Photo by Chase Nordengren

Photo by Wesley Fryer

Photo by Lenny

My First Tattoo by Lisa

Photo by Benny Lin

Peace, Hope, Love, Live, Laugh, Joy, Dream, Cherish. These are the words that consitute the new secular dogma. And it seems well enough that these could be words to live by. Oh Peace is a desirable state of things. And Hope is always good. Love is, by far, a necessity. Laughter, of course, is a lovely experience. Who doesn’t want Joy in their lives? What would it be like not to Dream? And, by God, we should Cherish everything we have.

But these words are part of our language, they have always been ours, so why is it that we feel the need to go out and buy effigies of these words to hang on our living room walls to show that we believe in them? What idiocy is this?

The popularity of these “word products,” at first, seems like a rather benign fad. But as with all things that seem innocuous and completely without detriment, there is an unforeseen consequence.

People come to believe something profound in these words. They feel that they are paying homage to the word by acquiring actual effigies and placing them in their home. But words are representations, and by creating effigies of words we effectively separate them from any actual context. These words are extracted from context and given a level of inherent importance and value. The word is taken to represent something good, or goodness itself, which is also a term that means nothing if in and of itself.

Not only are these words no longer in context of actual situations, but they are not even in the context of other words. Hope what? Love who? Cherish what? Live how? Laugh when? Dream what? Peace why?

Words must represent something or at least be associated with something specific, because that is what they are–representations. But these idolized words come to represent nothing, but another representation–the general idea of goodness. They are tied to nothing, and therefore they don’t actually mean a thing. Hanging a word like Hope on your wall is akin to the idolatry that the Bible teaches against.* “See, they are all false! Their deeds amount to nothing; their images are but wind and confusion” (Isaiah 41:29 NIV). These words are hallow like the idols of ancient Israel.

So how can something that doesn’t mean anything end up being harmful or misleading? Well, you can smack the word “Hope” on anything, like a presidential campaign or a business operation or diesel truck for that matter, and though it means nothing at all, it seems to mean that whatever the word is associated with is part of that assumed goodness. While it retains no actual meaning, some people ignorantly believe that any message which utilizes one of these word must be a message of goodness, and so they don’t bother to look at the dirty details.

These words almost seem to be invoked as commandments of the secular dogma, but they can mean very terrible things as well. What is a commandment for Peace, when you must fight for your own freedoms? What’s to stop someone from Hoping their neighbor will suffer ill-fortune? What’s to keep a man from Loving a women who is not his wife? Who’s to say that a hospitalized person in a vegetable state wants to Live? There are certainly times when Laughter can be terribly cruel. Dreams are not without nightmares. Why shouldn’t we enjoy sorrow, when we have lost our Joy? And if we are to Cherish some people, then we must also hold others out of favor.

So these meaningless effigies and these word slogans that people throw about with this noble air can just as easily mean something good or bad. Out of context, the words still mean absolutely nothing, yet by some faint and meaning which people give these words, they are easily lead to believe that something meaningful and positive is being said.

It is this belief in representations and images instead of the actual objects they represent, that has led man astray for ages. And it exists in many more forms of representation than words, but this trend of emblazoning words on walls and pictures, and products, is just a sign of a world very disconnected from reality–very disconnected from context. And the way in which consumers have bought into this worship of words so whole-heatedly is a chilling sign that our society is descending further from the truth into an age of falsity.

*I reference the Bible to support my case in this article. Of course, it is quite ironic, however, that dogmatic Christians who praise the “word” of God are guilty of the same form of idol worship that their holy text condemns.

Photo by Sean Dreilinger

I was out buying a winter hat and some mittens, when I overheard a dispute in the next aisle between a mother and her small child. “But Mom, we have the money,” the boy whined.

Now, I have no idea what it was the boy wanted, but what was interesting to me was the way the mother handled it. The mother was silent. She ignored her little son, who I’d guess was about four years old. It was obvious that the boy had recently learned reasoning skills, and I laughed to myself at the irony of the situation.

“Mom, we have the money.” He whined again, but the mother was still silent. She continued to ignore her son, as if his reasoning had stumped hers. It seem their roles were reversed. The mother was the obstinate one, and the child was the one trying to reason. “But we have the money.” he whined again, but she still refused to answer him.

Now, of course, just because parents have the money to buy something doesn’t mean they should buy it for their children, but this is something that this child didn’t understand, and this was a perfect opportunity for the mother to teach her son this point. But instead, the mother passed it off as a moot point. A point not worth discussing with her son.

Perhaps, she thought it was a point to advanced for her son to understand, but it would be wrong of her to think this. Children have an amazing capacity for understanding, and it is the adult underestimation of children, and the adult’s lack of communication that often inhibits the intellectual growth and maturity of a child. This lack of communication compounds itself and exacerbates misunderstandings between children and parents. Sure, it’s difficult to explain the concepts of money and the importance of savings and budgeting and the fact that you can’t just buy everything you want, but you’ve got to begin somewhere, and the earlier the better.

Some parents feel cursed by these moments when their child disagrees with them. Somewhere down the path of modern society parents have come to believe that parenting is supposed to be a hassle. Our perception of parenting is the Married with Children paradigm. Parenthood and family is supposed to be somehow sentimentally enjoyable while most of it is a pain in the ass, but this is a terrible outlook, which actually detriments how parents will handle a situation before it is presented to them. A parent who thinks this way is likely just to pass most family problems off, saying “That’s just the way it is,” instead of challenging these issues for the better. Some parents just wish their child would behave, and when he or she doesn’t they just accept it as the undesirable reality of parenthood. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The way I see it, every point of disagreement between a parent and child is an opportunity for development of intelligence and reasoning skills, no matter the age. At the same time, it is a chance for parents to develop a more intimate relationship with their child. Some parents, however, seem to prefer to stifle their child’s reasoning and intelligence, by exercising their power, instead of communicating with their child. In this way, they also stifle their relationship with the child. As a parent, the way of power is the easier way to get things done. Explaining things is difficult and it takes an investment of time. It’s easy just to say “No,” or just to deny a response to your child’s unreasonable pleas. But in this way, the child never develops an understanding of the social experience. He doesn’t develop a close relationship with his parents. He never develops a respect for his parents as people. Instead he only comes to respect the power which his parents represented. But if parents communicate with their children, and respect what their children have to say, even if it is,at times, unreasonable, parents will not only benefit their child’s intelligence and reasoning skills. They will also earn a respect and trust from their child which is necessary to develop a healthy parent/child relationship.