October 22, 2012
Weeds of the Mind
Not too long ago I sat through a seven hour Liability Seminar. The
presentation was funny, engaging and thought provoking; however, the
presenter’s verbal expletives clogged my mental slang-filter. During the lunch
break while visiting with another attendee I was surprised at how quickly the
heavy dose of expletives we’d been receiving were already planted in our minds
and some of those same words were coming out his mouth. Later as I went over my
notes some of the off color language resurfaced in my mind. Whatever occupies
our mind shows up in our actions and our conversation and Paul reminds us, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true,
whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such
things.” (Phil 4:8 NIV)
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3 comments:
Gail;
-----I don’t think there is any category of words more attached to a particular attitude than profanity. Take my word as expert, too. I learned profanity well by the time I was four years old. I have practiced it much of my life, and I have battled it much of my life. Those times I am most free of the automatic flow that vocabulary becomes are those times I am deeply humble and willing to carefully adjust. Those times I must watch my tongue closely and in which I even find myself so automatically bent to spewing vulgarity are those times when I feel so sure of myself that adjustment is for others and my surroundings, but not for me.
-----At least in the laboratory my life has been, I find profanity tightly stitched to arrogance. And I am very inclined to believe the necessity for our putting profanity away from us is this reason of its attachment to arrogance. Yes, the images portrayed by these commonly four-lettered metaphors are base and uncomely. But realistically, they are all either by-products of life or the most intimate and private matters of life. God made life. He made the by-products, their processes, and the intimacies of life as well. So also we find these untidy little metaphors sprinkled sparingly here and there in His Word. Malachi told the priests that because of the partisanship of their practices God would smear the dung of their offerings onto their faces. I believe it is Psalms which likens our righteousness to filthy rags. We’ve all heard plenty often that the Word isn’t referring to my old dirty grease rags. So, why does God’s Word use any of this foul language at all? Well, simply because God is so perfectly right that when He says something must adjust to Him He yet is being humble because He certainly is being true, as I wear out Romans 3:4, “Let God be true though every man be false, as it is written, ‘That Thou mayest be justified in Thy words, and prevail when Thou art judged.’”
-----I am best aided by this thought that profanity’s vileness is the usurpation of God’s place to be right and demand either adjustment of His surroundings, or else their condemnation and cursing. I feel best in control of my tongue when I am carrying half my mind through the land of the possibilities that I probably am afoul of reality in at least some small ways requiring adjustments of myself to what I would otherwise be pressed to curse. This attitude of requiring others and the conditions around us to adjust to us is kind of common, and words of all sorts are very bound to emotions and attitudes. So it is no wonder profanity spreads like wildfire, quickly dredging up arrogance into play, thus destroying the delicate element of decency civility needs: humility.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
It is intereating that when you are around foul language it tends to appear in you speech. I spent years in the Navy and was in Maintenance after that. Mechanics espress themselves with very verbose language. Now that I am retired it has started to disapate.
Anonymous,
Like your experience, my three years in the Navy also added to my vocabulary. There was one expletive that I couldn’t, or didn’t shake…that is until I had children. Nothing will get your attention faster than having your words parroted back to you.
Gail
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