Words and Woke in an Age of Rage

 

 “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father.  Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come.  It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 

Therefore, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or at cockcrow or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.  And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” Mark 13:32-37 NRSVue

Don’t try to tell me that God is dead
He woke me up this morning;
Don’t try to tell me
He’s not alive,
He lives within my heart,
He opened up my blinded eyes
And set me on my way,
Don’t try to tell me that God is dead
I just talked to Him/Her/Them today.

Canadian journalist and author Carol Off is a national treasure and she has the awards and accolades to prove it. Her latest thoughtful tome is At a Loss for Words: Conversations in an Age of Rage. It explores the ways in which the language we use has been misappropriated and distorted so that some words are barely recognizable. 

In the introduction she observes that " the language we once shared has been coopted by extremists and we're reduced to barking and snapping. It's not just that we dispute what path to take, we no longer agree on the meaning of the words that define our destination...we have arrived at a point where every word needs to count."

One of these words that receives a whole chapter of Off's attention is "woke". Now, I woke up this morning and at my age I don't take for granted. As you can see, woke is also a positive term that has been used to describe being attentive to issues of social and racial injustice and through the decades it has been employed by the Black community, most recently by Black Lives Matter. Sadly, it is also used to demean "liberals" and the "elite" and those "radicals leftists" who may espouse views that support minorities. While this war of woke word usage emerged in the US a Canadian political leader now trots it out with a sneer at every turn. 

In this chapter Carol Off tells the story of an author of a book decrying the supposed woke agenda who was a guest on a television program where she was asked to define the term. She fumbled and foundered attempting to do so and in the end couldn't come up with a coherent response, even though the host, also a woman, encouraged her to think it through. 

As a Christian, "woke" fascinates me. Jesus got in lots of trouble with certain religious leaders for his relentless support for those who were marginalized in his society and eventually he was executed as a possibly seditious trouble-maker. Was he woke? He certainly urged his followers to keep awake, lots of times -- that sounds woke-ish to me. I notice that some conservative Christians have climbed aboard the anti-woke bandwagon that is white nationalism and while I figure this is "heresy" I should be careful about weaponizing yet another word.  

I will say that while I've rolled my eyes at times and suggested that the motto of the United Church could be "the importance of being earnest" I'm largely grateful for the "wokeness" of our denomination through the years. Much of that earnestness has come from a desire to be compassionate and accepting of those who have been rejected and dismissed. While it has become a challenge to stay awake past ten o'clock at night I'm willing to be dismissed as "woke" as I seek to be a faithful follower of Jesus. I do agree with Carol Off that talking past one another or lobbing words as a form of profanity is destructive. 

Just a note: I may have modified the lyrics to the chorus for the old gospel foot-stomper above.