Fragile: Handle with Care

A clear and simple message is tacked to the bulletin board hanging on the wall in my writing room. My desk faces this wall, so I can’t help but see what’s on it. Among notes and quotes and tiny photos is a warning sticker for mailing boxes that contain breakable items. The warning is in black and bright orange ink, “Fragile, handle with care.” Why is it there?

Handling people with care

I tacked that sticker in plain sight to remind me that despite any bluffing, or puffing, or blustering about, or any posing, boasting, or talking too much, inside each person is a fragile heart. Which is not to say a fragile heart can’t be courageous, strong, and true. Such a heart would be open and openness is vulnerability, and vulnerability is human and fragile. “Handle with care” is simply a caution not to be reckless.

Handling words with care

What helps me improve carefulness? Practices such as yoga, swimming, and journaling (writing by hand) help me to go more slowly in my body and my mind, increasing the odds I will take more thoughtful time when I write. I try, anyway. Stopping to consider word choices and their effects on readers pushes me to do better in selecting the best words at the right place. That goes not only for conveying my own thoughts and feelings, but also those of a fictional character I might portray in a story. It may seem as if I’m writing for writers today, so bear with me. This post takes a detour.

Slow practices like those may also slow thinking before speaking. Worthy goal, but not ever met 100%. Speaking of speaking …

A memory of memorizing careful words

When I was in seventh or eighth grade at St. Francis de Sales Catholic School, our class had to memorize a speech. We were big on memorization. I guess the teacher gave us a list of speeches to choose from, I can’t remember. All I know is that I went to work on memorizing President Lincoln’s famous “Gettysburg Address.” I practiced at home in front of my bedroom mirror. Soon, I recited it at the front of the classroom, in the spotlight of attention, with hands sweaty and voice trembling. The full text of his speech is at the end of this post.

Lincoln’s memorable phrase

What I especially love about Lincoln’s speech is his line, “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

I understand from history that Lincoln cared deeply about the nation, the people who died to keep it free, and for its Constitution. What a phrase needed today: “Nobly advanced.” I love the evident care Lincoln took with his words.

Handling fragile Democracy with care

Now for a detour into more seriousness … Can we nobly advance today? Can we keep our democracy those soldiers died for?

It has become impossible to miss public discourse on this ideal of democracy and the over-the-top disturbing, soul-rocking political events we’re slogging through like the mud of Gettysburg’s battlefields—namely, the impeachment of the President of the United States and the impending Senate trial which might remove him from office. As I write this, we’re on the eve of the trial’s official start.

Handling my political views

Until today, I’ve been inclined to refrain from sharing my political opinions in these posts. However, after giving it a lot of thought over the last few weeks, I feel compelled to say something on my own blog. Like many of you, I’m sick over our current political crisis.

Everyday, words—those wonderful things I use in my chosen craft—are the currency of corruption and tools of hate and fear at the highest levels of our government. I realize this is not news, nor is it the first time in history, but it’s extreme and in our faces like no other time. Destructive words, lies, and outrageously divisive statements are all over the place, especially in the tweets, personal attacks, and reckless comments that our President makes.

If you don’t know already, I did not vote for Trump.

In my view, evidence was abundantly clear for The House of Representatives to impeach Trump. Now, let’s hope the Senate trial offers impartial justice. Will Senators keep their oath to make that happen? President Lincoln would be proud if we could “nobly advance” as a nation.

In closing, I urge us to take care of and take care with our words. In some ways, our words take care of us one way or the other.

Democracy is fragile. Handle with care.

Thanks for reading,

Your writer on the wing,

Charlene

P.S. Since last summer, I am no longer on Facebook. I deleted my page and Undertow’s page because Facebook gave my information to Cambridge Analytica.

You can find me on Twitter. Charlene Edge@61647Edge

President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

Click the title of the speech to take you to the web page source.

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