Writing in Passive Voice

Passive Voice

I have some irrational fears in my life.  I am always afraid my underwear line is showing.  I am always afraid I sound a little bitchy.  I am always afraid I am not good enough (aren't we all).

I am honestly afraid of using Passive Voice in my writing.

I had this teacher in high school named Mr. Hawkins.  I took him for my freshman english class and again my senior year for Bible Lit. (Yes, they did offer Bible Lit. at my high school).  Mr. Hawkins was a strong Christian and he was a kind man.  However, he HATED passive voice.  We would do language exercises in his class freshman year every day.  We diagramed sentences and had to find passive voice and eliminate the threat (he was also x-military, crew cut and all).  He sent every paper home with big red marks PASSIVE VOICE over every sentence that used passive voice.  It was a little daunting.  The problem is that it was my freshman year in high school and I cared way more about EVERY boy in my class then I did about grammar (as you can tell by my lack of grammatical skills).

I don't remember much about passive voice.  I do remember it makes you look like an idiot when you write in passive voice, it makes you look uneducated when you write in passive voice, and no one will want to read your writing if you write in passive voice.  I also remember that "there is", "it was", "should have", and maybe even "were" are all ways we use passive voice and should never be used in writing.

The problem is that I do not remember how to fix this problem (that's where hearing only every other word my teacher says comes into play).  I was 15 and I did not give a crap about passive voice.  Here I am 12 years later being plauged because I only listened to half of what Mr. Hawkins was trying to teach me (kids pay attention to your teachers).

What does all this mean???

It means I have terrible grammar.  My next door neighbor in college Stephanie was a linguistics major and it took her correcting me to figure out that grammericle is not a word, but that grammatical is.  My fear of passive voice keeps me from doing a lot.  It keeps me from sending emails, writing letters, updating Facebook, and writing blog posts.  This is the first thing I have written in 5 years that Aaron did NOT spell check.  He used to check all my papers at Moody because I always switch between past tense and present tense... and I write with PASSIVE VOICE!

I think it's funny that this is kinda like God...  Yes, I am making Passive Voice about God.

I sit in my room, around my house, at church trying to listen to Him only catching half of what He says.  The only half I usually hear is about all the ways I fail and do not meet his expectations.  I also hear all the ways I should not be living and all the things I should be doing that I am not doing.  Just like Mr. Hawkins I am left without knowing how to fix the problem.

The beauty of God (and not Passive Voice) is that I... I... I... I... cannot fix this problem.  I cannot pull myself up by my linguistic bootstraps and make God love me more.  I cannot will myself to do the things I should be doing and not do the things I should not be doing.  Paul, had the same problem so at least I am in good company:-)

What I can do is remember that Jesus died on the cross.  He paid for my sin.  He loves me passionately even though he knows I will fail and fail and fail again.  For someone like me who likes to go "get it done" it is hard for these simple truths to be enough, but they are.

So thank you Lord, for loving me...

Even if I use Passive Voice.

KH