Snowflakes Unite

I recently found myself entangled in an altogether surreal Facebook interaction that quickly resembled Br'er Rabbit's experience with the Tar Baby.  The more the comments went back and forth, the more inextricably and frustratingly entangled we became.  It was touchy; it was conflictual.  Then, as so often happens, absent better arguments or elucidating insight, the interaction descended into name-calling.  My conversation partner, with all the derision that can be dripped onto and through a typed word, referred to me and various other correspondents in the string as "Snowflakes."

Snowflakes?  I didn't quite know what to make of the label.  Name-calling, regardless of its particular textual and circumstantial formulation, is always a despicably low and amateurish form of human discourse; a flailing of desperation seized upon in lieu of substance.  But "snowflakes"?  Obviously intended as a political pejorative - a putdown of some inscrutable intent - for the life of me I couldn't make sense of the reference.  How fossilized does one's imagination need to be, I wondered - how diminished of wonder and fascination and appreciative observation - to turn one of nature's most evocative and metaphorically rich phenomena into a derogatory epithet intended to belittle and dismiss?  Subsequent Googling clarified that the term has been co-opted by one chorus of the political dysfunction to demean those with whom they disagree as fragile ephemera who go about life with a perpetually vulnerable and inflated sense of their own uniqueness.

Understanding the "put down" only made me sadder.  How has it come to be that those very qualities are viewed as negatives?  Fragility.  Uniqueness.  Vulnerability.  How has it come to be that unbridled, unchanneled strength is adjudged an unmitigated "good"?  In this culture, and increasingly around the world, we thumb our snowflakes into soggy oblivion, and use the resulting moisture to wipe away any residue of those with whom we disagree.  Could it be that this metaphorical descent helps explain the dismissive toxicity in which we now find ourselves deteriorating?

I recall that the word "Christian" was originally intended as a label of derision by those enemies of Jesus and those who opted to follow him; a put down that was eventually embraced and adopted by those very ones it was intended to demean.  I've decided to follow the example of those early Christians and embrace as a label of honor this epithet intended as a slam.  I can't think of any more attractive and aspirational sobriquet than "snowflake".  It is certainly true that I am fragile and therefore vulnerable.  Anyone -- even the most voluble, blustery bully -- is delusional to think otherwise.  It doesn't take very many tiny, malignant cells within us to prove the point.  Likewise, a moment's distraction in an automobile, no matter its size or number of airbags.  Neither concrete nor steel nor stone, we are ephemeral, and the sooner we reclaim that essential truth about ourselves and each other the sooner we may find our way back to a healthier path.

Similarly, it is true that we are unique -- precious, at least in part -- because of it.  No one need take my word for it.  A simple look around will demonstrate the fact of it.  For all of our evident similarities, no one looks or sounds or thinks or behaves quite like me -- or you.  But a careful reading of scripture  -- most scriptures, it turns out -- asserts the existential significance of it.  Surely inheritors and adherents of the Judeo-Christian tradition should have no doubt of our individual and collective preciousness.  It is, according to our understanding of the very voice of God, the essence of who we are.

Holy.
Wondrous.
Unique.
Inestimable.
Irreplaceable.
Divinely adored.

Until we rediscover and reappropriate this essential understanding of ourselves and each other -- until we drift our way into the weighty and powerful bank of fellow snowflakes -- we will simply continue to shoot, ignore, wall out, and annihilate each other.  Somehow, that hardly sounds like a desirable alternative.

So, Snowflakes unite!  As any fallen branch in winter can testify, it is powerful when we do.  We can argue and disagree; we can vehemently counter each others positions and advocate for radically different options, but if it persists that we deny or ignore the fragile and precious uniqueness of each other the metaphor will surely shift.  We will become the broken and fallen branch instead of the snowflakes that overwhelmed it.