Yeah, I took the bait this week: I threw up a Facebook post on the whole Hobby Lobby brouhaha. And like wild dogs fighting over a leftover pork chop, people jumped on it and spewed all kinds of venom at each other. I deleted my post. I tell ya, there are some interesting interpretations out there on how a woman’s fallopian tubes work. In any case…
…it wasn’t worth it.
I have some pretty strong opinions about this whole subject and all sorts of other subjects, sure, but today I feel a lot less “freedom” to speak openly in a public forum. I have to start counting the cost of making my thoughts known in certain arenas, especially with all things political. Some would argue (since that seems to be the only mode people communicate in these days) that freedom of expression and our differences are what makes this country great. I think, of late, it’s what makes our country really ugly and fragmented.
Before I click that highfalutin post button in the future, I’m going to attempt to call to the forefront of my mind the following:
1. Know your audience. People are either open or closed.
We know someone is “open” by how willing he or she is to entertain another’s point of view. These people ask questions – not in an accusing or condescending way that puts others on the defensive – but in a clarifying way, as if he or she is simply trying to understand. These people respond with statements like, “I can see why you would say that…” or “I’ve never thought it about that way before.” There exists a pleasant humility and a teachability in such souls. You are made to feel welcome and safe to express your thoughts, even when they are different from theirs. These are the folks you can actually have a productive dialogue with. I will continue to engage and share my thoughts with open people.
Conversely, people who are “closed” don’t try to understand you – they don’t believe they even have to. Their goal is to defeat you. They are trying to conquer you and your “erroneous” views. They know what they know, and they have nothing to learn from anyone else. They believe that everyone else needs to be picking up what they are laying down – never the other way around. These individuals use strategies like ridicule, name-calling, sarcasm, hostility, and even threats. You will read or hear such things as, “Libtards!” or “If you had a clue as to what you are even talking about…” or even, “Unfortunately for you, and I say this in love, if you don’t change your way of thinking [to mine] you will be burning in Hell someday for all eternity.”
I just have to think twice from now on before I put provocative statements out there on social media (even though I’m free to think whatever I deem sensible) when I know that there are those individuals out there who will simply pull the “bully card” and use negative strategies to berate and harass me and the people I love.
2. Those who are the most contemptuous online usually operate from a fear-based paradigm instead of a love-based paradigm.
My “jumping-off place” is love. I try to allow it to be the fuel for everything I do and everything I say. My “jumping-off place” used to be fear: fear of Hell, fear of rejection, fear that I really was just… nothing. Suffice to say, those were my “mean years”.
When a person speaks from love, it’s crystal clear to all involved in the conversation. Crystal clear. People may claim that they are warning someone about the error of their ways because they love and are concerned for that person. But if that person walks away feeling condemned, judged, ridiculed, patronized, humiliated, and/or belittled – you have not effectively loved that person. Remember that they are the ones who get to identify how they feel – not you. You can scream all you want to: “But I said it all in love!” six ways to Tuesday. If they don’t feel it, then you haven’t done an effective job of loving them. And don’t pull the whole, “Well, they feel that way because the Holy Spirit was convicting their hearts, and that’s not my fault!” Check yourself. Maybe it is your fault?
When a person’s jumping off place is love, people walk away feeling seen, if that makes sense. They feel heard. They feel known. Wrap that all up together and it amounts to being able to validate other people – a worthy endeavor. They don’t feel condemned or judged, ridiculed or patronized, humiliated or belittled. They feel safe. They feel as if you are an advocate for them as well as their friend – not their judge, jury, executioner, or “accountability partner”. They feel as if they could tell you anything, and you would hear them. You are compelling, a safe harbor, a sanctuary.
People are apparently pretty good at that “loving justice” part (as they define justice) but not seeing so much the need to “show mercy” or “walk humbly”. I can no longer engage in any sort of intelligent dialogue with a person who thinks they have the first one figured out but they ignore the other two. In the future, it’s all three of ‘em or it’s nothin’, baby – and that goes for me too.
