Concerning Palaver
Just like you and everyone else, I want to be heard. Just like you and everyone else, I am convinced that I have something to say. Yet who can hear a single voice when there is so much shouting? The answer is here, scribbled in my moleskin journal, if only they would listen! I can lob my voice into the throng with all my might and all my wit and all my hard earned knowledge, but like a raindrop in a hurricane it will never be noticed. For every ascending decibel my voice is only further absorbed, diluted, and eventually commandeered by the day’s cacophony.
The ministers of our faith, as well as their students (you and I), who participate in this clanging din of unproductive shouting are rusting out the bottom of the boat. The critics are smirking and crowds are shrugging, as “sailing on faith” looks less and less like something they want to try. So what then? What are we, with our moleskin journal answers supposed to do?
Ministers, instead of shouting let us palaver. To palaver is to speak eye to eye, to talk-story, to whisper along good news with a grin and a wink. Palaver is a thing of warm huddles and close-knit circles, shared meals and flame lit faces. There is no shouting in palaver. There is only love wrapped in what meager words we know. Passed back and forth they move us to weeping, to singing, and to laughter, and from this movement comes change.
Palaver is the medicine this world needs right now. When the stumbling masses are silent, a shouter must rise up. History is full of such times, and too many of us (myself included) nurture secret ambitions to be among such leaders (we might as well admit it). But unfortunately for our egos, that is not the age we have inherited.
Right now, shouting is easy. That’s why everyone is doing it, and that is why doing it is nothing special. When Dietrich Bonheoffer spoke publicly against the Nazis it was in a time of harshly enforced silence and there was nothing easy about it. But now we live in a culture that demands free speech and imbues every citizen with a megaphone. We are more equipped and encouraged to shout our opinions into each other’s faces than any other generation that has ever walked this planet. And now our voices cannot possibly be heard. So we must speak differently from the rest, we must speak in old way: we must palaver.
In palaver, Christ is the bonfire around which we gather. As long as this is the case, clear and gentle words will be warmly received. It is a movement among communities. A way of speaking and engaging with one another. It works upon society like a stream upon stone. It is not quick, but far more permanent. And it is able to effect it’s change without bringing down the mountain.
Does this idea sound familiar yet? Palaver is just a word, recycled and attached to an old and powerful notion. It is a gathering, a way, a movement that was set in motion by our savior long ago and without his heat, palaver is meaningless. For palaver is only as good as the fire around which it flows. And there are many false fires, burning brightly but bearing no heat. Though palaver can be found, it is made of babble and lies.
Twitter is a false fire. A costume party, where Meaning and Truth are just two friends, uninvited and underdressed. Facebook is a false fire. It is the Wild West, full of “savages” and trigger-happy sheriffs. Books, blogs (including this one!), comments, news feeds, posts and the rest, all are false fires. They offer us output unburdened by input, expression unburdened by restraint, and righteous victory unburdened by struggle. But palaver, when warmed by Christ’s presence, is different.
In palaver we speak his news, and tell his story in the presence of human beings. We are vulnerable to feedback, and held in check by our community’s shared wisdom. There in the presence of others and the warmth of Christ’s heat, we struggle, and from that struggle we mature.
I must continually resist the great media delusion: multitudes of “likes” don’t mean that I’ve changed a single mind or healed a single heart. All they mean is that I have articulated the opinion of that particular multitude. And unfortunately for my ego, that is not what ministers of Christ have been called to do.
Nor have I been called to blog the church into perfection, or to childishly disrupt the faith of another human being online because they are, “insert-my-issue-here.” Being right isn’t enough, and it certainly isn’t what matters. For every person healed by a “prophetic” tweet or post, I will show you ten thousand wounded who will never listen again. Posts and tweets are the tools of a butcher: good for dismembering the unhealthy parts of the body of Christ, but not so good at stitching ears back on.
The world needs to hear what we have to say, but tweets and posts aren’t getting get the job done. So let us lower our voices, and maybe they will too. Let us speak quietly with with those who have been entrusted to us, faithfully, steadily, and let God be the one to call forth a shouter. Let us speak prophetic truth to real humans and not to twitter handles. Let us discipline ourselves to never disrupt the faith of a person we aren’t willing to lead. Friends, let us palaver.
About the Author:
Austin Holifield is an MDiv student attending the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University and the youth minister at The Refuge, a Church of Christ. He is married to Hannah Holifield and has a beautiful seven week old baby girl named Lillian Grey.