James 3

Friday, March 8, 2013

James 3

This chapter is about the awesome power of the tongue.  My favorite bits:

"5 See how tiny the spark is that sets a huge forest ablaze!"

"10 Blessing and curse come out of the same mouth.  This ought not to be, my brothers! 11 Does a spring gush forth fresh water and foul from the same outlet?"

 It reminds me of a recent thing that happened to remind me of the awesome power of our words that we fling about so carelessly.

I was sitting visiting with a friend of mine on the couch, when one of my brothers friends stumbles over to us from where he has been having a small gathering of his own.  She is the only girl present at the party and drunkenly explains her desire to commiserate with women over the way the boys have been treating her.  There was some mansplaining involved.

I forget just what wandering turns the conversation took to get here, but at one point she misspoke, saying of her current boyfriend, "I'm his boyfriend!"  She began to laugh at the mistake, and asked what would that even mean?  I offered, without thinking, "Is that a way of calling yourself a fag hag?"  My friend looked over at me in shock, and I blanched.

I hadn't meant to say it, and though I have often heard it used playfully rather than offensively in recent media attempts to be edgy, I immediately felt deep regret at using the offensive term.  Which I then had to explain and define.  And I could tell that not only she but the boy who wondered by to get another beer from the fridge and became embroiled in the conversation, had a temporary new favorite word.

I felt terrible.  Not only did I introduce a concept that is patronizing and belittles a too common and painful part of the gay experience, I, as I mentioned to my friend, hate reminding this particular group of people that the word "faggot" exists - mostly for my inability to convince them not to use it casually.

It was a small moment, it was a little phrase that popped out without thinking in a conversation largely unremarkable.  But I could see with uncommon clarity the disastrous ripples forming from that little stone.

A little reminder that our words have untold power, that they can start a great blaze.  That it's a wonder how great a good and how terrible an evil they can seem to do on the same day - and even more remarkable, given that, how little we regulate what we do with our tongues.