Main Point:
In this very thoughtful book, Marilyn McEntyre encourages her readers to engage in a series of twelve “stewardship strategies” to care well for words. McEntyre believes that our culture has lost her sense of the importance of stewarding the gift of language. She believes that words are “entrusted to us as equipment for our life together, to help us survive, guide, and nourish one another” (page 2). To be good stewards of words, she argues that we must engage in three tasks: “deepen and sharpen our reading skills…cultivate the habits of speaking and listening that foster precision and clarity…and practice poesis – to be makers and doers of the word…” (pages 9–10). She offers the twelve stewardship strategies as guides to help her readers to accomplish these tasks. For ultimately, “caring for language is a moral issue” (page 1), and we “pay a great price for our tolerance of inaccuracy and triteness” (page 19).
Summary/Analysis:
After painting her perception of the problem we face in our culture surrounding our poor and inadequate use of the gift of language leading to the debasement of that gift, McEntyre embarks on her tour through twelve strategies for caring well for words. Her first strategy is to encourage an awakening of the joy of looking “at words instead of through them” (page 26). She wants to stir in us a love for words that yields a “precision of expression…” (page 34). This precision is gained through attention to grammar and the gifts that each kind of word contributes to the process of bringing “things worth looking at into focus” (page 34).
McEntyre’s second strategy center’s on the importance of truth telling. While recognizing that “we see only one side of the elephant at a time…[and] opinions are the stock in trade of thoughtful people…(page 41), she maintains that “precision [is] a spiritual discipline that lies at the heart of truth-telling and the faithful stewardship of words” (pages 42-43). She starts by asserting that “precision begins with defining terms” (page 44), and also requires attention to a process leading to finding the right word. She draws particular attention to finding the right verb around which to construct an argument or deliver an assertion. Within this task, she also highlights what Keats calls “negative capability – the capacity to dwell in paradox or ambiguity without straining after resolution” (page 54).
Closely related to the strategy of truth telling is McEntyre’s third strategy, “don’t tolerate lies.” She readily acknowledges that this is more challenging, but dives in nonetheless. She laments our tendency to tolerate deceptions that “comfort, insulate, legitimate, and provide ready excuses for inaction” (page 57). Instead, she directs her readers to ask a series of probing questions when considering sources of information and assertions. These include examining the track record of those offering information or arguments, noticing who is framing the questions being considered, discerning whether there are partisan biases in the language being used, being aware of what authorities are being appealed to, and ascertaining what information is sufficient to formulate a position (page 61). While readily acknowledging the hard work and time involved when engaging in such a process, McEntyre strongly asserts that we have a responsibility “to protest manipulation and lies in all their sophisticated forms” (page 63).
McEntyre’s fourth strategy, reading well, “is a lifelong process” (page 65). From her perspective, good reading “is not possible without investment of the whole self” (page 68). She offers three important questions to guide good reading. “What does this work invite you to do? What does it require of you? What does it not let you do?” (page 69). In this context, she encourages her readers to approach texts using the Benedictine discipline of Lectio Divina where the reader can more readily engage words at a personal level. She also encourages us to be aware of those places in every story where the author and reader meet – almost where the author places before the reader an intimate meal that the reader ingests as food for the soul. In the same manner that we become what we eat, so we become what we read. This happens most intensely in those situations where the reader memorizes what is read, which helps to guard against the plague of “word erosion” (page 83).
McEntyre then offers her fifth strategy, staying in conversation. She recognizes that this is not easy, and believes our current situation is compounded by the deadening effects of television viewing. Instead, good relationships require people to develop the ability to engage in “crafting into sharable story what has happened to us” (page 95). Though this is one of humanity’s most enduring art forms, it “does not come naturally” (page 96). Instead, McEntyre maintains that certain skills and attitudes need to be cultivated in order for good conversation to flourish. These skills and attitudes include deliberation, curiosity, listening (as opposed to simply hearing), honesty, and generosity. These important elements, once cultivated, can lead a person “to a willingness to change one’s mind…a rare quality” in our current climate. Ultimately, “Words need space. Witty, weighty, well-chosen words need more space than others to be received rightly, reckoned with and responded to…Like prayer, good conversation fashions words into vessels that carry living water” (pages 106 and 110).
In like fashion, McEntyre’s sixth strategy, share stories, builds off of many of her thoughts associated with the previous strategy. In this instance, she concentrates her energy on highlighting the importance for our society of reading stories, poems, and plays. She claims that “there are certain kinds of understanding that we have no access to except by means of story” (page 113). She shows the place of story in developing our ability to tolerate ambiguity and reason rightly about complex human situations through carefully considering the layers of meaning in well-crafted narratives (page 121). She concludes by saying that “At their best…stories help us to cultivate compassion…their primary function” (page 126).
Next, McEntyre shifts her focus to the more granular topic of “the long sentence.” She suggests “that a good steward of words ought to be able to construct, manage, navigate, and convey the delights of a long sentence, and ought to recognize in a good long sentence an instrument of reflection that can sharpen the life of the mind and foster discernment” (page 128). In this section of her book, McEntyre takes her reader through various passages by Henry James, Wendell Berry, William Falkner, and Mary Oliver. Through this exercise, she shows that “If we stay the course…those that learn to love the long sentence…win the gift” of understanding or seeing the gems that authors share with us (page 143).
