Like many of you, I'm thinking about how I'd like 2019 to be different from other years. I've been silent on my blog a lot because sometimes I'm very upset. Sometimes what I want to say is either going to just increase my frustration or offend others, and I'm not interested in offense for the sake of offense. If something is wrong, I will speak my peace, but after I speak my peace, I decided to hold my peace. I also found out there was a way to increase my peace while still sharing what I think, feel, experience, and believe. One of the things I decided was to change how I shared things online. I tell people that my social media exists for three reasons: to share things with strangers, to remind myself of things I found and why I found them interesting, and to yell at public figures. With rare exception, this blog has already changed to be kinder and more uplifting, but my twitter feed is angry and condemnatory. The internet essentially runs on outrage. People either find or fabricate something that will foment discord and then let it fly. Meanwhile, they found a way to monetize it, and they use this anger to enrich themselves while other people tear each other apart. It's vulgar. So many people seek high places and high access so that they can rip on others. Well, I decided to try to change how I phrase things so that I can invite the people with whom I disagree to change reform rather than simply attacking them for what I perceive as deficiencies. Essentially, I'll offer them the choice: do you want to continue to be worthy of criticism or would you like to change to something better?
Contention is of the devil. If your motivation and intention is to incite a riot, or if you criticize others to get attention and attaboys, you're doing it incorrectly. Correction is supposed to be about the person, an invitation to change, so if you make it about you, to stir up contention, to appear to be better, or to get likes, retweets, shares, etc., then all you're doing is getting people upset. Sometimes it is necessary to go backwards first in order to move forwards, and sometimes it's necessary to destroy something to make way for something better, but if you're just throwing Molotov for the sake of sowing destruction and discord, then you're a wrecker. Wreckers don't need to be smart or skilled or principled. They just have to be loud. They just have to be controversial. Usually they thrive on attention because they are small, and being part of the riot makes them feel they are part of something. Wrecking is also sometimes fun; if you don't believe that, go take part in a demolition. It's fun to swing a sledge and break a wall or throw rocks through windows someone doesn't intend to reuse, but those just make a mess. Someone must clean up the mess when you finish the demolition or all you find at the end is a pile of rubbish. Wreckers don't usually clean up, and when they do, they don't often clean up well. A few proximal neighbors cleaned out homes vacated between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the amount of rubbish and debris from the former tenants overflowed the dumpsters they ordered so that garbage remained in the street days after the owners cleaned up. So, the houses look vacant and trashy. They may look better, but they're still damaged and dirty, and that's not attractive moving forward.
Your attention and affirmation for criticism only extends as long as your audience agrees with you 100%. As long as you attack the common enemy, people will cheer and support you. If you ever defend someone they perceive as an enemy, they'll forget prior allegiances. Perhaps you remember Cindy Sheehan of Code Pink who was a darling of the anti-war movement until she went into the weeds on some other ideas and started to cause embarrassment to the members of her original premise. Maybe you can understand and even appreciate her passion. However, if passion is a substitute for reason, your movement will not be reasonable and the people who share your passion will not be able to reason with you. Aristotle wrote that "the law is reason free from passion", and most argumentation, since it exists to stir up contention, is impassioned. They will talk about the plight of people without discussing how they got there. They will talk about our responsibility toward the downtrodden without talking about the responsibility of the downtrodden to help themselves. They will talk about mercy without justice, about generosity without respect for your time, about the needs of others without thinking about your needs. They will talk from their own perspective because everyone does. Everyone tends to project his world view onto others. So, since nobody sees the world the way you do, nobody will agree with you 100% except for you. Nobody. Some may come close, but there's an asymptote of perspective that means eventually contention will arise even in well-intended movements and ideas that are actually good. This tends to corrupt them from their intentions and create unintended consequences that marginalize many accomplishments and tarnish the members who genuinely do their best to create positive changes.
All too often, people talk about change as if it's all good, when everyone knows that change isn't always good. Fresh iron changes to rust. Smooth skin gives way to wrinkles. Noble politicians turn into greedy scoundrels. The law of entropy appears to govern not only chemistry but also psychology as well, probably because we are also made of chemicals and rely on them for our function and continuity. According to this law, if left to themselves, all things decay and increase in chaos and ruin. That's why a Savior was necessary. Damaged things cannot repair themselves, and imperfect things do not usually right themselves. Eventually, all things and all people must be invited to change FOR THE BETTER. The Christian way is to not just call people sinners but to invite them to repent. The criticism that matters isn't that which points out flaws; we all know that every person everywhere is flawed, no matter how the celebrities and politicians prattle their prescience, proficiency and purity. Criticism that helps people see a better way, to change FOR THE BETTER, to repent and turn another direction is what matters. Wrote the apostles: "But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luke 14:10-11)". Jesus constantly praised those who acknowledge their unworthiness before God, their need for a Savior. In truth, the first step to reformation is recognition. Come and sit in the lowest room. Cleanse the inward vessel. Start with the man in the mirror. Start by changing something chaotic in your own life, and then shalt thou see clearly to remove the mote that is in thy brother's eye. It is easy to be critical. It is easy to be a wrecker. It is tempting to exalt ourselves, and all too often when we criticize we do so out of pride because we miss the mark. It is possible to critique someone without being critical. People who offer critiques all believe this, even if you perceive their critique to be critical. Maybe it is. More to the point, when you give the "constructive criticism", you want to be judged on your intentions. Why and how we do something matter just as much as what we do if not more. If you reprove with sharpness and then ignore someone or ghost them, they are probably justified to view your actions as ill-intended. However, the well intended invitation to change comes concomitant with an increase in care, concern, and love towards the reproved. You don't cut them off. You continue to minister to them hoping that they will return and repent. The humble man who calls you to repentance will also point you to the Savior. He will show you a better way. He won't just roast you for a weakness, but he will show you a way to make weakness into strength. He will continue to strive with you.
Life is an uncertain realm filled with danger where the weak are often oppressed by the strong and where we either burn or grow stronger in the furnace of affliction. Like the iron in the forge, the affliction exists, not to point out our weaknesses but as a means to remove them from us. Impurities are removed in chemistry one of two ways: addition of a solvent or changes in the heat. It is no accident that we are made better by baptism of water and fire. Our lives are invitations to draw closer to a Savior, to rise up, to rise above our baser natures and become better men, to build up and build upon and build better things. Wrote the poet:
I walked one day through a lonely town; Some workers were tearing a building down. With a ho-heave-ho and a husky yell, they swung a beam and a side wall fell. I asked the Foreman "Are these men skilled? The kind you'd hire if you want to build?" "Oh no," he chuckled. "No indeed. Common labor is all I need. Why I can destroy in a day or two What builders have taken weeks to do." I thought to myself as I went on my way Which of these roles have I tried to play? Am I a builder who works with care, Strengthening lives by rule and square? Or am I a wrecker who walks around Content with the task of tearing down?
Destroying things and criticizing others is easy. It takes no skill or candor or intellect or training to tear down others. It takes a great deal of skill and talent and time and patience and practice and work to create something. It takes someone and something more than tweets, hashtags and financial donations. It takes a Savior. This year, I decided that I would try to talk to others more like Jesus did. Yes, sometimes He was upset with what they did or why or how, but He also invited them to be better, to come to Him, and He tried to build them up because He knew of what they were capable. Enzio Busche once admonished me "When you cannot love someone, look into their eyes long enough to find the hidden rudiments of the child of God in him." I choose to make my commentary reflect that I care about them and desire better things for them. We'll see how well I do.
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