I'm starting a war against nitpickers.Nitpickers are the reason I can no longer make definitive statements. I must counter each definitive statement with at least 23 clarifications. This means by the time I get through the clarifications I have usually forgotten my original point.
There is a difference between saying something that's insensitive (which I do occasionally and must repent of) and saying something that will upset those who are sensitive.
For example, a friend of mine in ministry suggested a few of the blokes who are thinking about full-time ministry go on a regular run through the local cemetery. The run would be quite tiring (like most running) seeing as it's in the largest cemetery in the southern hemisphere, so we were going to call it "The Death Run". An alert colleague pointed out to me that one of the people in the group to which we were announcing the run had a few days before suffered a significant death of a close family member. So we didn't call it "The Death Run". This was right and proper. But does it mean, I should never talk about death in case someone has recently experienced loss? To answer my own rhetorical question; no. There is a difference between being insensitive and saying something that will upset those who are sensitive.
End rant.
Yeah. I know.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I cut loose and put a completely polemical statement out there just cause I want to. Then I have to go back and mop up.
[For an example, see my 'feminism is not responsible for...' post from the other day.]
What I try not to leave unclarified are statements that could hurt those already vulnerable.
I resisted the urge to bite back on the feminism post. A bit like Nathan not wanting to comment on the childcare issue until it was in a safer domain.
ReplyDeleteSo is a girl-blog always an unsafe place to argue or just an unsafe place to argue on gender-type issues? [I'd insert a smiley here if I believed in such things...]
ReplyDeleteI just put up my mop-up feminism post. My blog is a safe place! Go for it!
ReplyDelete"So is a girl-blog always an unsafe place to argue or just an unsafe place to argue on gender-type issues?"
ReplyDeleteNo, but we're careful because most guys will tell you they've been burnt before.
I remember Gordon Cheng commenting on a blogpost on Sydney Anglicans once regarding Driscoll's beam-in iPastor "I guess it's a bit like women's preaching to a mixed congregation. Not particularly biblical, but a darn site better than a local male preaching heresy." You gotta love provocative statements!
For the record no-one took the bait.
ReplyDelete