Precision of Language
On my drive home today while at a stoplight I noticed a bumpersticker on the car in front of me which read:
"Just say NO to Negativity."
It made me wonder, when the phrase was first coined did the originator crack a wry smile? Were they able to think past the end of their nose so as to see the irony? Perhaps they were having a bit of fun with those who would glom on to the phrase without thinking it through? I wonder if the driver understood that they were advertising the denial of negativity with the use of a capitalized negation?
There are, of course, only two possibilities: either they fully understood the word play and employed it with ironic intentionality, or, perhaps more likely, they merely loved the idea of promoting positivity and so their use of a negative for negating negativity went unrecognized.
If the phrase was used in ignorance we could join in with the cry, "Precision of language," a repeated phrase from the great young adults dystopian novel The Giver by Lois Lowry (later made into a movie). The book portrays a future world where the memory of every bad thing has been removed from general society and "sameness" rules the day.
Only one person - The Receiver of Memory - is allowed access to the memories of the horrors of the past, but as he is getting old the time has come to pass on his knowledge to the next Receiver and so he becomes "The Giver."
Slowly the Giver downloads memories to the new Receiver until he learns about love. You see, in this world people apply for a spouse and then they apply for children (all of whom come from designated birth mothers), and so it is a world without love. This is proved when the new Receiver, Jonas, asks his designated mother and father if they love him and they respond with, "Precision of language, please!" His mother goes on to explain that the word love is so generalized and meaningless "that it has become almost obsolete."
Lowry was absolutely correct to see that a world of "sameness" seeking to protect its citizens from painful memories of the past would necessarily be a world void of love. Because where there is love there is loss.
Hence the need to cry "Precision of language" regarding the bumpersticker. The idea that we can somehow make the world positive by negating negativity is hypocritical beyond measure.
This should be especially clear for Christians because we believe that ultimate joy came through ultimate sorrow. On the cross Jesus took the sin and death (you might say negativity par excellence) in order to bring about the greatest imaginable positivity.
While it is certainly true that the cross brought about the salvation of God's people, that is not the supreme positivity to which I am referring here. In the original Greek, Ephesians 2:1-7 is one long sentence which speaks about the heinous depths of humankind's depravity and the unfathomable richness of God's love and mercy. It speaks of how "even when we were dead in our trespasses" God made us alive together with Christ, raising us up and seating us with Him.
Ephesians 2:7 gives us the purpose statement, it answers the question "Why did God do it this way?" Paul wrote, "so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." The primary reason why Jesus died on the cross was to display the "immeasurable riches" of God's grace.
In other words, without all the negativity in this world there would have been a far smaller picture of God for the world to see. In a world of perfect positivity there is no need for a God of mercy, grace, patience, long-suffering, and forgiveness. In a perfect world we would see only a fraction of the goodness of God because all of these other elements of his character would be invisible.
Only in a world of extreme negativity, only in a world fallen and broken and stained with sin could the demonstration of the fullness of God's grace be seen and truly appreciated. We praise God for his Amazing Grace because He created the world with the express purpose of putting on display "the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
It turns out that negating negativity is not such a great idea after all, without it we would know so much less about God. We certainly would not know him as the God who, "being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:4-5).
"Just say NO to Negativity."
It made me wonder, when the phrase was first coined did the originator crack a wry smile? Were they able to think past the end of their nose so as to see the irony? Perhaps they were having a bit of fun with those who would glom on to the phrase without thinking it through? I wonder if the driver understood that they were advertising the denial of negativity with the use of a capitalized negation?
There are, of course, only two possibilities: either they fully understood the word play and employed it with ironic intentionality, or, perhaps more likely, they merely loved the idea of promoting positivity and so their use of a negative for negating negativity went unrecognized.
If the phrase was used in ignorance we could join in with the cry, "Precision of language," a repeated phrase from the great young adults dystopian novel The Giver by Lois Lowry (later made into a movie). The book portrays a future world where the memory of every bad thing has been removed from general society and "sameness" rules the day.
Only one person - The Receiver of Memory - is allowed access to the memories of the horrors of the past, but as he is getting old the time has come to pass on his knowledge to the next Receiver and so he becomes "The Giver."
Slowly the Giver downloads memories to the new Receiver until he learns about love. You see, in this world people apply for a spouse and then they apply for children (all of whom come from designated birth mothers), and so it is a world without love. This is proved when the new Receiver, Jonas, asks his designated mother and father if they love him and they respond with, "Precision of language, please!" His mother goes on to explain that the word love is so generalized and meaningless "that it has become almost obsolete."
Lowry was absolutely correct to see that a world of "sameness" seeking to protect its citizens from painful memories of the past would necessarily be a world void of love. Because where there is love there is loss.
Hence the need to cry "Precision of language" regarding the bumpersticker. The idea that we can somehow make the world positive by negating negativity is hypocritical beyond measure.
This should be especially clear for Christians because we believe that ultimate joy came through ultimate sorrow. On the cross Jesus took the sin and death (you might say negativity par excellence) in order to bring about the greatest imaginable positivity.
While it is certainly true that the cross brought about the salvation of God's people, that is not the supreme positivity to which I am referring here. In the original Greek, Ephesians 2:1-7 is one long sentence which speaks about the heinous depths of humankind's depravity and the unfathomable richness of God's love and mercy. It speaks of how "even when we were dead in our trespasses" God made us alive together with Christ, raising us up and seating us with Him.
Ephesians 2:7 gives us the purpose statement, it answers the question "Why did God do it this way?" Paul wrote, "so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." The primary reason why Jesus died on the cross was to display the "immeasurable riches" of God's grace.
In other words, without all the negativity in this world there would have been a far smaller picture of God for the world to see. In a world of perfect positivity there is no need for a God of mercy, grace, patience, long-suffering, and forgiveness. In a perfect world we would see only a fraction of the goodness of God because all of these other elements of his character would be invisible.
Only in a world of extreme negativity, only in a world fallen and broken and stained with sin could the demonstration of the fullness of God's grace be seen and truly appreciated. We praise God for his Amazing Grace because He created the world with the express purpose of putting on display "the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
It turns out that negating negativity is not such a great idea after all, without it we would know so much less about God. We certainly would not know him as the God who, "being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:4-5).
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