Exercise: “Breaking the Sound Barrier”
Prompt: Use sarcasm. Really go for it.
To be honest, I have been stuck on this prompt for a couple of weeks. I do not like my sarcastic self, and so it is an important step, making friends with her and learning what she has to say without using her wrongly. Help me Jesus.
July 8, 2024
Confession: I have been reading the national news, a folly I rarely indulge in, may God forgive me; and now I am feeling sick about the events of the past weekend, only an hour away from my hometown. Usually I know better, know more clearly which problems are mine in the world and which are not. But sometimes the lure of the breaking news, the unfolding of once in a lifetime historical events (occurring these days at a rate of two or more a week) is too great for me.
So here I am on a Monday night in July with my gut kicked in, devastated that our long, slow walk through history has come around again to this level of inflammability, selfishness, and political violence. However problematic our politicians become, they deserve to speak without taking bullets to the head. What will become of our world if we use AR-15s to solve our problems?
I am sick at heart, and surely it would help, I think, if I made some kind of public statement to address the issue. I feel I should do my bit for God and country and put something really good out there. I think long and hard about a statement I could make, something magical and concise and pithy and healing and effective and just it, you know? I think of this sentence. I think:
Violence is not the answer.
That’s good. It is very effective, I believe. It is very original too, right out of my own head. I am sure it will be of great comfort to those who are grieving their losses right now: the loss of safety, and of trust, and of their son the shooter, of their father the firefighter, and of whatever is left of their right ear. Also, it elaborates just enough about whose side I am on, going on for five words or even more (if you count the period) without giving it all away.
I am on the human side.
I should say that too, I think. That would surely help.
I am on the human side in this conflict, and violence is not the answer.
So crystal clear! Such a path forward!
Even if we don’t know what the answer is—I mean is it Jesus or freedom or kindness or truth or unity or what?—it’s clarifying and cohesive to know what the answer is not, no?
Some answers cannot be spoken, only lived.
And that is the Catch-22. Words may not help, but sometimes they must be found—and sometimes not. Whichever path you choose may land you in the crosshairs. I myself have been so devoted to words in real life that I have used them with great diligence to successfully create all kinds of problems, far past the edges of safety and sanity. The options are limitless, really, when it comes to vocabulary gone wrong.
I’m just so glad I live at this time in American history, when people are free to stand before a crowd and say what they believe, however false or true, and know they will be safe and respected as persons. That freedom-of-speech clause has made all the difference. We are far past the old days of punishing thoughtcrime by the burnings at stakes and the twisting of screws, and we can speak out in countless safe spaces without fear of bodily harm, principled outrage, and emotional frostbite. We’re getting so much better at hearing each other out, you know?
Listen to me now.
In 2024, the market costs for both words and silence are skyrocketing, but the cost of disagreement—of mental noncompliance both public and private—is off the charts.
Why?
As Edward P. Jones writes in the voice of the drunken Barnum Kinsey, a white patroller, reporting to his authorities on the cruelty he witnessed of a white colleague to a black man, but worrying what the truth will cost him:
It’s just that there should be a way for a body to say what is without somebody sayin he standin on the nigger side. A body should be able to stand under some… some kinda light and declare what he knows without retribution. There should be some kinda lantern, John, that we can stand under and say, “I know what I know and what I know is God’s truth,” and then come from under the light and nobody make any big commotion bout what he said. He could say it and just get on about his business, and nobody would say, “He be stickin up for the nigger, he be stickin up for them Indians.” The lantern of truth wouldn’t low them to say that. There should be that kinda light, John.
Jones, Edward P. The Known World, Amistad 2003, p. 303.
But we. We humans are known for what we are against; it is one of the most important things about us. Obviously we couldn’t give our intellectual enemies the same rights and privileges we claim: the right to speak and be heard, the right to be safe while being unpopular or wrong. That would be the end of truth as we know it—of all safe spaces as we know them. Clearly.
When a presidential candidate, a troubled young man on a roof top, several thousand spectators, and an unimportant blogger living a quiet life an hour away converge on a summer event in Butler, Pennsylvania, who will speak? and who will be silent? Who will take a life on principle, and who will lose one?
Statements are wonderful. More of us should put them out there.
In case you cannot see my face now, I am smiling, not scowling. Thank you for listening as I walk out my exercises in honesty and healing. Jesus is still in charge. His plan for the redemption of all things goes forward unscathed.