3. Power grows with large numbers – Don’t wander into “enemy” territory.
Someone on my friends’ list invited me this week to like a page, “Obama is the Worst U.S. President in American History”. I responded to her with, “Thanks for the invite. Have to decline, though. I voted for him twice.” Only I didn’t respond to her – I managed to post that to the actual page. I was instantly besieged with vitriol and threats. My first response after looking around and realizing where I was, was to apologize and assure my assailants that I’d landed behind enemy lines quite accidentally and didn’t mean any harm. Hands in the air – white flag, raised high. My humble acknowledgement of my errant clicking didn’t even slow them down. “Retreat and Delete” was the only option left to me. They were merciless and relentless, and it was absolutely horrifying. I felt like I’d been exposed to a darkness that doesn’t often make its way into my inner sanctum.
These are some of the “camps” that provide sanctuary for those who agree, and they exist on both sides of the aisle, as it were. Many people get all their news and information solely from their selected camps along with their validation and ammunition to go out into the world and proclaim the truth as they have been instructed to see it. I will avoid these groups on both sides like leprosy.
4. All too often people erroneously see themselves in the role of “victim”.
I read an “article” this week on my Facebook news feed posted by a friend which stated that American soldiers had all had their Bibles confiscated by President Hussein Obozo and forced to participate in Ramadan.
W…w… Wait… what?
The individual who posted it was so indignant about this alleged injustice that she wrote: “This is unbelievable! What next???”
Baffled that anybody could truly believe such a notion, I replied, “Yeah, that does seem pretty unbelievable.”
To which her husband, in full agreement with her, replied, “It’s BULLSHIT, is what it is!”
To which I wanted to reply, “I wholeheartedly concur,” but thought better of it lest my snarky sarcasm be discovered and bring upon myself an avalanche of malevolence from them in the form of hostility and ridicule.
After all, I was already having a crappy social media week.
Everyone is a victim these days. Now, according to this “article”, every soldier in the largest, most powerful military in the world are all victims of our “Muslim President.” Please. It’s friggin’ exhausting. Everybody is peddling fear these days, and how many of these fears are actually based in truth? These “articles” are everywhere on the Internet and should be easily dismissed, but people believe this outlandish propaganda – hook, line, and sinker – and use it to fuel their anger because it’s ever-so-popular in these times to claim that we are being persecuted and oppressed by forces that are out of control and coming against us and not even slowing down. Our freedoms are being stolen from us! Quick! Somebody post a meme on Facebook!
No way to win this. I have to stay far, far away.
5. While I want to be able to speak freely, I can no longer provide a venue for hostility.
I am ready to be the last person on the planet who gives a platform to other people’s BS. It is all so phenomenally repellant to me that I’m willing, at this point, to be a little quieter. Some will say that is a shame – that I have a strong, powerful voice of reason, and I should not have to squelch that voice in any way. And, frankly, I teach and preach on finding one’s voice all the time and using it. I’m also aware that I, in no way, should take responsibility for what others say or how they say it.
But what of the virtues of silence? I’ve never explored those. I know nothing about being silent nor of its uses or benefits. If I’m being silent, it’s usually because I’ve chosen to be passive/aggressive in some way which only serves to scare the bejeezus out of people.
Maybe this is one way that I could try to make there be a little less of me and a little more of Christ. Certainly, I don’t have the wisdom of the world. I have much to learn. I can listen. I can be quieter.
I am seeking that balance between using my voice and staying silent. I am open to wisdom on this, but remember, I’m the one who gets to decide how you make me feel. So, being human, if your words come from fear and make me feel condemned or judged, ridiculed or patronized, humiliated or belittled – I won’t hear you, and I will be closed to everything you say, even if you do have some wisdom from which I could potentially benefit. But if your words come from love and make me feel seen and heard and known and validated and safe, I will open myself up and at least contemplate your wisdom which, if we think about it, is all we can ever ask anybody to do: contemplate our words. After all, asking other people to suddenly drop everything they thought they knew about everything and come side with us is a little lofty, don’t you think?
We are, all of us, either very powerful and effective or very repellant and unavailing, except to those within the confines of our own camps. Our words will either open a person up to wondrous possibilities they’d never considered, or our words will force them to retreat even further into themselves and as far away from us as possible. Words are barely even a sliver of it, though. Our projections of fear or our projections of love will be the most significant determining factor of how well our words and our wisdom are embraced.
Or not.
Good luck out there.
Daisy Rain Martin is editor in chief for RAIN Magazine. She is also the author of Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside and If It’s Happened to You, which can both be found on her website. Look for Hopegivers: Hope is Here in 2015.
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