For Wilshire Baptist Church
Typos are the bane of my existence. As a writer, editor and communicator I’ve fought them and feared them my entire adult life. Why? Some typos create gibberish or meaningless sentences, while others can turn fact into fiction or vice versa in a keystroke. The results can range from fall-down hilarity to head-down devastation.
Some of the most personally hurtful typos are with regard to names. In my first days as a newspaper reporter I had to write obituaries and I was told to double-check and triple-check the spelling of every name. “An obituary is often the only time a person gets their name in the newspaper, so let’s make sure we get it right,” I was told. The weight of that has never escaped me, and so I cringed recently when I bought a book that had a slip of paper inside the front cover explaining that the name of the author had been misspelled on the cover.
Every now and then a typo can stimulate a new idea or an expanded perspective. You may have read that one of the cast of “The View” questioned Vice President Mike Pence’s mental health because he claims to talk to Jesus. That doesn’t bother me because Hollywood types don’t understand much about these things. But I laughed out loud when I read a headline that said the comment had “insulated” Pence. Of course the writer meant to say the vice president had been “insulted,” but poor typing or proofing or autocorrect had botched the message.
Still, that got me to thinking about how we are indeed “insulated” in many ways by our faith. When people insult us we can be insulated from their barbs if we hold strong to a belief in a higher purpose beyond our personal ego comfort. And in general we are insulated from the fear, despair and anxiety that can be so debilitating when we believe that we are alone in the world.
Some typos aren’t really typos but are misread messages caused by poor choice of typography, like the small sign at a funeral home with thin cursive type that appeared to indicate “Parking for Jimmy” when it actually said “Parking for Family.” And then there are mental typos that occur in our brains when we read something too fast. A few weeks ago we were singing a hymn in church, “The Mission God Has Given,” and I glanced ahead and read these words: “To spread the rebel message that Jesus is the way.” That seemed odd – “rebel message” – so I took a second look and it actually said “global message.”
The full verse is:
“To spread the global message that Jesus is the way,
Then we must mirror Jesus in how we live each day.”
That makes more sense, but isn’t the message and example of Jesus rebellious in light of what popular culture teaches? We’re surrounded by messages that promote self-fulfillment by being the first, the best, the brightest, the coolest, the loudest. And yet the message and example of Jesus is to be last, least, meek, mild, quiet – not to diminish ourselves but to create a mindset and spirit attuned to lifting others up. And the best way to lift something up is to crouch low and lift with the knees.
Oh, pardon the typo. I meant to write “lift with the heart.”