As did many  motorists back in the, let’s say, 1970s, I had a citizens band (CB) radio in my car. That was long before cell phones and the sophisticated communications gizmos that help distract drivers today. The CB radio was almost always an add-on, a device one might have bought at Radio Shack or Circuit City (both have gone the way of the CB).

Older readers here will remember that those two-way radios required no license after they became so popular that the FCC couldn’t possibly keep track of them. That was unlike the shortwave radio requirements that included some “book learning” before one could go on the air. The CB radio was meant to be used by the common “citizen” as a way to contact friends and neighbors and sharers of the road.

The radios were first adopted by truckers, who reported various highway issues to one another, including speed traps, accidents, and misbehaving drivers. The original 19 channels quickly grew to 40, as people bought into the craze and began chatting to one another for hours on end. A certain CB lingo developed, and users devised special names to keep a certain amount of anonymity in such a wide public forum. Those names were “handles,” not a word original to CB users, but before long the term seemed appropriated by the medium.

I got a CB radio mainly for safety reasons, I guess. If my car broke down, I could put out an SOS on Channel 19 and lots of drivers within a couple of miles could hear my plea. If I were running late to get home for supper, I could track where the traffic was and wasn’t. Some people had a “base station” at home, and if they were within range, they could contact one another to request a loaf of bread on the way home, or report on progress in a traffic jam.

I needed a handle. Unlike some of the macho trucker handles, mine was, well, different. It came from one of my seminary professors. I had just preached a student sermon before a “congregation” of classmates. During the critique session that followed, one student said my content was OK but I preached the sermon without any fire, or spirit, or animation. Dr. William Oglesby defended my pulpit demeanor by saying that some preachers were more like “gentle lambs” than passionate prophets.

That term stuck. When the prof passed me in the hallways of what he called the “schoolhouse” he’d say something like, “Good morning, Gentle Lamb.” I liked that. Still do. And coincidentally, that appellation fit the close of my radio programs each week, when I left this thought with the listeners: “Until next week, please be gentle with people, and…with yourself.”

Gentleness, it turns out, is one of the biblical fruits of the Spirit. Though some translations use the word “meekness,” that’s a bit cringe-worthy. Gentle is more the way I lean.

So, my CB handle was “Gentle Lamb.” I have to admit I rarely used it though. You see, my introversion extended into my CB radio microphone use as in every other arena of my life. I mostly listened to my CB; I didn’t talk much. I guess the term for that is “lurker.” And lurkers didn’t need handles. When the rare occasion did come when I used the handle, I often got a kind of “huh?” Gentle Lamb? Huh?

Here’s what led me to this essay today. Like many of my friends in church, community, and Facebook, I am unsettled by the violence of today’s discourse. From left and right comes divisive, angry, impatient, just plain mean talk. I’m laying that especially at the feet of rightwing media, I suppose because there is so much of it. The left has a little low-powered broadcast radio presence, and MSNBC. The right has the countless high-powered radio outlets, with hour-after-hour ranting of…well, I don’t even want to name them on my blog. You know. And there’s the conservative cable network owned by the Australian rich guy, the network that leads the chief exec around by the hair every day. Complaint. Criticism. Outrage. Ranting. And let’s name it: hatred. Pure hatred directed at those who would disagree.

And racism. Bigotry. (Oops; there might have been a little peep from the liberal media over there. They are so small, I could hardly get the signal.)

I am tuning it all out. I am, and will remain, to the best of my aging ability…gentle. If the voices I’m hearing aren’t gentle, or at least more gentle, I’m dismissing everything that is said with rancor or utter meanness. Now I realize there are some truth-speaking prophetic voices, speaking their truth to power, and their righteous indignation must be heard above the din of angry public discourse. But even then, I prefer reasonable conversation, thoughtful listening, and more of that “time to keep silence” that the philosopher of Ecclesiastes mentions.

Someone has to keep the gentle lamb nurtured and nourished. I’m proud to protect that handle.