Wordslingers

In TV shows I watched as a kid, gunslingers roamed the wild West. They spent much time twirling and cocking their firearms. They regularly said to one another, "Take ten steps, turn and draw."

They weren’t issuing friendly invitations to play Pictionary. They were issuing challenges to fight. In TV shows, we could always tell the good guy by the white clothes he wore (and somehow managed to keep spotless while roughing it on the open range) and by his speed. Any good guy worth his salt could turn around, pull his gun, cock and fire it faster than any guy wearing black any day.

In the end, the good gunslinger won, and the bad gunslinger died, or limped off into the sunset. Everyone cheered. After all, the bad gunslinger deserved it for being bad, being slow and wearing black (which is way too hot a color for the open range).

Thus, all the bad gunslingers practiced gunslinging for hours on end in hopes that they would get fast enough to turn into good gunslingers before someone said to them, "Take ten steps . . ." They also placed "rush" catalog orders for white western wear.

Sadly, catalog orders in those days went out by stagecoaches, which were often robbed by bad guys who hadn't gotten to the catalog desk to place an order before closing time. And so the gunslinging continued.

Okay, I made up the catalog order part. Actually, the good and bad gunslingers differed in far more substantial ways than clothes. The bad guys terrorized people. They’d as quickly shoot you as greet you. The good guys risked their lives to rescue those oppressed by the bad.

In real life today, wordslingers roam the place where you live. These folks enjoy twirling and cocking their tongues. With well-placed remarks, they're as likely to shoot you as greet you.

Few give warning. They prefer ambush. For example, one day a friend asked me to lunch. I could tell even by phone that she was distressed. When we sat to eat, she showed me a venomous letter she had received three days earlier. Using crude language, it attacked her – for good things she was doing. It slandered her and her family. Not surprisingly, the writer hadn’t signed the letter.

My friend had no opportunity to take ten steps, turn and defend herself. The attack came out of nowhere. Now, she's lying on the ground bleeding while the bad guy walks away. She can't identify the assailant by wardrobe color. Looking into faces of people she works with daily, she has no idea which one carries the loaded gun.

Long before the first gunslinger ever rode the wild West, a man named Doeg gunned down 85 innocent priests with malicious words. As a result, God authorized David the poet-king to issue this warning to wordslingers in Psalm 52:2-5, The Message:

“You scheme catastrophe; your tongue cuts razor-sharp, artisan in lies. You love evil more than good, you call black white. You love malicious gossip, you foul-mouth. God will tear you limb from limb, sweep you up and throw you out, pull you up by the roots from the land of life.”

I know. Those words take me aback too – until, looking into my friend’s face, I see the untold devastation wordslinging wreaks, the people it decimates.

In Psalm 52, God isn’t addressing the propensity we all have to say hurtful words in anger or frustration. He’s giving fair warning, strong warning, that he will champion the victims of those who deliberately and with premeditation use words to destroy.

© 1999, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.