Have you noticed how people on the far ends of the life-cycle spectrum appear to distill the human condition down to its most elemental forms? On the one end, little people have yet to develop the self-editing super-ego that will soften the more socially frowned upon aspects of the id. In other words, they wear the inside stuff on the outside. On the wrinkly end of that same spectrum, like teeth, inhibitions have a way of falling out as well. Here’s a story that starts off as a study in early childhood malevolence that revealed something almost universal in the human condition across the lifespan for me.
Many graduations ago, on the evening of my son’s first grade end-of-the-year party, my workday and my wife’s work-night schedules required that we attend the party in shifts. When I arrived about an hour and a half into the soirée, Lisa told me about a little boy scuffle between my son and one of his best friends, Jared. Time wouldn’t allow her to fill in all of the details. I would have to investigate on my own.
Having been a little boy myself, I knew that there were at least two sides to this story. After hearing my son, John Harry’s point of view, I located a mom who was present for “The Kick Heard Around the Playground.” She described how one of my son’s best friends, Jared, grew frustrated as he started to lose a game of four-square. Jared was a frequent houseguest. Storming out of a game that he had judged unwinnable was an ongoing bad habit for him. My son loved and still loves sports. He loved, and still loves to win at sports. Back in the day, depriving him of an earned victory would have been considered a very low blowindeed. Apparently what ensued was one shove leading to another. This time, Jared was not about to lose! He chose the nuclear option. He let fly a soccer kick that would cause any father from a several mile radius to stop, cross his legs, and wince.
You ever hear a toddler fall headfirst onto a resonantwooden church pew? The four seconds of silence that follow are similar to the lapse in time between the bright flash of lightning and the subsequent clap of thunder. After all the missing air returns to his lungs, the little person sings out his pain from the diaphragm like Pavarotti straining to hit a high note. When the bellows of my son’s lungs were refilled, he apparently let go with a Hounds of the Baskerville’s howl that caused baseballs, Frisbees and kick balls to fall silent in the dirt… that caused all the babies in our township to pause momentarily from nursing at their mother’s breasts…that caused otherwise unreflective men to stand as still as monks during the Angelus to ponder the true underlying fragility that is the masculine condition.
Thanks to his first grade anatomy, John Harry made a full recovery within minutes. Jared’s parents delivered a firm and immediate consequence. The party had returned to normal by the time I had arrived. But an interesting phenomenon followed. First one mother, and then a father, dangled subtle and not-so-subtle invitations to critique the development of Jared’s character, and by implication, that of his parents.
This Sunday, my church celebrates the official conclusion of the Easter liturgical season with Pentecost Sunday. A famous scriptural story that cycles around on this Sunday every year has to do with the power of God’s Spirit manifested most convincingly in the speech of the disciples (Acts 2: 1-11). According to this story, a new power was on the move. The crowd gathered was amazed at what they were hearing from the mouths of people as ordinary as a next door neighbor. This Sunday, I invite you to consider the tremendous power of speech to manifest God’s Spirit in building others up, or conversely the power of speech to manifest the lower angels of our nature in tearing othersdown.
In actuality, Jared was a sweet little boy who made a bad mistake (encouraged by my son’s snotty behavior). Yet something within me wanted to follow the dark conversational pathway of critiquing Jared and his family. Constant tugging from my two year old with her desire to hit the playground saved me from this near occasion of sin.
There’s a tendency hardwired into our fallen natures to enjoy a little bonding at the expense of someone else. There’s a kind of pseudo-intimacy in identifying bad behavior in somebody “over there,” because after all, our morally elite, good looking group over here would never think to think like they do, act like they do, or emit negative energy and bad smells like they do. The more elite our education or religiosity, the more skilled we can become at couching this destructive entertainment in words of “concern.” .
This Sunday, consider the kind of speech that you’re bringing into the world either by what you say, or what you listen to. What kinds of words pass from your mouth into the world? Do your words shine a light on the best in others, or do they direct your listener’s attention toward flaws and defects? What speech are you regularly listening to? Are you allowing yourself to revel in someone else’s words that vilify people with a different point of view than your own? Do you regularly listen to media sources that vilify others with sweeping generalizations, labels, and insults?
“Use your words” is a phrase familiar to every mother’s child. Maybe after the threshold of abstract thinking has been crossed, that toddler phrase could be amended, “Use your words with care.”
Dialogue
Would you be willing to take some time to consider whether or not you tend to deploy your words with intentional care or not? Here on Pentecost Sunday, let me ask that question with a slight nuance. Do the words that you speak, or the words that feed you, provide a playground for Spirit to change this world into a place where cooperation, community, and love are made manifest? If not, what is your intentional plan to change that?
What procedures have you found that assists you in checking the universal human tendency to celebrate others’ defects?
In her Pulitzer Prize winning book, Demon Copperhead (2023), Barbara Kingsolver asserted that Appalachans, and other rural folk are still targeted with stereotypical insults without any compunction on the part of the speaker or writer. Somehow, biases against this subgroup remain socially acceptable. Are you aware of any remaining internal biases toward one group or another that sometimes reveal themselves in an unexpected phrase or joke that unconsciously escapes your lips? How do you respond to yourself in those moments?
Can you think of an experience where someone you know skillfully redirected a negative conversation, or a slur?