A few weeks ago my wife alerted me to the plight of Brittany Maynard. As a millennial who has a fairly strong disdain for technology and news media, I was proud that it took so long to discover the cultural flashpoint that this woman’s life had become. My wife further pointed me to a blog written by a Christian woman named Kara Tippetts. It was posted to the blog A Holy Experience.
My wife was moved by what Tippetts wrote. And though I tend to think that many blogs perpetuate banal tedium ad infinitum that would be better kept within the gray matter of the usual blogging narcissist, I decided to give this a read since my wife gave it such high acclaim.
The article was… good. But something was off. Horribly, horribly off. Before I talk about what that something was, allow me a few brief qualifying remarks.
First and most importantly, Kara Tippetts seems like an amazing Christian woman. As she touched briefly on her own story with cancer, I was moved much like my wife. Here is a woman with a husband and children who knows that her suffering will, in all likelihood, culminate in her departure from this earth all too early. I was amazed at her story and grateful to God for giving her such grace in this difficulty. What a testimony to the church.
Additionally, it is likely that what Kara Tippetts said is far more important than anything I could say here. If Facebook likes are any barometer of the value of one’s writing (and my generation seems to think they are, although for reasons that make very little sense to me) then Tippets will undoubtedly beat me out seeing as her article already has 296,000 (yes you read that right) likes.
And before I am labeled a Jeremiah for my musings on her piece, let me say I gladly accept the designation. Now, for the matter at hand.
What was so horribly off about this piece is that the appeal to the individual, Brittany Maynard, was so personal and yet it was posted in a venue that was so public. This in turn, had the effect of gutting the plea of Ms. Tippetts to Ms. Maynard. In short, the medium destroyed the message.
The title of the article begins, “Dear Brittany…” Anytime the title of an article begins with “Dear John/Jane Doe…” it makes me a little nervous mostly because the words “Dear John/Jane Doe…” and article are two concepts that should never ever be combined. When a man or woman picks up their pen to write the words, “Dear whoever you are…” it carries a certain quality of personalness about it. It is meant for the eyes of the person right after the word “dear.” This very phrase “dear,” means the person addressed is close to you and if not already close, the writer usually hopes that they should soon become close. This is a very personal address and yet in this piece, it makes the title of the article (because make no mistake, this was not a letter, it was an article).
This paradox becomes a summation of the problem for the entire article. How can someone write something to another human being that is so personal, that deals with their inmost fears, struggles and concerns and then go splash it around in article form on the internet?
As it turns out, my sense of foreboding over the title proved to be correct. As the article develops Tippets tells of her story with cancer and then makes a very personal appeal to Maynard saying:
But more than my book, I would jump on a plane tomorrow to meet you and share the beautiful brokenness of my story and meet you in yours if you would ever consider having me. I pray my words reach you. I pray they reach the multitudes that are looking at your story and believing the lie that suffering is a mistake, that dying isn’t to be braved, that choosing our death is the courageous story.
Call me a tough nut to crack but this is tough to read. Why would Maynard ever want to meet with someone who has made a personal plea to her on the Internet, in an article masquerading as a letter of personal concern? The laws of love and human decency (much less the Christian religion) dictate that no one in Maynard’s shoes could ever take Tippets with even a fleck of seriousness. And I have not even touched on the fact that Tippets already mentioned that she had spoken to her doctor about Maynard’s story.
My guess is that if Maynard read this article she probably would have thought: “I will never call this woman in a million years. She has talked about how sad my situation is to her doctor, she has feigned sincerity by writing with such concern all while posting it on the internet and she made no attempt to seek me out in a truly personal fashion.”
And this is a generous estimation of what Maynard might think upon reading this. Perhaps she might think even think of Tippetts as extremely narcissistic for writing an article that promotes her own struggle, book and YouTube videos. I’ll give Tippets a pass here because she sounds like an amazing Christian woman, as I stated earlier. But gone are the days where modesty and humility dictated that we keep ourselves out of the spotlight. Now people write about themselves, promote their brand and talk about their story and we consider that par for the course, nothing out of the ordinary.
All of this analysis/critique isn’t meant to rip Tippetts but rather to serve as an object lesson for Christians in how they deal with ministry, the lost and the media.
For one we need to seriously consider our use of media. Is the message being destroyed by the medium? In this case the answer is obviously “yes,” but I fear that many of us are blinded to the ways that content interacts with various mediums so as to render it pure rubbish.
In this case we can ask: How would this letter have looked different if Tippetts truly did write a personal letter to Ms. Maynard? Would it have contained YouTube videos? The talk of the book she had written? Or would it have been even more caring and tender? Would Tippetts refrained from talking about self and instead written this woman through tears of her desire to speak with her on the weighty matters of death and suffering? Wouldn’t a letter like that have more closely matched the supposed care and concern that Tippetts claims to have for Maynard?
As it stands Tippetts writing is nothing more than an entertainment piece designed not to woo Maynard with words of care, concern and love but rather to garner applause from the target audience, Christians. Maynard was never really the target audience here. Christian blog readers and social mediaites were.
As Christians we ought to think not only about what we are communicating but how we are communicating it. Is the medium I am using to communicate consistent with what I am trying to express? Does the avenue for delivery match the message of love and care that I am trying to express?
I will begin by suggesting that articles wherein titles begin with word “Dear” ought to be one paradox that no Christian should deal in.
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