Chicken Little Redux

 Hey, Cobblestone,

    When the weather app lacks detail, I will sometimes get a forecast from one of the local TV stations. I say “one” on purpose: I stick with one channel so I don’t have to adjust for multiple meteorologists, don’t have to recalibrate for various levels of hype. I tried a different channel a few days ago because it was giving the forecast earlier in the day, but instantly realized the task of recalibration was beyond me – nope, gotta wait for my guy. I like “my guy,” as much as I can from opposite sides of a flat-screen, get a kick out of his speech patterns. He uses funny little redundancies like “simultaneously at the same time,” and “in our southeasternmost communities here to the southeast,” and “in the meanwhile.” My favorite part is he doesn’t use them to be funny; they just happen. And then, not long ago, in what was essentially a commercial for his station’s weather program, I heard him say a thing that was plainly scripted and deadly serious: “As a professional meteorologist, my job is to keep you safe.” 

    No. No, it isn’t actually.

    You and I have been working on redeeming language, Church. So far, we’ve realized – along the measuring lines of the Three R’s: Receive, Reject, and Redeem – that it can’t be Received as all good, and it certainly can’t be Rejected as all bad. We’ve committed to the task of redeeming language (I hope you’re in!), even though it’ll take rebuilding much of how we speak. We’ve identified three categories of speech: the language of Love, the language of Information, and the language of Persuasion – and described the differences between them. We’ve seen that the language of Love was the first one we learned but lost it for the most part, so it’s not our prima lingua. We’ve hypothesized: the way back to our first language is to become free-and-easy in speaking it with our Father in heaven, and I’m picking up evidence that we’re making great strides in that direction. The next step is to become adept in speaking the language of Love to one another. I wish it were a natural and free-flowing step, but there’s a moment of caution to be observed first, which is the topic of this week’s letter.

    The language of Love must be spoken within its proper context. The simplest description I can offer is: among those who know one another. The language of Love carries out its wonderful purposes only among those who know one another’s names and stories and have at least one object of love in common. Affection rides along the highway of familiarity, connecting Points A and B, and the highway is paved with terms of endearment, encouragement, and genuine concern. Nothing lands closer to the soul than the language of Love spoken well and properly.

To put it in Bible terms, look at a Psalm that was in our reading plan a couple days ago:

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

    The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house,

    and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

    in your light do we see light.

Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you,

    and your righteousness to the upright of heart! (Psalm 36:7-10)

    “To those who know you”… the Lord shows his steadfast love to those who know him; we who know him understand that the river of delights and the fountain of life are the natural outcome of our Father’s steadfast love. We shelter in the shadow of his wings, and at the same time, see light by being familiar with his light. To anyone who doesn’t know the Lord, all the benefits of creation – what theologians call “common grace” – are so common as to be attributed to a cosmic accident. Without familiarity, there’s no reason to even think about steadfast love, or anyone conveying it.

    Much as I like him, the TV meteorologist was using the language of Love outside its proper context. “My job is to keep you safe” is a statement to be made by a parent to a child, or grown child to an aging parent, as a shepherd in a local church – any number of relationships we might think of, as long as they involve a legitimate concern… and familiarity. The man doesn’t love me – not because he’s incapable of loving – but simply because he doesn’t know me. I’m not throwing rocks at the guy – I’d be glad for the chance to sit down over sandwiches and a couple of Cokes – I think we’d get along famously. I’ve been reluctant to use this illustration, honestly, but have, on the logic that getting weather forecasts is something we all do and can relate to. It would do us well, I believe, to be on the lookout for the language of Persuasion posing as the language of Love.

    Hijacking the language of Love and putting it to the purposes of Persuasion has become so common it’s almost unnoticeable – in the speaker and the hearer. It’s not only done in commercial enterprises and politics, but in families and homes and churches. With the languages of Information and Persuasion being our go-to’s, the language of Love gets drafted and put to the task of amplifying the other two, which is contrary to its nature. The first step in redeeming the language of Love is to refuse to misuse it.

    I do it. At times I’ve heard you do it. If you catch me doing it again, will you please, in love, call my attention to it? Can I have the same arrangement with you? And while we’re in this vein of thought, is there any further Bible instruction on how to help one another? Gee, how could there not be? Check this out – keying on the theme of “light” in Psalm 36, here’s what Peter’s first letter has to say:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1Peter 2:9).

    We who have been called out of darkness and into the Lord’s marvelous light will find it possible to see where we’re going and what we’re doing. Of all the peoples of the earth, his presence makes us distinct (see Exodus 33:15-17) – a holy nation. If anyone is going to redeem the language of Love, it’ll have to be us. I’d say a good strategy is to go in an escalating order from marriages to homes to families to church, working up to whatever “nation” means. 

    Because of the quirky way my brain works, I got curious about why the study of weather is called meteorology. My research isn’t terribly extensive, but here’s what I got so far. Back in the days of the philosopher Aristotle, people worried about the sky falling. They could see meteors at times and wondered if hailstones the size of lima beans might be the warm-up for hailstones the size of cows. Aristotle gathered the best info available on the subject of weather and published it in a book titled Meteorologica. Over time, it was learned that meteors/meteorites and hailstones were unrelated, and some folks relaxed a little. Others haven’t still. But at no point did Aristotle directly keep anyone safe – he simply provided a handy reference. The job of the professional meteorologist ever since, best I can tell, is to let us know whether the sky – or any portion thereof – is falling. We’ll need to figure out what to do from there. 

    In the meanwhile, if it’s my job to keep you safe from any harm, I’ll do my best to express it in terms of Love.

Grace and Peace (in the cloud and the clearing),

John