Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Words that Hurt, Words that Heal

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My stepdaughter Dana and her family joined us for dinner last night. Dana is a smart girl, bright and sensitive, with a tolerably good sense of humor. And I've always taken an inordinate amount of pleasure in trying to get her to laugh, or at least smile, or failing that, grimace.

That's where I get into trouble. My own sense of humor tends toward a celebration of the absurd. As the great observer of humanity C. S. Lewis noted in The Screwtape Letters, a joke exists only with the sudden perception of some incongruity. True for me! The more ironic I find something, the better. (Maybe that's why I dislike so much of what passes for "comedy" these days. Instead of trying to exploit incongruities and reveal something truly funny, which is hard work, today's writers appeal to the lowest elements of our society: foul language, which is no longer shocking enough to be incongruous, and jokes about sex.)

Not everyone, of course, shares my sense of the absurd. I can't begin to tell you how many times people have been shocked or offended at what they perceive as a lack of sensitivity, propriety, or compassion on my part … when all I was really trying to do was make them smile.

Wait--that's not quite true. While I would have been perfectly happy to have made them smile, what I was really after was the approval, the admiration, of the person behind the smile. "That Bob--he's always so funny!" "Yes, isn't he, though? What a great wit!" "He must be really smart!"

While I'm pretty sure people don't really say things like that out loud any more, I'd really like them to think that about me. So my marvelous sense of humor is exposed at last for what it is in truth: another pathetic attempt to stroke my own ego, another vain genuflection at the altar of self-worship.

That's where my introspection inevitably leads. And while I humbly thank God for the revelation--which, though it smarts, brings healing--this article is really about outrospection: how do my actions affect others?

Which brings me back to Dana.

More, perhaps, than any other person (at least in the last ten years), I have seen in Dana's eyes the sting of pain when some misguided attempt at humor has gone awry. Again! Time after time, I have tried to exalt my own cleverness in some meager attempt to win her approval, only to leave her briefly hurt and confused. She entrusts me with a bit of her heart, and then I betray her by wounding her with my words.

I did it again last night. She had almost gotten out the door without incident, but didn't quite make it. It doesn't matter what I said. It was an attempt to be witty, and it misfired. And just for a moment, I saw the familiar old pain in her eyes, before she realized that it was just another one of those moments.

Is that better, I wonder? Is it preferable to be misunderstood as a failed comedian, or correctly perceived as a fool?

The awkwardness between us doesn't last. I usually apologize, she always forgives; there is love and grace between us. But why do I have to go there in the first place?

More than ever this year, I am trying to put into effect the admonition of the Apostle Paul: "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers" (Ephesians 4:29 KNJV).

My God, how short I fall! But what is a nobler goal for me--that people should think me clever, or that my words impart grace? God, help me to choose the better portion.

And Dana, sweetheart--I'm sorry. Please forgive me yet again. And pray for your mother. She has to live with me all the time.

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