I should have known better. I had an invitation to participate in a local
"celebrity" spelling bee hosted by a radio station, conducted for the sole
purpose of getting people to the home show at the mall. I think it was the
letter referring to me as a celebrity that appealed to my base instincts and
motivated me to give up a precious hour on Saturday morning to go out to the
mall and embarrass myself. I was just glad that no one from my family was able
to be there.
I was the first one out of the spelling bee. There were only seven contestants,
but still. You would think a writer, author, editor and all around print junkie
who has made her living as a wordsmith for the last 25 plus years could spell
such a simple word as "oppress." With two p's instead of one.
Of course the emcee had warmed us up with several rounds of 5th and 6th grade
four- and five-letter spelling bee words. None of which I can remember now! I do
remember that other people eventually went out on words like tutu and genius.
Neither of those would have been a problem for me, unless in the tension of the
moment, I would have flubbed too.
My office colleagues consoled me with "If you had seen it in print, you would
have gotten it." And that's true, I hope. It wasn't just the computer's spell
checker that has ruined my spelling, ironically. I think the real gremlin is the
little tool that automatically corrects my commonly misspelled (like that one)
words as I go. So the writer is never confronted with silly and stupid mistakes
(only the unusual, bad, really sloppy ones). I am never confronted by my common
mistakes or spelling sins, if you will.
The spelling bee was a good lesson in humility. But I think there is a larger
lesson for me in what happens when we try to cover over the "little mistakes" we
make all the time, and never confront our wrong doings.
What happens if all of the people I hang around with, work with, go to school
with, read, watch on TV, etc. do not challenge me to live a life of integrity,
honesty and character? What happens if I grow numb to the little inner voice
that makes me feel good when I do what is good and right, and the little voice
that makes me feel small, bad or naughty when I don't act with integrity? Is
there any role for conscience in this enlightened day of "anything goes,"
"whatever," "you do your thing, I'll do mine" and smorgasbord religion? People
need moral guidelines, or there is no real purpose in living.
People talk about "making an example" of Martha Stewart, as if that were a bad
thing. I bet she is wishing some red light would have gone off in her head when
her broker called her with news of the slipping stock. Selling the stock maybe
can be defended, (don't people usually pay their stockbrokers to keep them
appraised of stock market trends?), but not the lying and obstruction of
justice. But, who of us is so free of wrong doing that we have any right to pass
judgment, except the court system?
Now, I think that the ex-leaders of WorldCom and Enron should be punished far
more severely for the economic hardship they caused so many others. I do think
such examples remind us that there is right and wrong and sometimes lines do get
drawn.
Maybe I should turn the automatic spelling corrector on my computer off. And
hey, maybe while I'm at it, I should find a gizmo that is a humility checker, a
thing that would go off when I am inclined to do or participate in something
only to support my ego. Hmm...
Melodie Davis MelodieD@MennoMedia.org
from her weekly column ANOTHER WAY
http://www.thirdway.com/aw/awmain.shtml
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