Adverbs and Dangling Participles

Currently Listening: Skin and Bones by Foo Fighters

It’s cloudy, dark, rainy and beautiful. The last few days have been splendid, we had a great weekend and I’ve been able to spend some good time with the family. I wish there was more I could do to help Ang be comfortable, this new baby can’t come soon enough. Carter continues to amaze us, his little mind is pretty sharp and some of the stuff he says or in this case the incredible amount of food he has been eating is both inspiring and frightening. I’ve been wondering if we ought to find a competitive eating competition for 3 year olds.

I’ve been thinking about words lately. I’ve always been fascinated by them because there are so many that I remember. Whether they are statements made during a sermon, from a parent, from a friend. Some are encouraging, some discouraging. Some I don’t know why I remember them but I do, always. Some pop into my head in certain situations as little nuggets of wisdom. This summer when I’d be at a worksite I run through a checklist in my head of advice on how to do something from instructions given by someone.

I listened to the same sermon two times in a row. That’s rare for me. I rarely do that because I usually catch enough once or have a hard time going over it again. I listen to stuff way down the road—but this particular sermon was so good I wanted to hear what I’d missed the first time. I found myself laughing at the same parts, looking forward to how he delivered a certain line and enjoying the beauty of seeing how something was building towards the point.

I’m amazed how you can read the same words of scripture so many times and always find something new, how suddenly an insight jumps out that to this point you’ve avoided discovering.

When I preach I focus on words. Not always as much as I should. I sometimes put a word or phrase in there that I want everyone to hear. I’ve also been guilty of putting a line or phrase in there specifically for someone. I want them to hear that message loud and clear. What usually happens is they don’t, or they aren’t there to hear it.

Sometimes the words of encouragement nag at me in a good way. Why don’t you do this? When are you going to do that? Have you ever thought about this?

When I was in high school my best friend Knowah (he changed it from Noah) and I used to ride around in his ’82 Datsun. It was a beater, there are so many memories about that car including how he had the CD adapter that went in the tape deck and was propped up by a folded piece of paper that had to be just thick enough to keep the tape connected or else we’d lose the music. He was a CD freak—back before MP3 you just had to carry the CD. He always had the booklets as well and so as I was riding shot gun—I never had a car so I always rode, he always drove—I’d read through them. I will never forget that he always said if a CD came with the lyrics in the booklet, it was lame. All great CD’s kept an aura of mystery and if you could read the words, it meant the CD sucked. I laughed the other day because I realized almost all of my music sucks if put under than highly scientific and thorough lens.

I’m listening to the new Foo Fighters disk. It is amazing. It’s like an unplugged thing that actually shows their musical ability and highlights their skill and the **gasp** lyrics. The funny thing is there are a couple songs I now know the words too. For all this time I’ve liked it and not understood what they were saying.

It seems to me that in the desire to be cool, to be complex, to be edgy, we’ve buried the words, the actual thing we’re trying to communicate, underneath so much stuff that people walk away without that which we really wanted them to hear.