A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

What does this image mean for you?  What do you think when you look at it?  I found it doing an internet search for peace.

What does this image mean to you?  What do you think when you look at it?  I found it doing an internet search for violence.

This morning my morning while I was thinking about what I wanted to accomplish for the day, I started thinking about language.  I was hit with about a million thoughts on the subject of language and communication, but mostly I was struck with the idea that it often feels to me like we do a lot of talking, but not a lot of communicating.  I can search the internet and find information on anything I want, information is all over the place and there are many blogs out there like mine where people just put their words out in the cosmos assuming that everyone is on board with understanding what their words mean, but...
Then there are the times that words are used to hurt.  And we say things that we don't really mean and tell ourselves that it is just words and unlike a punch to the gut, it doesn't hurt.  Or we tell ourselves that the lack of words isn't important either, the other person knows what we are thinking/feeling/etc.
A lot of therapists use drawings, art and interactive play to work with children because it is much easier to get a grip on an image than it is words.  But images can be deceiving too.
Anyway, the thing that set me off on this line of thought was a posting on Facebook yesterday.  Many of my friends and myself included have the image of the red equal sign:

posted as their profile picture.  This is the current symbol to show support for the opposition toProp 8 and DOMA going through the supreme court right now.
As I was winding down for the day, one of my friends posted this picture:

with the following words, "In honor of all those who will be disregarded, dismissed, or judged on the basis of their profile picture alone..."
This could have two meanings.  It could be a sort of support for the people who have elected to post the equal sign for marriage equality and the judgment that will be passed on their profile picture from the opposition.  Or it could be a statement of opposition to marriage equality and a show of support for those who might feel judgment by those who have changed their profile picture.  It is unclear, and I think intentionally so.
It doesn't anger me or frustrate me, but it did get me thinking.  Several years ago, a friend asked me how I could marry an atheist.  It was clear to her that I loved and believed in God, so how could I tie myself to someone who was very clearly an atheist?  This was very upsetting to her because the Bible clearly states that we should not yolk ourselves to someone who is not our equal.  In her mind, J being an atheist meant he was not my equal.
So I asked her where love comes from.  Her response was that love comes from God.  So I asked her if she believed that all love comes from God and she replied that yes it did.  So I asked her if all love comes from God does it matter what faith path (or lack thereof) J followed.  Did it make a difference that he didn't believe in God?  Was the love he felt and exhibited any less from God just because he didn't believe that is where it came from?  This question took her aback.  And in the end she said no, it didn't make a difference what he thought, love comes from God.  Period.  So I answered her question that I could marry an atheist because I too believe that love comes from God, thus if I really love J with that soul searched true love that comes from God, then I am not yolking myself to someone who is not my equal.  My friend accepted that and went on to really try to understand Atheism rather than just judging it.
I don't tell this story because I want to establish a position on marriage equality and make an argument for it, but because my friend had made some assumptions about J based on his title of atheist.  The assumption she made was that because he was an atheist God had denied him.  Atheist was a "bad" thing regardless of the soul of the person with that title.
My favorite part of the Vagina Monologues is  where the women on stage ask all the women in the audience to scream the word "cunt."  I love that part because in doing that, in screaming the word we take it back.  It no longer holds power.  It becomes just a word.  If I can say it and nothing bad happens then the word stops being something that can hurt me.  To be a little vulgar I always thought it entertaining that a boy seen as weak was often called a pussy.  It is meant to be deragatory, but let's think about it for a minute, a guy gets kicked in the crotch and he falls over in pain and many times starts crying.  A pussy is very often penetrated sometimes gently, sometimes roughly and you don't often find the woman (who was willing) crying about it later because of the pain.  Seems to me that we should rethink the meaning of the word pussy.


I digress, my point is that I feel like we have lost touch with the ability to communicate.  We have so many things to discuss and not enough words to accurately describe them so we use the same word to mean too many things.  And now, instead of trying to understand what the other person is saying, we assume that they are using our definition of the word and misunderstandings occur.


Yet if we draw a picture, things become a little bit more clear.