Thoughts on Language

I have learned to appreciate the quiet that comes with living in a community of 1,000 people. That appreciation is greatly increased when you compare our living situation now to living in a residence hall of 200 college students within a college campus in a city of 60,000 people. Yesterday, I took the opportunity to grab a chair and sit out on the porch of the house and read a book. It was refreshing and relaxing. It is something I hope to do every day, as long as weather allows.

As I was reading, I came upon a passage in the book about today's culture and the Christian perspective on it. Specifically, it addressed swearing in public. This brought up a two things that I wanted to write briefly about; I would also appreciate your thoughts as well.

Swearing

I struggle with swearing. Do I swear? Yes...but a lot less than I used to. I work every day to reduce my swearing. I am getting better! What pains me is when I see young children biking around and here them talking with every fifth word being some kind of swear. I hear adults using the most apalling language to talk about pretty mundane stuff. Why do we feel the need to swear? How did we allow our language to get so vulgar?

I don't exactly know, but I know that it's not helping us. I feel as though we are continually becoming more accepting of foul language. I can't control the language that people use, but I know that I can role model better use of it. I feel as though swearing makes someone look bad and also makes them a bad role model for younger folks.

Perhaps this serves as a challenge for us to find the right words to describe our wonder, frustration, excitement and other emotions. Just as it can be helpful to have someone pick out all the times you use "umm" when you speak in public, it might be worth while to see the role that swearing plays in your conversation. I gaurantee that you will be seen as more intelligent and refined if you don't swear. Try it!

Using the Lord's Name in Vain

There has been a lot of talk lately about the use of words like "retarded" and "gay" to describe people and situations. I am in complete agreement. I am frustrated when I hear people use these words. I will confront people when they use words like that and explain how it can be offfensive. With this in mind, I wonder why these words need not to be used, but people can feel free to use the Lord's name in vain and nothing is done about it.

I will also confront this behavior and I get some strange reactions. I think this practice is so engrained in people's word choice so they don't even think about it. It may come as a shock to them that someone might actually be offended by them doing that. This is something that I really struggle with. I believe the Christian community also has the right to say that when people use the Lord's name in vain, that is offensive.

If you haven't confronted someone about it, I encourage you to do so. I also encourage you to think about your own word choice. Have I used the Lord's name in vain? Yep. We all make mistakes, but let's take the opportunity to praise our Lord, not defile His name.

...so, what are your thoughts on this? They would be appreciated.