We've all heard the old adage, "If you can't find anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all." In a recent article for Salon.com, Lauren Frey Daisley tried to follow that advice for one month.
She titled the article "My month of no snark."
("Snark" is a slang word that combines "snide" and "remark" and refers to sarcastic comments.)
Daisley writes:
"It started when my husband, baby and I drove away from a visit with my aunt, who has Stage 4 breast cancer. I thought back on the 30-some years I've known her. I have never once in all that time heard her say anything unkind. Not even in the subtext of her words. That's a legacy.... and I began to wonder, how would holding my tongue--or at least changing what came off it--alter my relationships?"
That's when she began her "month-long campaign" to practice kindness in her speech. Daisley discovered that it's not easy to live without snark. Instead, she wrote, "It's so much cooler to be more sarcastic .... It says, I am so above this scene--above other people, even."
After her month-long experiment she concluded, "Kindness [of speech] doesn't have to imply repression. It doesn't rein in humor or impede the fight for justice. But it does require discipline and substantive engagement with others."
"The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell."
James 3:6
What would our world look like if all of the "snark" was gone from the mouths of Christians everywhere. The tongue is a tough thing to tame, but God can help us to say decent and kind things "in the moment."
Lord, guide my words today. Help me to be so totally connected with you, that my words reflect my Christian claims. Amen.
Have a great day and God bless!
