Facebook Publication Date: 10/6/2019 15:10

Lace on Race
Sunday Special
A Meditation: On ‘Fuck’
Part 1

On this beautiful Sunday in San Diego, I want to talk about something I have threatened to do for a while…

Which is to talk about the word ‘Fuck’.

Stay with me. This meditation on the word is embedded with a larger discussion about tone, about what actually comprises ‘kind candor’, and at what point, and for what reasons, people decide to bail out of the car.

We have seen a lot of this lately. It’s to the point where I hesitate to walk with anyone, because it’s such a delicate dance. How much is too much? Will I lose them if they think I’m ‘going too hard’ on them? Will they accuse me (as some have) of violating my own standard of ‘kind candor’?

This attrition, when people bail out of the car, or cast off their walking shoes is somewhat inevitable. It’s why we are forced to treat this like a rotating class, and why we never seem to get more than three months in. That’s another conversation for another day, but one we need to have. Suffice to say, it seriously hinders our shared journeys.

Today though, I want to focus on words–one word actually.

A word that, when used, makes for serious pearl clutching, and abandonment of stated convictions. It’s a word that is considered radioactive, and that some, actually many, feel is a valid reason to bail.

That word is ‘Fuck’.

Let’s talk about it. You need to know my stance on it, and why I don’t feel that it automatically goes against the ethos we have forged here.

First, we need to remember that ‘fuck’ is a useful, quite all purpose word. Let’s look at how it’s used.

–There’s the general ‘Fuck!’ used as an exclamation;

–There is ‘Fuck This’, used as a general ‘Nope!”

Let’s take these two first. These will always be ok. Neither one is impugning a person. It is used as a strong statement, or as a strong rebuke at systems or situations or circumstances. I use it, though not so much here, because I know it’s radioactive, and people can shut down when they hear it. Those of you on my personal Page, however, have seen it used by me, again, hopefully judiciously, but I do reserve the right there (and here) to use it.

There is one of the most instructive and best Lenten Reflections I have ever read; came out about two or three years ago, entitled ‘Fuck This Shit’. Considering the message contained therein, there really is no other title which would suffice. Sometimes the incendiary is not only valid, but required.

Another story.

For about 15 years, pretty much all of my secondary school and young adult years, I attended Skyline Church here in San Diego County. The pastor at the time was John Maxwell; you may know him from his myriad books on leadership he has penned since he left the pulpit. .We won’t go into those, but one of the most remembered sermons was when he said what the good Wesleyans in the pews thought was quite scandalous.

The subject was on how much our (very large) church should contribute to the health of the Regional Church and to worldwide missions overall (don’t get hung up on that; y’all know how i feel about missions; not the point). The church didn’t think we should, especially to non English speaking congregations, and emerging Black congregations.

John Maxwell, before he embarked on his very lucrative career on showing rich white men how to become even richer with his ‘leadership’ books and tapes and seminars, actually had more than a bit of social justice in his Missouri bones. He wanted more than what Skyline was willing to do. Hence, that sermon.

He laid out reasons, exhorted his congregants, made his case. But his last paragraph stood out–He said we will either live out our convictions, or [paraphrased; it’s been years] ‘you all can just tell all the people you’re turning away from to just go to Hell’.

I know; pretty tame. But in the 80’s, in that conservative sanctuary, he dropped a bomb. That was a curse phrase, delivered straight from the oiled oak pulpit, that shocked the congregation. Some left. Others were convicted.

In the end, at the Congregational Meeting, the enhanced budget, with the monies he advocated for, was approved. Language matters. Including language that makes you twitch.

That was John Maxwell’s ‘Fuck This’. I admired him for it, and for enduring the fallout that ensued.

So it is here. Sometimes it’s a good thing to drop a little bit of Slayer or Tupac into your playlists filled with John Tesh and Kenny G. Sometimes it’s good to get jolted. Especially in a place like here where the ethos of ‘kind candor’ can lull one into complacency and a false sense of security.

It would be downright irresponsible of me to only give you what you can easily nod your head and tap your feet to.

It is white supremacy that wants to create and enforce a ‘mission drift’ to the phrase I myself coined.

It is white supremacy that insists on never getting ruffled; and that feels entitled only to feedback you can swallow easily.

I use kind candor strategically; not to keep you complacent, and certainly not as an enabler. It is so that my words will be heard with a minimum of supremacist resistance; not resistance overall–I have no problem with mixing it up–but to leave you with fewer weapons–that of tone policing; that of entitlement; that of not allowing yourselves to react to hard wired tropes in your individual and collective minds about internalizing and accepting what I present here.

But definitely not to coddle or enable you. Definitely not to lull you.

Let’s talk about the other forms of ‘Fuck’, which can be harder to wrap around.

Let’s talk about Greta.

In Part 2.

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