Author Archives: Spencer J Smith

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Usin’ Some Grace Colloquially

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I wrote this piece for my school newspaper. It got relatively good feedback. My friends enjoyed it. People I didn’t know enjoyed it. I should have counted that as a success. But I didn’t. The one, loud, glaring piece of feedback is a comment someone posted. The commenter accused me of using too many exclamation points (maybe I did, so what!) and too many colloquialisms (I use colloquialisms on the reg so whatevs). Those are facts. I did use more exclamation points and more colloquialisms than normal journalism usually allows. But he went further. He said these things damaged my credibility and that the piece sucked. Downer.

I got angry at first. I wanted to respond to his comment and tell him he was really stupid for thinking all of that. In my daydream, other people came to my rescue, too. They lauded my response and ridiculed him and basically verbally pummeled him. Obviously, this was not a healthy place to be.

And then I got to thinking. I do this all of the time. I criticize things that I have no right in criticizing. For example, I was recently reading this best seller, and I just wasn’t jiving with the writing style. I got to this point where I was thinking that this piece was objectively bad writing. But obviously, it’s not. It was a bestseller. Thousands of people love it. I just want my own opinion to be justified on an objective basis, and that’s balderdash.

I have a friend who gets to work with famous people regularly. A week or two ago, a group of us was all really excited because she got to meet a celebrity we all really admire. Turns out, this celebrity wasn’t all that nice to my friend. And we were all really disappointed when she told us. But my friend pointed out that she only got to interact with the celebrity for a couple of hours. So maybe the celebrity was having a bad day or a bad week or was going through something hard or was disappointed in the ticket sales. None of those things really justify being mean or rude, but at least they humanize the whole thing. We can identify with people who are mean because they are distracted by other things. That makes sense to us.

I guess my point is that we hardly ever know the full story. What that kid who commented on my piece doesn’t know about me is that I have a disease that makes me use too many exclamation points (not true). And maybe the author of the bestseller I was reading was really influenced by her editor and publisher. Maybe they made her cut her story into nothing but plot and dialogue.

For the brave ones: when did you judge or criticize someone too quickly?

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I Wish I Went to High School with Isaac

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I don’t talk to many of my friends from high school anymore. It’s a bit of a shame because they are all really cool people, and they would all probably be a really good influence on me. Most of them are all super responsible, routinely get to bed before midnight, and know what they want to do with their lives.

I do this thing, though, when I am having a bad day. I cyber-stalk all of my high school friends. I do it because it makes me feel worse about myself. It’s the same line of reasoning that makes girls watch chick flicks right after they have been dumped. My high school friends are all incredibly put together people who are mindful enough not to be internet downers. It’s probably not true that their lives are perfect (because no one’s is) but that’s the way it seems to me.

It’s all really self-indulgent and annoyingly embarrassing that I do all of this.  I probs shouldn’t even be sharing it with you.

Anyway, I was reading some Genesis the other day. And I got to the part where Isaac meets Rebekah for the first time. A little background for you:  1. Isaac was 40 years old when he wedded Rebekah. I’m not sure how the whole maturing into adulthood thing worked in the Bible because, you know, people were living to be 175 and stuff, but we have that whole movie The Forty Year Old Virgin. That movie is funny because it is absurd to think that someone so old would be a virgin.

2. Isaac didn’t know Rebekah was coming. Abraham (Isaac’s father) sent his servant to find his son a wife.

So for over fifty verses leading up to the meeting, the narration has been focused on Rebekah. We don’t know what Isaac is up to. And the first mention we get about him is this:

Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. (Genesis 24:62-3)

Isaac was meditating when Rebekah came! He wasn’t worrying that as a forty year old he was doomed to be alone. He wasn’t stressing out about if he was ever going to get married. He wasn’t waiting for a wife. He wasn’t cyber stalking his friends and self-indulgently comparing himself to them. No, he was meditating. He was spending time with God. He was enjoying a beautiful evening.

I think I should be a bit more like Isaac.

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An Invitation

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I wish I talked to people more. I chatter with people all day, but it’s useless noise. I don’t ask hard questions. I don’t want to offend. Instead, I spend my time complaining and gossiping. Which is great if your friends are one-dimensional stock television characters. (Hint: They aren’t!)

Most of the people I know want to change the world. But we think it’s going to come from raging against the machine. It won’t. We think if we yell loud enough, cry often enough, complain ferociously enough that we will one day change everything. But that’s never going to happen.

I have mentor crushes on two Christian bloggers, Jon Acuff and Donald Miller. Some people know that if a specific person popped the question, they would say yes. I know that if either of these two offered to be my mentor and teacher, I would move wherever they told me to and do whatever they told me to. By no means are either of them perfect. I have followed them through several missteps and foot-in-mouths. But there is something really important about both of them. They love people’s stories.

In one of Donald Miller’s books, he talks about a group of five or six guys who didn’t know each other. He thought they should, though. So he invited them all to breakfast and said something like, “Listen, you are all really creative and passionate people. You can be important to each other. We should be friends.” And just like that, friendships were born. They met biweekly for breakfast and a couple of years later, they were serving as groomsmen in each other’s weddings.

I live in my own apartment now. And one of my favorite parts about it is that when I invite people over or plan a lunch or dinner with someone, it means something. I can talk to them. I don’t have to chatter. It’s not enough, though. I want all of my interactions with others to be important, to be meaningful, to be real.

Let’s get coffee. Let’s talk. Even if I don’t know you. Even if you don’t like coffee. Shoot me an e-mail if that sounds like a plan.