Several suggestions for a response: Be sarcastic back to me. Raise your hand if you’ve seen people caught in the crosshairs for what they did and did not say. Quote the most powerful or confusing part of this post and share your thoughts on it. Or tell me one thing you’re carrying in your heart today.
“Emotional frostbite”. Good one.
And I wonder what would happen if the three characters you are wondering about could all make eye contact long enough to sit down together and say nothing at all? I like to imagine what could happen in that quiet space too…. I know at least one could have done that.
❤️ Thank you. That is a good picture.
Funny. We were just discussing this event at lunch, an hour ago, re a candidate dropping out of the race. “Someone tried to drop one of the others out,” I said.
“He got earmarked instead,” my husband said. (I’m sure this pun had its day, but I don’t follow the media enough to know; it was new to me.)
All together now: Let’s raise a fist against violence!
Well, I for one think sarcasm is not the answer. Because how can anyone trust anyone when you aren’t even saying what you think? I mean, seriously now!
(That was sarcastic.)
I like the sarcastic part of you. I’m glad you indulged.
Lol! You guys are all making me laugh, and making my day. 🙂 Thank you.
At this point all the good people who are on the human side could just move to Canada. We don’t raise our fists – we are very polite and we don’t say what we think.
Believe me, I regularly consider Canada. 🙂
Same here. I’m glad I got all my children Canadian citizenship, just in case!
That’s rich. We’re over here occasionally discussing the pros and cons of getting our children American passports 😂 keep the options open I guess! Loved the sarcasm. I struggle to say anything non-sarcastically so this was like, hey they’re speaking my language!! Favourite post yet 💕
But really be careful about your thinking of Canada. This is not meant to be sarcastic – I read yesterday that Canada is the most liberal “in the whole world” on gender change issues.
“We’re getting so much better at hearing each other out, you know?”
I love this! I said it in my best sarcastic voice in my head. I have way too much politics offered to me in my YouTube so I had to go search for other content so that my suggested page doesn’t look like politics from start to finish!!
I enjoyed your writing and have enjoyed all your new posts.
Being caught in the crosshairs! It hurts!! Sometimes more for the things you didn’t say than the truths you said!
As one who has been caught in the crosshairs, I loved the quote from Edward P. Jones. I too want that light.
And I love sarcasm and also struggle how to use it well and wisely and Godly… but there is a place for it. I think maybe Jesus was sarcastic sometimes in some of his statements.
However, I cannot generate sarcasm… it has to come when I’m feeling snarky (hence the danger of misuse) and so cannot give you any back currently.
Thanks for writing!
Shari, I love your posts but do not have a way with words. When I want to put something out there I have to pay someone to put it into better words. Maybe next time I will hire you. And that is not sarcastic!
😉
Well. I’m a little muddled on what was sarcastic and what wasn’t. For instance, I think “the options are limitless, really, when it comes to vocabulary gone wrong.”
Thank you for asking! That is the danger of sarcasm, isn’t it? Of our words being confusing or misunderstood because they can be taken multiple ways? It’s almost a trick of people getting off the hook for what they say, because they can always claim they didn’t mean it, or meant it literally – or not. Maybe sarcasm, like fiction, lets us say things we couldn’t quite say straight out.
In this case, the line you quoted is one I meant at face value. I think the words people speak can be used against them in countless ways… what they say, what they don’t say, what they meant to say, what someone else understood them to say.
But it’s still a sarcastic line, in a way that’s hard to put a finger on: I think because it’s spoken in the same chirpy, optimistic way that we are used to hearing in a sales pitch, like, “The options are limitless with your new bonus plus member savings card!” [starry eyes] It makes it sound like it’s going to be a good thing, and then it’s not. So the tone is still sarcastic. And beneath that, there’s another layer: of a longing for words to be simpler, yet set against that, the dissonant reality that they are not, which means there is a kind of bitter grief in it too. Does that make more sense? It’s clumsy to spell it out, but good for me to look at it more closely myself.
Clearly a tool to be used sparingly. 🙂
#sharigenerouslyoverexplains
😂
I’ll use a bit of sarcasm here…I hope I don’t begin a political argument, but I don’t think you’re on Trump’s side of the fence, are you? 🙂
😂
I’m on no side, remember?
😉
Just sort of hovering in the air, then? 😉
Maybe finding alternate ways to change the world. 🤷
That, really, is the only hope we have.