I recently had a comment on one of my blog posts from someone who said Barack Obama is one generation removed from the jungle. It was an unnecessary and gratuitous slur and because of the term "jungle bunny" has racist undertones. When I admonished the anonymous poster for his lack of charity, he wrote back that after reading my blog and newsletter for a number of years, he didn't think charity was a requirement. Wow! Take that!
Actually, charity is important to me and I try to be charitable in my writing. These days writing about the hard truth isn't easy, because, as Rebecca Teti, a contributor to Faith and Family Magazine recently wrote in Someone’s wrong on the internet, many expect writers to avoid anything that might make anyone feel bad. So writers can't discuss abortion because it makes aborted women feel guilty. They must keep mum about the depravity of homosexual behavior because that's intolerant and lacks compassion. Remarriage after divorce, condemnation of public scandals, praying at abortion mills -- they are all off limits lest writing about them makes somebody feel bad. And so it goes.As Teti says, the only conversation left is the weather. She concludes that, "this privileging of passions endangers rational thinking about the common good." Amen!
I think the individual who commented on my blog about my lack of charity is one of those who believes speaking the hard truth is intrinsically uncharitable. Teti points out that many evaluate content using their emotional responses as SCUD missiles to annhilate conversation about particular issues. Here's her prescription for a cure: "Only by holding ourselves to a standard outside ourselves, only by liberating our ideas from our passions, can we reason clearly, debate productively and form a more perfect union." Indeed. Everything is not about myself, and if I make it so, I'm trapped in a tiny little world that begins and ends with my own skin.
I'd be interested to know if readers think I'm uncharitable. (Underline that word think. This is about reason and evidence.) Please post if you like, but I expect concrete examples from the blog or the website. Don't worry about hurting my feelings, this isn't about feelings remember. It's about the truth spoken in love. And if I'm being uncharitable it would be an act of mercy to tell me so. Because if I'm lacking in charity, as St. Paul says, I'm a clanging gong.
But keep in mind that charity is not synonymous with "being nice." The gospel definition of charity is to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves. Fr. John Hardon says it means to love as Christ loves with a selflessness that always looks to the good of the other.
Remember the corporal and spiritual works of mercy are practical examples of charity and among them are instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and admonish the sinner. That sometimes requires addressing difficult issues that may make someone "feel" bad. If a person's actions ARE bad, maybe that feeling is just what he needs to spur him to repentance.
By the way, I will not be posting any anonymous comments for this blog entry. I never say anything that I'm not willing to stand behind. So, while I welcome comments, I will not post any from "Anonymous."
It is worth noting that "nice" is a word that is NOT found in the Bible. I would hold that to withhold a needed rebuke might itself be an act that is the opposite of true charity. Many times this urge to be "nice" is only cowardice or laziness couched in sanctimonious guise.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought as I was reading the bigot's response to your email to him was "of course, he's going to throw it back at her and say SHE's uncharitable". In fact, he did exactly that. It's a commonly clever come back to anyone, to just turn the table around and see if it sticks. Unfortunately, it sticks to some people to whom it shouldn't. When I get the argument such as that turned on myself, whatever the subject, I pause a moment, analyze it with "him", then blast him for trying the common clever trick without substantiation. You paused too long.
ReplyDeleteAnybody that uses the word "junglebunny" or comments about a black man being just out of the jungle is too clouded to see if you are even white or female or Catholic, let alone if you have any uncharitable undertones in you. Such hate or contempt for another human being of God's creation sees only darkness and invincible ignorance.
If he'd called you a homophobe, you wouldn't have written this article, because you've seen it and heard it so many times. So he calls you uncharitable - ouch as well, but again, it's the same tactic, you homophobe racist mysogenist xenophobe!
Thanks for the insight, O. I had an "aha moment" when I read your post.
ReplyDelete