“Why do we continue to breed little minds who can find no recompense for their own failures other than to belittle and mock the talents…of others? When will everyone realize that we are all equal in the eyes of God?” --Og Mandino, author
No matter how hard I tried, I just could not get the words out. Or the word actually. I’d know what I wanted to say. I’d begin to say it but then it was as if it got caught in my throat and no matter how much I struggled, the best I could do was an awkward, elongated sound, like “NNNNNN” or “DDDDDDDD.”
I stuttered.
It wasn’t for very long, in middle school, for a few years. Every once in a while, it will happen to me again, when I really, really want to say something, and my eagerness seems to trip up my speech. The medical definition of stuttering is straightforward. From mayoclinic.org, “Stuttering is a speech condition that disrupts the normal flow of speech….With stuttering, the interruptions in flow [of speech] happen often and cause problems for the speaker.”
Thank goodness I grew out of it. Kind of ironic that I went on to do public speaking for a living, my vocation and my life’s calling. But one thing never, ever happened to me because of my stuttering and for this I am so grateful to God, to folks in my life, and even to the world I grew up in. No one ever mocked me for my stuttering. No one ever put me down. No one ever shamed me or called out my stuttering in front of others to humiliate me.
Who would do such a thing?
Be so cruel, mean spirited, so devoid of empathy, that they’d actually insult someone because of a disability like stuttering? I’m not talking about middle school kids who don’t know better, who bully out of deep insecurity. They usually grow out of that meanness. I’m talking about an actual adult who did this, in public, and I suppose, to build himself up by tearing down someone else.
It was a former United States president, who mocked our current president, for struggling with stuttering. Happened at a rally in Georgia. I won’t quote what was said but the former TV reality star apparently got what he wanted from that mocking: applause and laughter from his supporters.
That awful story made me remember what it was like to struggle with stuttering. It made me sad about the casual cruelty that has seeped into our common life in the past few years, how once publicly accepted norms of decency and mutual respect in the public square, have just gone away. How such meanness is now the norm in social media, in many public meetings, in snarky news stories, and from candidates who are supposed to represent the best of America and bring out the best in Americans but do just the opposite.
Now, too often, public speech is hurtful, hateful, spiteful, and personal. It digs and it jabs, and it insults. It lowers our civic life to the level of the middle school playground. When I watched the video of a powerful national leader acting like an adolescent bully, mocking another, being so nasty, it broke my heart. Angered me. Is this how we now talk to and about one another in public? Are these the lessons we want to teach our children about what it means to be a good citizen, and a fellow neighbor?
It reminded me of a very different political rally and story from October 2008. One of the presidential candidates then was Senator John McCain, and the gathering was held less than a month before election day. McCain versus Barack Obama. A voter stood up and gave her opinion about Obama. “I have read about him and he’s…he’s an Arab.” Code word back then, for either Muslim or terrorist or both.
McCain shook his head and gently said to the woman, “No ma’am, no ma’am” and then he continued, “He’s a descent family man, [and] citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with…on fundamental issues and that is what this campaign is about.” The crowd even applauded.
My calling out abhorrent behavior by a current leader isn’t political or partisan. It’s not about this political party or that specific candidate. Not about policy or legislation. It is about character. Human character or the lack of it. As a person of faith, I’ve learned in my religious tradition that character is what forms the heart of a good life and being a good man or a good woman, a good soul. Character matters in the life of a person and in the shared life of a country. None of us are perfect. But always trying one’s best to treat fellow children of God with dignity, respect, and honor: that will always matter. As Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
I don’t stutter anymore. If I did, I’d hope and pray that no one would ever mock me for that struggle. That people would treat me how they wanted to be treated and that I would do the same for them.
Dear leaders, fellow citizens, journalists, cultural influencers, those we are supposed to look up to, learn from, and be led by: stop the mocking. Just treat others with decency, kindness, and respect.
Is that too much to ask?
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment