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Stringfellow (again). On buggering up language

30/3/2023

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I admire William Stringfellow and have written about him before (links below). Here is what he says about the corrupt use we too often make of language - what he calls Babel which he says "means the inversion of language, verbal inflation, libel, rumour, euphemism and coded phrases, rhetorical wantonness, redundancy, hyperbole, such profusion in speech and sound that comprehension is impaired, nonsense, sophistry, jargon, noise, incoherence, a chaos of voices and tongues, falsehood, blasphemy. And, in all of this, babel means violence…" In short, this is how we use language - personally, corporately, institutionally. 

Who amongst us is guilt-free in this corruption of communication?

Also in William Stringfellow's words, hints of the antidote: “Listening is a rare happening amongst human beings. You cannot listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your appearance or impressing the other, or if you are trying to decide what you are going to say when the other stops talking, or if you are debating about whether the word being spoken is true or relevant or agreeable. Such matters may have their place, but only after listening to the word as the word is being uttered. Listening, in other words, is a primitive act of love, in which a person gives self to another’s word, making self accessible and vulnerable to that word.” from his Count it All Joy.

  • William Stringfellow: no distant prophet
  • William Stringfellow again
  • Detaching from the church the better to grasp the Gospel
  • William Stringfellow on career vs vocation
  • Vagabonds and Stringfellow
  • Reciting words is not prayer
  • I know Christian people who do not attend church because their experience has been that it is predisposed to a model they find infantilising

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