This last Friday the weather widget on our laptops promised
relief from humidity. There is a little park in Lake City, MN (the home of
water skiing, the sign says as you enter the town) that we discovered several
years ago. Huge oak trees carpet the grass with shade. On one side of the park
stretches the Mississippi River and on the other a little canal linking a
marina with the river. With two canvas chairs, books, and a thermos of iced water
we retreat to absorb the quiet, read, pray, doodle notes as ideas present
themselves, and talk.
We rag on some of the powerboats, their phallic shape
unnecessarily calling attention to the shuddering power of their inboard
motors. We wonder at the sprawling yachts that coast by emanating signs of
wealth and guess whether the owners work for an investment bank or an insurance
company. We imagine taking our grandchildren out for a day on one of the slow
but steady houseboats, complete with gas grill on the flat roof. Jet skies,
rather like high-pitched mosquitoes dart in and out among the traffic.
But mostly we break the leisurely silence of the day to talk
about our life together, and the shape of our calling expressed in the ordinary
things that come our way. We have talked about this for years, and know we will
need to continue the conversation. Things don’t stand still, and if we aren’t
intentional about it, our schedule slips out of balance and the tyranny of the
urgent soon crowds out the good. Faithfulness isn’t automatic.
Later we continued our conversation as we ate together at
Nosh, on an outside second story patio overlooking one of Lake City marinas.
Beyond lay the River, dotted with sailboats, on which two barges slipped by en
route from St Paul to someplace south, perhaps even to New Orleans.
We are best friends, married now for 43 years, working
together in Ransom for 27 years, and still we find that none of this can be
assumed. Such conversations must be intentional, listening must be unhurried,
and still misunderstandings arise. I think she means one thing, she thinks I
mean something else, and going back to square one can seem an annoyance. But it
must be done, listening, asking questions, listening some more. Even when we
are on the same proverbial page digging deeper can deepen understanding.
Sometimes the most important words are the words behind the
words. They are often unvoiced, at least at first, but to not hear them is to
not hear at all.
This is true in the public square as well. As we drove to
Lake City we passed several billboards and signs on both sides of the abortion
issue. I do not question the motivation of the people who paid for and erected
them by the side of the highway. I assume both are passionate in their convictions.
But I am impressed at how both sides seem to be preaching to the choir and I can’t
imagine any of the signs persuading anyone on the other side to change their
position. They are talking past one another. Neither side hears the words
behind the words.
I am not interested here in debating abortion. But as a
Christian I want to argue that the pro-life effort in the public square is
often counterproductive. We raise arguments only pro-lifers will be impressed
at and then expect pro-choice people to be persuaded. Our arguments not only
are unpersuasive, but by failing to take pro-choice reasoning seriously we give
the impression of being out of touch and of being people who simply want to
force our convictions on others.
In The Rage Against
God
British journalist Peter Hitchens chronicles his pilgrimage through
atheism to faith in Christ. As he tells his story, he remembers going to stores
to purchase items for the birth of his first child, brightly colored plastic
stuff that seemed cheap and aesthetically distasteful. The entire event is
unnerving, but not just on the surface. Values about the good life that he has
long held are in the process of crumbling—or more accurately, they are being
torn down. “I felt (correctly as it turned out),” he writes, “that I was being
called by irresistible force into a state of life I had not chosen and would
never have voluntarily accepted.” That state of life was parenthood. “I have
often thought,” Hitchens continues, “that the strange popularity of abortion
among people who ought to know better has much to do with this sensation of
lost control, of being pulled downwards into a world of servitude, into
becoming our own parents.”
British journalist Peter Hitchens chronicles his pilgrimage through
atheism to faith in Christ. As he tells his story, he remembers going to stores
to purchase items for the birth of his first child, brightly colored plastic
stuff that seemed cheap and aesthetically distasteful. The entire event is
unnerving, but not just on the surface. Values about the good life that he has
long held are in the process of crumbling—or more accurately, they are being
torn down. “I felt (correctly as it turned out),” he writes, “that I was being
called by irresistible force into a state of life I had not chosen and would
never have voluntarily accepted.” That state of life was parenthood. “I have
often thought,” Hitchens continues, “that the strange popularity of abortion
among people who ought to know better has much to do with this sensation of
lost control, of being pulled downwards into a world of servitude, into
becoming our own parents.”
If Hitchens is correct, then the favored pro-life argument
that abortion is wrong because it involves a baby is guaranteed to fail. (This
was, indeed, the argument on all the pro-life signs and billboards we passed on
the highway.) In fact, if Hitchens is correct, reminding pro-choicer people
that it is a baby will serve to reinforce their commitment to abortion!
Civility, it seems to me, must include a passionate
determination to listen to and address the words behind the words. It’s a skill
that must be learned and a posture that is in conflict with the vast majority
of speech practiced in the public square and in the church. By God’s grace may
that be changed. When we fail in this most basic truth about human
communication, we may even discover that our attempts to speak backfire into
instances of strengthening the commitments we are trying to change.
As always I look forward to reading your thoughts and comments.
Source: The Rage
Against God: How atheism led me to faith by Peter Hitchens (Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan; 2010) p. 31.
: How atheism led me to faith by Peter Hitchens (Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan; 2010) p. 31.
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