Column Remembering restraint where words still have power
By JEANNETTE BATZ
They said to do it, but I felt like shit, so I -- my
father-in-law caught my husbands narrowed eye, saw the flush slowly
rising. Well I did, I felt like shit, Mal exclaimed, louder in his
indignation. Andrew winced and fixed his eyes on the little girl up at the
microphone, about to extract the winning card for the fundraising raffle.
We were attending the annual chili supper at the provincial house
where Andrew works. And we were embarrassing him. Id popped a beer can;
Mal had used profanity; my stepdad was about to describe an intimate medical
condition in graphic detail. Our moms were being their usual sweet, calm
selves, but it just wasnt enough counterweight. And Andrew, whose own
mother calls him square but who is normally not a prig, was tensing
at every new utterance.
I raised an amused eyebrow at him; Ive heard him say far
worse himself. Its a matter of respect, he muttered.
And somewhere deep in my discourteous brain, a puzzle piece fell
into place.
Just that Thursday, Id gone to a workshop on health care for
immigrants, refugees and migrants. One of the speakers had addressed problems
of language and frames of reference, explaining the unwitting harm
American-born doctors can do to patients of a different culture.
English has lost its power to impact, she remarked,
reminding us that in other languages, simply to say something is to give that
reality power. So a U.S. doctor goes to great lengths to warn a patient that
taking the new medicine too often or at the wrong time can kill her -- then
expects her to take it dutifully?
In our hyperverbal, chatty, litigious, information-soaked culture,
individual words make no more impact than a corn flake dropping to the
linoleum. Numbers, now thats another story. I go to my desk, type in my
computer code; get my voice mail with my telephone code; order supplies with my
charge number; get money with my PIN number; fill out forms with my Social
Security number. My words dont much matter.
Maybe thats why I, too, resort easily to profanity, hoping
to spice sentences that have gone bland, clumsy, fragmentary, inarticulate. And
then Im thrown into one of those rare environments -- a Roman Catholic
institution, for example -- where words still have power. And I find Ive
forgotten restraint.
Within Catholic tradition, the Word is omniscient. Just look at
the sacraments: Bless me Father, for I have sinned. Go in peace, your sins are
forgiven. Body of Christ. I believe. I do. I will.
Theologians fight against the sense of magical efficacy that
colors so much devotional practice. But abstract and deliberate all you like: A
novena remains a wish and a promise captured in words, just as a litany serves
as an invocation of spirit, and a blessing lends pure hope.
We cannot recite a numeric code to receive Communion. And
were not flooded with distracting new information every Sunday, either.
The words of the liturgy bear sweet repetition, taking on a resonance that
transcends literal definition. The words of deliberate assent gather centuries
of meaning into their short, familiar syllables. Even the gibberish of rote
recitation hums with energy.
In the modern world, profanitys inevitable.
In the presence of the sacred, its unnecessary.
Jeannette Batz is a staff writer at The Riverfront Times
an alternative newspaper in St. Louis.
National Catholic Reporter, March 26,
1999
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