The word heckle comes from the process of turning flax into linen. Billy Bryson, perhaps not the world’s greatest historian but certainly one of the best at making history fascinating and humorous, writes about the process in his book At Home: A Short History of Private Life.
“Some twenty different actions are required to separate flax stems from their woody stems and soften them enough for spinning.” Heckling is one of these actions, all of which involved “pounding, stripping, soaking, and otherwise separating the pliant inner fiber, or bast, from its woodier stem.”
In other words, the point of heckling was to render flax pliable and useful.
Have you ever been heckled? I mean in the more modern sense: mocked, teased, shouted at, laughed at, mimicked, with the intention of shaming you?
This happens to me often. I’ve decided it’s a good thing.
I don’t like when it happens. I get angry, I feel that shame, sometimes to the point of tears or revenge. But still, I’ve decided it’s a good thing.
I am a pretty selfish, self-centered person. Just ask anyone who lives with me. I tend to think my way of doing things is the best way (even when it fails). My perspective on the world is the accurate one (even when I’m ignorant). My version of events is the right one (even when I swear I left the keys in my purse and Tom finds them on my desk). My interpretation of what ‘you’ said is more precise (even when I wasn’t really listening). My choices are more appropriate (even when I make them mindlessly).
In other words, I tend to think far too highly of myself. Until the Holy Spirit steps in with a little, and much needed, humbling.
I walk by a group of Djiboutian kids and they make fun of how I walk. They’re right, I do tilt my hips side to side in a goofy way. They laugh at my clothes. They’re right, I’m totally without style. They mock my accent. They’re right, I haven’t studied enough.
In short, they heckle me.
Even when they are wrong in their words, for example I am not a whore. I don’t earn a living as a prostitute. I don’t need to give them Lucy’s water bottle, even if they are wrong, they still put me in my place. They still give me something to think about.
Because they stir up my ugliness. They make my insides writhe with anger and bitterness. I lose my patience and lose my temper and lose control. They also remind me that I am not doing everything in the best possible way, that my way is not the right way. They reveal that I sin. Not that I make mistakes, but that I sin. I do things that offend God and are hurtful to human beings. I am so far from perfect, my way is so far from the right way.
In a January Runner’s World magazine article about the cancellation of the New York City Marathon due to Hurricane Sandy, there is a story of a woman who approached the RW booth at the expo, before the race was cancelled. She was afraid to race.
“I might get heckled,” she said. She was also afraid of having bottles thrown at her (I’ve had that), or worse (had that too).
runners get heckled often in Djibouti
I wondered if she had ever been heckled before and realized another good thing about heckling (besides that the more you say/read/write the word, the funnier it gets).
Being heckled makes you courageous. It lets you know that you will survive people mocking you, that you will survive people not agreeing with you, that you will survive even losing your temper. Because of grace. Because of new mercies every morning. Because of the promise of being a new creation. Because God knows we aren’t, never will be, perfect. And because we are called to live and love and serve and walk past that group of punks in our imperfection, relying on God’s presence to make us courageous and his grace to lift us up when we fail.
Heckling takes me from my stiff, firm, proud state and renders me pliable, maybe even useful.
Have you been heckled? How have you turned it from a negative to a positive?
this couldn’t have come at a better time…last friday my exercise class instructor said I was not trying hard enough…well I went into a bad mood and still am there a week later…how dare she, she does not know me, I’m sweating my butt off…all these going through my mind and I’m getting angrier and angrier …so guess what? I’m going to take a leaf from your book!!! I’m going to exercise harder and try be thankful for people’s remarks…xxxx
Oh no, ouch! Glad you can be encouraged though!
Such a an insightful read. I’m often heckled by children that I teach who laugh at my italian or my pronunication and it’s so easy to become upset or angry (in the private of your own mirror). Now whenever I’m heckled (which is a very entertaining word) I try to use it to motivate me to learn more italian and to study instead of becoming embarrassed and crawling into a defensive shell of English. As always, I love your writing! Sarita x
Thanks Sarita. Is that a word you use in British English? Just curious.
I had my 7yr old say, “what do you even do? Why don’t you get a job?”
While he doesn’t understand all that I do, I was missing something.
That moved me to writing.
My 7-year old asked me that same thing recently. “Mom, what do you DO? Are you a doctor, a teacher, WHAT?”
yeah… last time i was at the market, and it is usually groups of teenage boys. sometimes i ignore them… sometimes i put them in their place by getting an older shop owner after them, particularly if my girls are with me. ‘course that isn’t the gracious response.
thankfully it isn’t an all the time occurrence and often humor or a carefully memorized proverb changes the mood.
perspective is also important: the heckling here was nothing like the heckling i received during my year in SE Asia… not just heckling, but groping, leering, etc… it got a lot more physical even when there were two or three of us in a group. i was thankful not to understand the language back then… and after anger came a bit of worry then fear. i don’t miss those times.
Wow. So glad it isn’t just me. Here, it is often, for some reason, groups of girls that are hard to deal with. That’s so hard – what you experienced in Asia. Sorry to hear that, I know what you mean though but being thankful to not understand. Because then you don’t know the awful things they are saying. One of the best parts of our year in MN last year was walking to the park and home, four blocks total, and not being shouted at or insulted. Bliss.