Tag Archives: God

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Words are Sticks and Stones

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Let’s compare two different sayings about speech. First, the ever popular, Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. And then this, lesser known one: “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” That last one is from Solomon’s Proverbs. All the Proverbs are pretty good. You should read them, like now. Seriously. Stop wasting your time reading my blog, find a copy of Solomon’s Proverbs, and read them. And then come back if you want to.

All my life, I’ve been someone who is hurt by words. I’m hurt by words even when people have no intention of hurting me with words. And for a long time, I thought that made me weak. I never had a broken bone from either sticks or stones, but words always hurt me. People would always tell me that I should stop caring what other people thought about me, as if it was a disease. And if I just took the cure of not caring, I would become a healthier person.

And so I learned how to use sarcasm. People were sarcastic with me, and I was sarcastic back because I thought that was what was expected of me. Sarcasm drifted into all of my relationships. My romantic relationships, my relationship with my brother, my relationships with my parents, my friends, my acquaintances. But I wasn’t all that good at sarcasm. If sarcasm was an actual language (like some people say it is), I was nowhere near fluent so a lot of times I would just give up and be sincere with people. And that’s where you start to get into trouble. Because when you are sincere with people, human nature is to start expecting people to be sincere with you. (My psych professor tells me that is why Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud stopped being friends – Jung was mad that Freud wouldn’t open up to him.)

The verse from Proverbs is always reentering my life. I think about it a lot. Because the truth is that words hurt. And they hurt everyone. Not just me. It took me a long time to figure that out because people don’t like showing that they are hurt by words, but they are. I think the first relationship where I eradicated sarcasm fully was with my brother. It took time, and it was hard at times, but my brother and I hardly ever are sarcastic with each other now, and it’s brought us really close. It’s amazing how deep a relationship can go when you are honest about how much you care about each other and what you like and dislike about each other without the veil of sarcasm.

The horrible thing about sarcasm is that once you start, you think it’s a way of life, that it’s natural. And so even when you are conscious about it, it pops up every once in a while and stabs people you care about. I stab my parents with sarcasm all the time. And I hate that.

A very close friend and I communicate almost solely through sarcasm. And it’s horrible because it escalates and escalates until one of us says something that is really hurtful, and then it feels like we may not be able to talk to each other anymore. I recently admitted to her that I can’t communicate in that way anymore, that it hurts me and that I know it hurts her. And it was hard because I felt like I was being weak. But it seems silly to choose to live in the range of swords when you can be in a peaceful meadow instead.

I know it’s going to be tempting to say something sarcastic in response to this post. But I challenge you to actually think about it, and to respond sincerely.

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Dancing a Sacred Song

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I like to look around in places where we aren’t supposed to notice other people. One of my favorite places to look around is church. People do surprising things at churches. The only churches I’ve ever gone to regularly are contemporary, postmodern types where it’s not really clear what denomination anyone is. I can’t really see myself being happy anywhere else. I am too much of a pluralist to find denominational churches appealing. And one of the pluses of non-denominational churches is that they typically have really good contemporary music. I’m not much of a singer so I really like worship bands that are loud. That way the loudness can kind of drown out all of my self-conscious thoughts about being a bad singer. Plus, I just like hearing music that sounds like music I might hear on the radio. It makes it feel like I might be worshiping all the time, not just on Sundays when the worship team is leading the congregation in Psalms.

Anyway, the best time to look around at church is while everyone is singing. Everyone’s kind of into their own thing. I imagine if you were some sort of psychologist and knew what all the signals meant, you could really tell a lot about people based on what they do while they are supposed to be singing at church. Some people are spending time with God. Others are doing what they think makes them look like they are spending time with God. There are a couple of people who are more concerned with what their neighbor is doing. Some dudes are standing with their arms crossed. They can’t even soften up at church. Parents are busy trying to keep their kids from going somewhere they shouldn’t, which always kind of strikes me as silly because one of the best things about worshiping at church is when one of the small kids breaks away from her parents.

Corinna Phillips and Kim Lyons by Barbara Jewell © Barbara Jewell/Lois Greenfield Photography Workshop!

She never really goes anywhere. She just stays there right in front of her parents and starts to dance. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful because of the simplicity of the thing. She doesn’t comprehend all of the metaphysical things we are taught to think about when we are worshiping – raise your heart to God, let the words be a prayer to God, praising God as a community is important, and all that sort of thing. Instead, she hears music, and she dances. She probably knows that she is in God’s house and that God loves her very much. And so for her, it’s kind of like dancing in front of her grandparents. And it kind of makes me think that we spend all of this time stressing out about God’s will, and we really shouldn’t. All of that stressing out could be avoided if we just started dancing. We won’t always get it right. But that’s okay because God has our back. Sometimes the little girl tries to climb up on the pastor’s chair on the stage, and at that point, her parents have to lovingly tell her to come back.

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Writing to God

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I think I started to get semi-serious about writing right around the time that I started to get semi-serious about girls. If you’ve ever gotten semi-serious about girls, you know it’s a complicated matter. It motivates you to do things like dress better, play sports, and pretend that you have to shave. The problem with getting semi-serious about girls, though, is that you very rarely finish anything. You write a little bit, then cry a little bit, write a little bit more, talk to a girl, cry some more, write, sleep, dream about girls, pretend to shave…. and nothing ever gets done. And it’s just a hassle.

I tell you all of this because what I really want to say is that I started to get semi-serious about writing because I wanted people to like me. I thought if I wrote my moody pre-teenage feelings poetically enough on my Xanga people would say “Ooh, he’s moody and poetic” and then they would immediately associate me with other moody and poetic people like Johnny Depp and John Mayer.

Moody and Poetic Teenage Writing

Here is some moody and poetic teenage writing.

Over the years, writing and I have had a bit of a rocky relationship. He helped me get a girlfriend in high school. And then I didn’t talk to him for a while. But then he selflessly got me into college, and I started hanging out with him again. Then he made me into a hipster, and I couldn’t forgive him for a while. The thing is, though, that I’ve never really been fair to writing. I’ve been using him for ulterior motives even before I knew what that word meant.

One night, when writing and I were on the outs, I went on a run because I was feeling kind of alone, and when you are feeling alone and you and writing are on the outs, there isn’t much else to do but to run. And while I was running, I was kind of talking to God because God is easy to talk to when there aren’t people around and the night is dark and you are in a golf course. While I was running and being with God, I realized that writing should be a little bit like talking to God. When you talk to God, it’s kind of hard to be selfish. Being selfish with God is a bit like meeting the president and asking him why they served cold food at your school that morning. It’s just not something you do. Instead, when you are talking to God, you start to realize all of the things you care about and all the people you care about. That’s a really beautiful thing, and it dawned on me that night while running and talking to God, that writing should be beautiful in that way.

So I’m making a commitment. Writing should be like talking to God.

The title of this site is “Spencer Writes,” but it’s only that because it’s cute and catchy. What I really want it to say is “Spencer Writes About People He Loves” because there really isn’t anything else worth writing about.