Most of us are right-handed. Good for us! We give no thought to the fact that to be left-handed is to be disadvantaged. Our world is organised for right-handed people and everybody is content that it should be so. If we have seen left-handed people writing a cheque or turning over the pages of a book, we have seen how awkward it can be. We should better understand our left-handed friends (who are mostly uncomplaining), if we tried writing a birthday card with our left hand.
Our vocabulary gives the game away. ‘Left’ comes from an Old English word meaning ‘weak’. The Latin for left is ‘sinister’. If the opposite of ‘right’ is ‘left’, it is also ‘wrong’. If you’re a left-hander, you can’t win. Here we bump into the stumbling-block that words are the tools of thought but they are tools that need some discernment in their use. Words have overtones and undertones. To be right-handed is to be dextrous; to be left-handed is to be sinister. In other words, the right hand, the right-hand place is good; to be cack-handed is to be bad. (‘Cack’ comes from a Latin word meaning excrement.)
The New Testament writers accepted right-handedness as a fact of life. In what is called the heavenly session we are told that Jesus after his ascension sat down at the right-hand side of the Father (see Colossians 3.1 and numerous other references.) In the same way they accepted the masculine character of the word ‘kingdom’ without giving much attention to female monarchies – such as Cleopatra for example. We might use the term ‘queen regnant’. We don’t even have a word for a kingdom ruled by a queen*.
This assumption that certain things are given and are beyond questioning predates scriptural revelation and determines its language. No matter, we may say. These age-old assumptions reign in restricted areas and are of little more significance than driving on the left or right as may be convenient. After all, we are talking about hands or feet (somewhat important in a footballer or hockey-player particularly if he or she plays on the left wing). But it becomes much more significant, even alarming, as we recognise the carry-over when the word ‘right’ is used to convey a content of goodness or justice. We talk of doing the right thing.
If we move on to words dealing with light and darkness, we find the assumptions more and more questionable. White is pure, irreproachable, alive. Black is dangerous, impenetrable, deadly. Everything in heaven is white – the linen, even the horses, not to mention the great throne. No wonder Europeans have counted themselves lucky to be white and have been comforted in their assumptions. This is Christian vocabulary in action. The feminists have managed to change the way we speak, to change our assumptions about the primacy of the male. The same process is beginning with skin-colour. We Christians have to keep a watchful eye on our vocabulary and the assumptions it conveys.
*I am told there is such a word: queendom. I have never come across it being used.
BORDER MATTERS
Brampton parish church, Cumbria has a church designed by Philip Webb a Pre-Raphaelite. Not far from Lanercost priory and Hadrian’s Wall it has windows by Burne-Jones and a website bristling with a 90-second cartoon introduction to the Christian faith plus discussion of current issues by the Team Rector Stephen Robertson, who has ten churches under his purview..
Nearby Haltwhistle is looking for a new editor for its parish magazine ‘Outlook’. Anybody moving up that way?
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