Humanity is impossibly frail; and all the ways in which we are tirelessly working to deconstruct our humanity just serves to fracture what little bit of ourselves remains whole and functional.
Everyday the news is filled with horrible bits of horribleness which just gets more horrible all the time, so it’s impossible for me to classify what is more or less horrible than something else, but I was especially struck by an article I read yesterday on The College Fix:
I am a white, heterosexual, woman. I am not ashamed of being white or of being heterosexual or of being a woman. I don’t hate other people or other people groups. I don’t oppress other people or other people groups. I don’t have what I have because I’m white. I have what I have because I work. My life is what it is because I understand how fragile life is. I get that things do not often go according to “plan”; but deconstructing all that has gone before does not and will not make anything better in the present or the future. All it will do is raise up home grown angry and bitter children who hate their own parents, families, government, country and history. That doesn’t sound very good to me.
Humans are weak. Easily offended. Broken. Wounded. To think otherwise is stupid. To hope otherwise is foolish. To expect to live your life in a “bubble” or a “safe space” where you are never “triggered” is just plain idiocy. Wake up! This is the real world with real human beings who say real words that will offend, wound, hurt and cause pain. This is what it is to be human.
To interact with people in a real way we have to be willing to dialogue – to converse. Conversation requires using words – not words that have been dumbed down or words whose meanings have been changed to be “politically correct”. Real words with real weight and real meaning in the real world have power to effect change. Conversation can heal wounds, can bind up brokenness, can soothe a wounded soul. But only if we’re willing to listen to one another.
Cancel Culture and conversation stand in direct opposition to one another. They cannot co-exist. As long as mob rule is in play, conversation will be drowned out. Conservative speech and values will be labeled “hate” and progressive and radical ideologies will win the day. Or so it will seem. But I know and so should you that God is on the move.