Reduction

  I’ll admit I have a skill that may be more trouble than it is worth.  Since I have a pretty good ear for voices, I can often pick up certain speech patterns.  That pattern will be the basis of a way to mimic them.  So then I can do a decent impersonation of a lot of people.  However, it usually isn’t as fun for them as it is for everyone else.

  I learned a long time ago that impersonations are not about duplication but reduction.  If you can reduce a person's speech to an easy to mimic phrase or peculiarity, you can pull off a passable impression even if you don’t sound all that much like the person.  Simplify a person to their most basic peculiarity and they are easy to mock.

  You see this in our world today.  We like to reduce people down to their most basic trait.  He’s crazy.  She’s is dumb blonde.  They are just selfish kids.  He’s so ambitious.  She is just uncaring.  Those may be parts of a person but they don’t make up the whole.  We then find it easier to dismiss and degrade a person when we have reduced them down to one negative characteristic.

With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God;

James 3:9

  James tells us something about that however.  No matter who we find ourselves dealing with there is a part of them that is made in the likeness of God.  Young, old, weak, broken, or crazy, we all is made in the image of God.  We may want to remove that idea so we can curse others, but no matter how small we want to make them the vastness of God is a part of them.

  That’s why it is so vital that we love our neighbor.  It might be easier to reduce them down to one bad trait but in reality we must love them because they are part of His being (Acts 17:28).

  So before we write off the person, let remember his creator.  Before we think less of people, let’s think of God more.  Instead of thinking of a man lower than dirt, let's raise him higher