What Does it Mean?

This morning, my girlfriend and I spent five hours at our church for a "church work day". It was a morning (and partial afternoon) of fun and carrying on, a social day as much as it was a work day. In what was once a music room in the church, we are creating a coffee shop where people from the community can come and do various... whatever. Drink coffee, get on their computers, at some times watch musicians perform. This was the first morning of work, and was mainly a painting morning. I currently have paint in random places on my arms, probably on my face, and most definitely on my t-shirt. I did a fair amount of physical lifting and moving stuff - including taking some stuff that was at least fifty plus pounds out to the dumpster - thank goodness I wasn't doing it all by myself. After the moving though, I was stuck on painting the windows. (Not literally the windows, but the frames.)

Well, this is me. I am extremely OCD, which constitutes that when you stick me on a project like that, don't expect me to stop until it is perfect. So, of course, on the bottom part of the window I worked on and the other pieces I worked on, there is absolutely no white left. It's all brown - the main colour of the room. There were five or six guys who worked in the coffee shop, painting and doing other tasks. My girlfriend and a couple other women cleaned out some other areas in the church. It was nice to get as much done as we did today, even though we didn't finish the shop.

Some other stuff happened - cleaning out the refrigerator in the kitchen (we got some food), and I got a case that most people use to hold and transport music gear. I, being the audio person I am, and having the gear I have, definitely can use this case, so I got it. Woot!

Afterwards, we all trooped downstairs to the fellowship hall and ate lunch. Before we ate though, one of the guys who was giving the marching orders for the painting gave a.... I guess "mini-sermon" would be a good term here. The basic gist of it came down to the fact that we all cursed a little while we were working upstairs - that's how it goes when you're doing physical work - and there were a couple minor issues between people (don't ask). He asked us, "What does it mean to be a Christian?" As he put it, as a Christian, he doesn't like using "swear words". It was a bit of a muddled sermon (sort of like my rants on here!) but made a fair amount of sense, as a Christian or not.

For me, it's language. Language is just that - language. The usage of words is a normal part of our lives, as it is how we communicate with one another. As somebody once told me, terms like "fuck", "shit", "damn", whatever, are just words. Nothing else. At some point, some... person... decided that those words were inappropriate and should not be used in regular conversation. This is not how I see it. I have dropped the "f-bomb" at least once while running sound, in the Sanctuary, in a Sunday morning service. What does it mean? Nothing. It's a word with four letters that normally means that something has gone wrong. You know another four letter word that means something has gone wrong? "Oops." "Oops" and "fuck" mean the same thing in my mind. Just that "fuck" has permeated my language moreso than "oops".

My (other) mom has ragged on her daughter not to say "foul words". Of course, she uses them constantly, as do I in their presence. I think this has caused my sister to use them more, which mom doesn't have many issues with, s'long as she uses them sparingly. I, of course, don't give a flying fuck. I'm pretty sure that I'm a bad influence on her when it comes to things like that... But oh well.

The guy giving his mini-sermon uses "foul language" himself once in a while - he dropped "shit" at least once this morning, but it didn't phase any of us. Why would it? In our society, those words are used so commonly that it shouldn't matter - but people make it a matter. In the end, it's perspective.

So what does it mean? Nothing. Perspective is how we view our lives, and our language. I have no issues using "foul" language for the simple fact that my perspective says that the "foul" language is nothing our of the normal. My father used it constantly, we used it in school from about seventh grade on, and at my most recent job, we cursed so much that the place might as well have been impossible to see through from the blue smog.

It didn't matter though. We got our point across, and it was normal. The wording is normal. It's how it is.

What does it mean? I don't know about you, but it doesn't mean shit to me.

Until next time.

Peace.