Next, McEntyre directs our attention to the playfulness that many of us have lost. She suggests that caring for words well requires “some regular practice of poesis – reading poetry, learning some by heart, and writing – if not verse as such, at least sentences crafted with close attention to cadence and music and the poetic devices that offer non-rational, evocative, intuitive, associated modes of understanding” (page 145). Poems help us to approach the ordinary in imaginative ways that open to us alternative paths of seeing and perceiving the world. She asserts that “Trained imaginations are what we need most at a time like this” (page 151). Then we will be able to more readily “ask how, not what” is happening. We can focus on what appear to be the small questions which are often the “big questions in disguise” (page 155). Then we can move toward grasping paradox, “a prerequisite not only for fathoming spiritual truths…but also for thinking complexly and compassionately about this worldly issues…” (page 162).
McEntyre then moves from attending to our own language to reflecting on the importance of the ecosystem of the world’s multiple languages. She implores her readers to care for the relationships between languages and to be aware of the gifts offered to us from other languages. She contends that “Even to learn a few phrases of another language is to receive a gift…” (page 178). She also alerts her readers to the translation issues associated with biblical translation and how those issues concern us all (page 181). She implores those engaged in professional endeavors to “make their work accessible and helpful to those outside…to enlarge discussions of professional issues in ways that enable wider reflection” (page 184).
Next, in asserting that “Wordplay is the basis of both good poetry and clear thought,” McEntyre highlights the importance of retrieving the concept of “play” within this important notion of “wordplay” (page 188). In doing this, we “retrieve what is truly and essentially childlike while resisting the temptation to waste time on what is childish” (page 190). She wants her readers to relish writing as “a process of playing around” which, unfortunately “gets lost in environments where writing is so frequently treated as a commodity” (page 191). She also laments the fact that we as a culture have “abandoned wit, with its high and demanding standards, for the lesser satisfactions of sarcasm, wry remarks, and ill-gotten punch-lines” (page 203). By contrast, “wit lands lightly and leaves quickly, never explains a punch-line or takes too long to deliver one” (page 208).
Finally, McEntyre directs her reader’s attention to the relationship of words with the twin activities of prayer and silence. She reminds us of how well-chosen words serve to ground us in reaffirmation of our relationship to God. She asserts that the “language of prayer…works on multiple levels…It reminds, reframes, and reawakens; it humbles us and also empowers us…” (page 220). And yet, “Without silence, language becomes noise” (page 228).
Appreciation and Strengths/Weaknesses:
I found much to appreciate and hold with gratitude from this book. Not only does McEntyre tell her readers what she believes are the problems with our use of words, but through her own writing she shows us how to use words well. Her efficient presentation from within beautiful sentences was a pleasure to savor. I found myself continually re-reading phrases, sentences, and longer sections because of how well they had been constructed.
With respect to her ideas and arguments, I found much food for thought. In particular, her attention to the difference between looking at versus through words, highlighting the difference between slant and bias, noticing what we have lost by relying on sarcasm instead of wit, as well as her recognition of the importance of defining terms, each set in the context of her general emphasis on precision in the use of words, worked well to set the stage for moving into her descriptions of the various strategies she offered. Also, I agree with her assertions that “one of the most consequential areas in which imprecision is both commonplace and deliberate is in the justification of violence and injustice” (page 46). We see this especially in political press releases which seek to shade the truth in ways that conceal what their purveyors would not want too closely examined.
With respect to her strategies, I found her linking the importance of good reading (and calling it a pastoral calling), conversation, and curiosity (as a form of compassion) to be helpful. Her specific emphasis on the value of “play” in wordplay was an important reminder, especially that play and rigor are not opposites. From within these ideas, she encourages us to recognize paradox, or the notion of negative capability, and sit in that space where ambiguity rules and we don’t need to strain too soon toward resolution.
In terms of weakness, only a few small issues stood out as I worked through the book. I believe it would have been helpful if McEntyre had presented a more full-orbed description of Lectio Divina along with some of the pitfalls of that type of reading. I have found that many people who reference this type of reading often offer it in a way that seems to oversell its benefits without referencing any of the ways that poor reading often occurs when this method is used.
I also wish that McEntyre had included examples of what in her opinion constitute good prayers. Possibly sharing prayers from the Book of Common Prayer could have provided a helpful jumping off point for her discussion of using words well in the context of prayer.
In addition, I would have liked McEntyre to have provided further discussion and examples regarding how people, when engaged in professional endeavors, could make their work more accessible through translation. I think that engaging some of the work of both Thomas Kuhn and Michael Polanyi would have been helpful in this area.
Finally, I found McEntyre’s assertions regarding the co-opting of significant adventure stories by major media, resulting in a fixing of the images of those stories to be a stretch. She says that once these images have become fixed “however engaging and skillfully rendered, suppress the intimate, personal, enlivening process of invention that engages the mind in life-giving work” (page 120). Instead, I would contend that this life-giving work that engages the mind can happen around and through the images provided by major media portrayals of these works. I believe that as long as the major media portrayals are done well, they contribute mightily to the enhancement of an imaginative engagement with the thoughts and ideas presented in these stories.
Todd Rivetti 