Pro-God

Our culture uses a lot of funny words.  Words are powerful things.  I think back to a quote from Harry Potter, “Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it,” I am amazed at how powerful and true this lesson is for young children to learn.  It is also very important for adults, too.

 

As a kid, I remember learning the lesson that “if you can’t something nice, don’t say nothing at all” (Bambi).

 

While there’s some goodness in that (like, don’t gossip), this is not a biblical concept.  Yes, I know, Bambi was not trying to be biblical, but I think that many Christians have adopted this a value to strive for and live by, and it’s just not entirely accurate.  Scripture, on the other hand, says,

 

“Nice” is not always “Helpful.”  In fact, when people focus on saying “nice” things, they often end up saying lies.  There’s nothing good or holy about lies.

I have spent a lot of time bottling up things that I should have/needed to say, simply because they weren’t “nice.”  And it’s always caused me a lot of frustration and pain.  However, on the contrary, I have also spent a lot of time using mean words.  Cruel words.  Hurtful and harmful words.  That is also not good or holy.  The temptation when trying to fix a problem in our lives is for us to swing from one extreme to another, and that is rarely (if ever) a good solution.

Our society uses funny words.  And the words that people use these days are not only powerful in their meanings and implications, they are dangerous and taken out of context.  And it breaks my heart to see people use their words so irresponsibly.  I, as a devout Catholic, have felt the sting of words such as “homophobic,” “intolerant,” “hateful,” “stupid,” “ignorant,” “old-fashioned,” “irrelevant,” or “evil.”  They throw out the prefix "pro" or "anti" like it's going out of style (but, on the contrary, it is VERY stylish).  People have been making claims that my kind (as in, devout Catholics) are “anti” love, which, in turn, makes them “pro” love?  It’s all very confusing and convoluted.

For several months now, I sat back and just watched people’s reactions to gay marriage, to Planned Parenthood scandals, to lion’s being killed, to confederate flags being flown, to people being martyred for their faith in other parts of the world.  I have been too scared, confused, and careful to respond to these things.  People have had such violent and aggressive reactions to these things, and they use their words, often to express holy ideas, but in unholy ways. 

For the next several weeks, I am going to be addressing some of these issues, both to address the ideas that are, in fact, truthful, but also to help Catholics do a better job of using their words to be holy.

Remember, Jesus is the word of God.  Words are powerful.  Use your words to glorify God, to live love, to be humble and to bless others.  Sometimes those things aren’t nice (although sometimes they are), but they are NEVER mean.