It seems like ages ago when Max
Lucado used to inspire me with his daily devotional messages. I stopped reading
them when I abandoned my yahoo! E-mail account through which I had subscribed to
his service. And it’s been years too. But somehow, a line from his devotionals
has stuck with me. It’s a line I even used when I preached -yes preached- some
years ago at Chancellor College. Boy that seems like ages, ages ago…But the
line is simply this; “[Insensitive] Words
cause wounds that heal slowly.” [Or something along those lines…] I dunno
why folks are so bloody careless with their words. I don’t know why even the well-meaning
are so reckless with what comes out of their mouths.
Of course it’s not
possible to guard against all verbal slipups in the world. Some words will hurt
not because they are hurtful in themselves but because they exploit that sore
fragility of the listener. Their insecurity, fears and what not. Against such
kind of hurt, perhaps no provision can be made. But there are words
that are inherently vicious that unlike the benign word that hurt those already
vulnerable, these take some inhumane
stoicism to wave away. So make no mistake. Before you let that joke slip or
that comment escape your lips, think about the impact it will have on your
audience. For many are the words that for all their superficial innocence
exploit stereotypes of the worst kind. Racism, sexism, tribalism and all the
other isms that continue to inflict so much pain around us. I see it all the
time on social media. In conversation with friends. In writings of most
respected authors. It’s a deep seated
problem really. It’s diagnosis particularly tricky. Part of it is simply
ignorance of course. After all, sensitivities have got a cultural context as
well. Looking at a person in a particular way may be offensive to people from a
particular culture. For some, it may be that innocuous omission of the prefix ‘please’ from a most sincere request which at the end horribly
comes out as a presumptuous command, which may cause offence. Indeed, for as
many people as there are on earth, each with their own singular past, so are
the possibilities for offence. And it’s
even more challenging because most of the frames through which we process our
communication are deeply embedded in our psyche. Lifelong held assumptions
about people cannot simply disappear as a result of a lecture on the niceties
of courtesy and what not.
Its complicated business this sensitivity
stuff. But that’s no excuse for harsh brusqueness. A little attempt to know our audience could be
a useful starting point. An acknowledgment that our most fundamental
assumptions about people may be wrong could also be helpful. And a resistance to
the often powerful tendency to rob our audience of their humanity. It’s strange
isn’t it, how the golden rule is often trampled on? Do unto others as you would have done to yourself, simply put is ‘see
in others the humanity you see in yourself.’ The vulnerabilities that are there
in you, that potential to hurt, to tear and bleed exist in the next person
regardless of age, sex or any other status as they do in you. If this thought
endured at the front of our minds (as
opposed to its back), we would cause
others less hurt with our words…
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