looking through me

Tag: words

November 19, 2014

loudest not best

I was half listening to the radio when a phrase jumped out at me: “. . . the loudest voices weren’t maybe the best voices . . .”[1]

Are they ever?

My word associations started firing: “voices” plural as in multiple people; “loudest” as in drowning out all other utterances. I pictured masses. Riotous mobs. Rabid fans. Passionate Kool-Aid consumers. Emotion-driven collectives. Individual wills morphed into the will and voice of the many.

Group mentality wields volume as a weapon to win the moment, whatever the moment is.

The loudest voices are rarely the wisest—or the most thoughtful or compassionate or restorative or truth-telling—voices.

Hardest to ignore, yes. But “the best” . . . probably not. In any context.

Might there even be an inverse correlation between volume and value?

When I taught fourth grade, it wasn’t raising my voice that grabbed my students’ attention—they were adept at tuning out increased volume as a tactic of control. Instead, it was when I fell silent or spoke softly that they knew it was serious.

Quieter, smaller, easier-to-miss voices often speak the most needed words . . . words laden with worth without artificial amplification.

Words don’t gain substance by volume. They might even lose it.

Truth resonates, even without a microphone.

 

[1] Block, M. (2014, April 10). How the son of a Confederate soldier became a civil rights hero [Interview]. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/04/10/301432659/how-the-son-of-a-confederate-soldier-became-a-civil-rights-hero

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September 4, 2014

scrape your lenses

“Scrape your lenses!”

That was a constant refrain when I was a child. My glasses-wearing dad could not understand how my brother and I saw through the layers of smudges, water spots and accumulated grime on our glasses.

I traded the glasses for contacts at the end of elementary school, and during college I had Lasik. But as my twenties waned I again found myself sporting non-optional eyewear.

I no longer need my dad’s reminder—I clean my glasses faithfully.

But his words still reverberate.

My vision clouds so easily. I find myself squinting through the buildup of bitterness and worry. Doubt and insecurity insidiously layer on top. A dusting of noise and busyness mixes in.

And then a voice cuts through, “Scrape your lenses!”

Oh, those are never the actual words being said, but they’re the translation my heart hears. They come in the concern of a colleague over my reaction to a situation at work, the observation of a friend in a small group, a sermon that seems to be aimed directly at me, the scent of roses and lemon blossoms the breeze wafts my way, the uninhibited laughter of a child . . .

Suddenly it’s clear I’ve been looking through the glass dimly; unaware my sight was altered. I need the reminder to be wary of complacent, lazy, myopic spiritual vision: scrape your lenses, Kristen . . . scrape your lenses.

 

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