Pop 89: Unlock the Tower of Babel

By Madonna Hamel

It's been a month of global upheaval wherein Carney managed to articulate his way through a meeting in Washington without getting finger-wagged by the card-dealer of the house. And, we have the new pope, who seems intent on raising the tone of our talk while lowering the barriers to compassionate encounter. 

I was especially intent on hearing what Leo XlV had to say to a room full of journalists about their obligation to "use words that disarm." "Reject and resist the 'war with Words" paradigm," he said. But once inside that paradigm, it's hard to escape, especially when outrage and insult receive "top story" status, oodles of airtime and gazillion "likes".

"Help us out of the tower of Babel," he said, referring to the biblical story of humanity originally speaking one language, living in one steadily rising tower, doing things only one way - all with the intention of arriving in heaven, successful and powerful and claiming god status themselves. 

One would think sharing the same language would make for unity, but instead, Babel became a means to restricted uniformity and a symbol of unhindered ambition. Beyond being a biblical story; it's a cultural and historical myth that reminds us to be humble and use communication as a means to connect and celebrate, not to rant or threaten.

Pope Leo also used the word "encounter", one favoured by Pope Francis. When we encounter each other, meeting each other where and as we are, and not as others expect us to be, we can begin to speak honestly and openly about who we are. We can dialogue. And dialogue, he reminds us, "reduces hostility." Above all, beseeched the pope, "let's act with dignity." 

Anyone remember dignity? Call it graciousness, depth, class - the call for dignity is a call for careful speech, kind reflection, gentle smiles. And, above all, listening. Trash talk seems to be rampant these days. It spills out of the mouths of talkshow hosts, podcasters, rappers, heroes in movies, guys standing around in parking lots and gals in wine bars. Trash talk is cheap and easy and requires neither reflection or accountability. But it leads to devastating results.

Loose cannons launch their harmful barrage from all directions, from our computer screens to our town squares. It's not just lazy language, it's the entranceway to dark and destructive behaviour. I won't get into it here, but, as a journalist in the past, I will say covered an ongoing story about a prostitution ring involving 14-year-old girls. Most of the girls I spoke with were introduced to porn at an early age. 

That was twenty years ago. Today, in a far more pornified world, engagement with porn and its many soul-trashing behaviours is being pitched as being "sex positive" ("positive" for whom, exactly?), claiming that "consent" to self-degradation makes everything ok. Trash talk, life threats, and the proliferation of porn shows up in everyday language, with every second word given a sleazy connotation, robbing pleasant conversation of its innocence. Two of the most googled words in porn searches are: "choking" and "crying". That's all I want to say about that; I don't want to ruin your day. I do want to illustrate how fast and how far we can go from dignified, caring, humane language. 

Words matter. As the dissident Soviet poet Joseph Brodsky told his American students: "You are naive to think that evil will come into your houses wearing big black boots. Look at the language. It begins in the language."

I would add that when we are no longer shocked by cruel and abusive language, we can no longer gauge how far we have fallen, how low we can go.

Thankfully, I have an antidote: the language of birds in the morning. I continue to thank my lucky stars (all of them aglow at night in this Dark Sky Preserve) that I live in the country. Here, hope springs eternal along with Spring. The cycles of life go on. The allure of a walk in the Grasslands, up cemetery road or along The Frenchman River continues to be a far bigger draw than the sinkhole of internet, and angry, cruel, petty newscasts. 

Spring, in all its guises and metaphors, is the key that will unlock us from Babel's dungeons of denigration and undignified behaviours. (It's worth noting that the word "dignity" comes from Latin "dignitatem", meaning "the state of being worthy.”) Spring forges forward - in stops and starts, perhaps, but with the energy of eternal renewal. 

In Spring I'm roused at 4:30 in the morning by robins, mourning doves and meadowlarks. In Spring, the monotone one-clouded heavens of winter are replaced by energetic cumulonimbus and curly-haired cirrus. They roll across the sky, somedays high and tall, other times, scalloped and mammalian, promising rain.

In the evening, the sunset glows through fluffy dandelions in the campground behind my home. It feels like it's old home week, watching the campers return, pulling in with their tear-drop tailors and tents. And the windows of The Convent Inn light up once again as guests escape into its sublime silence and unparalleled sleeps. 

In the evening, the birds pick up where they left off in the morning, and once again, an exaltation of larks fill the air. The sun takes its time setting, so more of us can walk late in the day, taking note of the license plates of visitor's cars parked at the B&Bs and Don's cowboy motel, (where I lived for a whole month, writing at the kitchen table, sleeping under a homemade quilt.)

And, speaking of quilts, I was invited to perform Mother's Apron at the annual Spring fundraiser for The Victoria Quilt Society last week. There, I witnessed an example of how high we can go: the level of artistic expression, disciplined effort, and deep commitment to the suffering of others was jaw-droppingly stunning and humbling, and filled me with goodwill. But I'll save my praise for these women for another column.