On Profanity.

I grew up with profanity. I come from a rustic environment, rough and tumble, full of hard characters. Their speech reflected their coarseness. It's hard to exist in that environment for 20 years or more and not have it rub off on you a bit. I'm not excusing it. I still know better, but in a weak moment I still might succumb to a smattering of Potty Mouth.

Profanity communicates weakness and/or ignorance.  Your weakness is a weakness of character, an inability or unwillingness to submit yourself to common laws of decency. Your ignorance may be simple: you don't know any better or weren't taught any better. It may be a more complex ignorance: you don't know how to communicate in any way where profanity is unnecessary or irrelevant.

Profanity may also communicate a coarser, baser nature that's coming out in you. You know it's wrong, taboo or verboten, but you choose to use it anyway. Perhaps you're trying to be cool. Perhaps you're trying to show others that the rules don't apply to you. Maybe it's simply rebellion, which, the last time I read a dictionary, was an act of defiance aimed at an authority or established convention. In this case, it seems to be aimed at both: authority and convention.

The funny thing is that people seem to be trying to communicate toughness when they get Potty Mouth. Unfortunately, they generally miss the mark.

 

The Unkindest Cut of All

(Originally posted 2/11/08)

I've recently experienced one more of too many disappointing interactions with so-called Christian brothers and/or sisters. I'll be sparing the details, mostly to protect the guilty. Suffice to say that this event provided more material to people who already take every opportunity to think poorly of me. Never mind that it was founded on falsehood, spread abroad by undisciplined, wagging tongues.

Rumors and gossip. Half-truths and whole lies. Misunderstandings and sour grapes. One expects these things outside of the Kingdom, but insiders should expect better. We are, after all, a chosen people. We should be emulating our King. We should be setting ourselves apart. There's a song whose chorus contains these words: "They will know we are Christians by our love." I guess that some just prefer to hide in the shadows and remain unknown.

Shakespeare undoubtedly envisioned a version of this, albeit a probable secular one, when he wrote these words:

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart. . . .

How, pray tell, can we as believers, in good conscience, be so thoughtless and cold as to betray a brother? How can we hate our own blood that much? There is plenty in this world to hate, all of it more deserving of our venom. There are causes a-plenty that need zeal and passion to move them along. Why the do we waste our indignation on those most deserving of our compassion and our forbearance?

Well, in some ways the answer is obvious. We in the light still bear a dark side. Some of us spend more time as Dr. Jekyll, others as Mr. Hyde. For some, the doctor rarely makes an appearance anymore. We all have this dualism. The apostle Paul wrote:

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Did you hear the good news? We have been rescued. We have been set free. Our liberator has cut loose the rotting corpse which had been lashed to us. So what are you waiting for? You prefer bondage to freedom? You say you don't mind the burden of that stinking, rotting corpse you carry around?

Step outside your cell, people! The door is unlocked, open. Leave your friend inside when you come out.

Oh, and close the door behind you.

My Fickle Fancy

(Originally posted 1/20/2008)

Concerning bass guitars, my loves have been all over the place. In some way, those guitars I've once loved, I still do love to a degree. The position that is foremost in my affections changes occupants from time to time. There's been the Music Man Bongo five-string (thus my username), the Music Man Sting Ray five-string (with double humbucker), and most recently, the Lakland 55-01 or 55-94.

I feel myself coming back to the standards. My present love is the Fender Jazz bass, preferably black with a maple fingerboard (concerning guitars, looks are important). My infatuation with five-string guitars is waning, and I've never felt an affection for a four string that could eclipse the Jazz bass. Now some of the Lakland Jazz bass copies (as the Joe Osborne in this picture on the bottom) are mighty fine, too, and are worth considering. However, I feel the American Standard Jazz bass is a fine instrument worthy of my limited skills.

Of course, the discussions of the merits of all these guitars is academic, as I will probably never own all of them. It's fun to speculate though, and my desires are fickle ones which will most likely be love from a distance. But, I've been able to play many guitars over the course of the years that would only have been possible within the confines of a Guitar Center showroom or the less-limited confines of my dream-state. So, no one really knows the value of lofty dreams.