Use Your Voice
Today’s writing blog is short and simple.
Give Voice to the Voiceless
Use your voice. As writers, we can use our voice – our writing – to inform and advocate. We can draw attention to injustice, oppression, and pain. We can give a voice to the voiceless.
Amid the senseless unleashing of war on the innocent people of Ukraine, may we call for peace, justice, and mercy. As Christians, this is our prayer. As writers, we can write about peace and write about overcoming oppression. We can write about what the Lord requires of us.
Only YOU Can Prevent a Forest Fire
Remember the commercials from Smokey the Bear, “Only you can prevent forest fires”? Well, the James - the brother of Jesus - said something similar in James 3:5-11 (ESV): “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. . . .but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil . . With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”
From the tongue to the fingers. . .
We need to write words that can bring about healing of our land – here in America – and around the world. Too many words have been written and said that have brought about division, creating an “us” and “them” world in which we now live.
Our written words can be powerful. What we write can build up or tear down. It’s easy to sit behind a computer and type away on a keyboard, talking about someone else, classifying them and putting them into a box of “others” – such as those “democrats” or those “republicans” -that we dehumanize and degrade. We can use our words to desensitize our readers to the human being behind that “D” or “R”, behind that “Progressive”, “Liberal”, “Conservative”, behind that “homosexual” or “LGBTQ”, or whatever label you attach to someone.
It’s not so easy to say such things to someone’s face, or at least it shouldn’t be and used to not be. We have so dehumanized people, seeing them in their categories and boxes, that many say and do hateful and horrid things to others.
Write to Affirm People, Stop Oppression, Bring Peace
As writers, particularly those of us who follow Christ, we have a duty to use our words to build up. We can write without labels and name calling. We can write to affirm the humanity of people, even if they are different from us or think differently. We can write to bring about healing and peace.
Jesus’ Final Prayer
In the Gospel of John, Jesus final prayer before His arrest and crucifixion is captured in John 17, but I leave with you the last of that prayer in verses 19-23 (ESV). This was Jesus’ heart, that we would be one, sanctified in truth, and that the world will see the love of Jesus through His people. This is what was on Jesus’ mind in the final hours of His life on earth.
“And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in men, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
A Prayer for Mercy and Peace
Lord, have mercy on the Ukrainians. Bring peace and healing to their land and ours here in America.