word of correction is the sure evidence of a father’s love. And whoever would name the name of Christ is now the bearer of good news into all the world, let the chips fall where they may. We must also stand, at times, in the footsteps of Martin Luther, defying the known world, and declare with him, “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

For all of our truth witnessing into the lives of our own children, for all those dangerous ventures we made into the confines of their young souls, molding, prodding, praising, and rebuking, we were still very conscious of the possibility of error and injury to these tender shoots. At some point near young adulthood, we approached them in fear and trembling and asked them if there were any instances where we had left a seed of bitterness in their hearts at all the correction we had poured into their lives. We awaited fearfully as each of them scanned the horizon of their years, just sure there would be a list of grievances, small or large. To our relief, there were none. We slept better that night. But we also slept well knowing we had been faithful to uphold God’s standard of Truth as best we knew how. It is a delicate balance, but one every faithful watchman knows full well.

professional hazards

“In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression;” Proverbs 10:19 ASV

Lawyers live in fear of that lapsed word, that oversight of precise language that could cost someone his fortune, his home, or his reputation. No matter how much good they may have done on behalf of a multitude of clients, tomorrow could reveal a calamitous error. Doctors, too, go home each day and pray they have made the right call as they prescribe small portions of healing drugs from closets full to overflowing with deadly toxins of every kind. Preachers step down from pulpits and immediately are plagued with doubts about the “rightness” of their pronouncements that hang somewhere between heaven and earth. And each must mount that cockpit again and again daring to speak for God to the world all the while secretly wondering how preposterous a task that must be for any of Adam’s race.

Preachers, teachers, and writers, all who live by the words of their mouths, whose stock and trade is an endless stream of pungent vocabulary formulated into wishful sense and meaning, are condemned to co-exist with the constant dread of error and offense. Facts come out incomplete, judgments are ill-conceived, and words trip up even the most astute and knowledgeable. We who speak daily, write weekly, or lead constantly are conscious of the two-edged sword that hangs over their heads. At any moment our words can fall upon us and cut in deadly fashion. If any are not duly humbled by that daily possibility, there is truly something very deeply wrong and dangerous about them, and they should be barred from all of the above.

Just last week I stumbled badly in my use of language that gave offense where none was intended. A friend also was reeling as his efforts at leadership were constantly being sidetracked by a whole series of misunderstandings, words run off the rails by unseen and undetected sensitivities. I watched two other highly trained and capable individuals labor and strain to understand one another. This all was happening around me in the span of one short week. It is enough to make one despair at the prospect of ever constructing accurate and effective communication. Oh, to be an artist painting in a solitary studio whose only dialogue is with pigment and palette. Oh, to have the simple life of an assembly line worker who can look with satisfaction at a thousand widgets well made at the end of a day.

But where would we be without lawyers fearlessly exercising their craft to create a world of law and order? How well would we live without doctors who dare to cut through flesh and bone or deal in life saving medicines? And where would we be without preachers and teachers who go where angels fear to tread, laying down the unseen measuring lines whereupon we build our lives?

Lest you pity too much these professions and the daily perils they face, remember that we as parents have equal hazards to our trade. We, too, pour out a torrent of words upon our children every day, their meaning loaded with the freight of tone and grimace. We correct, admonish, train, reinforce, encourage, and address them powerfully in our many different roles. So, too, the potential for catastrophe is there with words said in ignorance or haste resulting in wounded spirits, or at a minimum, have the potential to stir up strident responses. No wonder some parents would rather retreat to a world of passive permissiveness than dare to conduct those daily interdictions that call for incisive language in an effort to bend young lives to receive and shoulder the yoke of responsibility.

To speak words of truth is to claim a moral high ground, one fraught with risk. May we be courageous enough to try when the time comes to defend our corner of the wall; and humble enough to admit the possibility of error so endemic to us all.

(to be continued)