November 09, 2012
Corrective Measures
The formatting on some of the blogs I post seem to have a mind of their
own. I always compose in the same font and size, but for some reason when I
post the blog changes will appear on the site. I decided I could live with
that, but lately random words which were once black started showing up as blue
and underlined. I can’t figure out why it is happening, or how it can be
corrected. It reminds me of some of the sins in my life. I’ll be thinking that
I’ve got my mind in sync with the Lord and then the Spirit will come along and
highlight some corner of my heart that I didn’t even know needed attention.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----One of Char’s classes is computer operation. She has a fit with these underlined, colored words. I think her word processing software has now gone far beyond spell checking into grammar checking as well. And I find a problematic side there. I would certainly welcome grammar checking into this old Microsoft processor I use. But, in my college days, I learned computers were dumb as doorknobs, faithfully holding the door shut or open up all day long, no more, no less. They are digital, you see. We are not.
-----We are analog. And being analog, nothing is perfectly open or closed in our minds, though we want to think differently. Since our language is the production of multitudes of analog minds, it too is analog, not digital. So grammar is fuzzy around the edges, like is spelling: tomatoe, tomato, potato, patatoe (and there goes my spell checker. Poor Dan.) When I want to say, “ain’t” it’s because I wanna deliver some emotional value, maybe with a hint that I’m being emotionally strung a bit to the dumber side of my thought. I’m not caring about my grammar, because I know everyone knows what I mean, and I’d like them to feel it, too! But the computer has no appreciation for feeling, no concept of fuzzy; it just doesn’t compute.
-----Thankfully, we’re more forgiving with each other than computers are with us. We all have fancy little ways we like to say things, and in the process of showing off, look dumb (or at least I do, or at least I‘m willing to admit I do.) But the greatness is that we try to rev up the mundane with a little sparkle or communicate the barely understood with a little grace. Then much personality is expressed amongst little flurries of ambiguity, and often, outright error.
-----Computers choke on this. They will highlight our personality and underline it, too, just like they do our properly correctible blunders. Personality percolates up from a deep, deep well of countless stirrings. Not all those stirrings are exactly holy. Many are close to it, don’t get me wrong. Some folks work hard to examine deep into the well, themselves, and settle what unsettling stirrings they can. But as much turbulence in there as will be currently calmed, there is always more which won’t be calmed until the Master takes those waters home. So we don’t need needling computers. Instead, He gave us I John 1:9 for relating the stirring well on the left hand to the Word of God in the right hand. We are wrong, it is right. So, unlike the computer, we can appreciate the good God makes of the highlights and underlines you are not yet able to change and accept them into your story only because they are currently there as the you whose end has just not yet come. That is the essence of confession. And such being understood, we can press on with a little highlighting here and a few underlines there, knowing that we communicate quite well with those who forgive. For they also know the essence of confession and, therefore, have escaped the fatal error of becoming the computer.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment