Potty Mouth

I’ve wanted to write about profanity for a long time but I just couldn’t get my shit together.

Did I stop you, even for just a second, with the “bad word”? Why? Would it have made a difference had I put it “sh**t”?

So-called swearing or cursing bothers a lot of us. From a “Language!” admonition all the way to demanding a US Representative resign, the reaction to certain English words is universal.

When I was a college pre-ministerial student, I attended Southside Estates Methodist Church in Jacksonville and was invited to preach my first sermon there. As I am sure you can guess, it was far from a memorable gem but I worked hard on it and put myself into it. So, after the service, I hoped for at least a little positive reaction from the minister of the church. His first words: “I am very disappointed that you used the word ‘darn’ because you know it means ‘damn’.” (If this seems too much to believe, I have dozens more examples from those Methodist days)

So, they supposed a minister using this kind of language to be a sin and I can’t tell you how many times over the years when a swear word was followed by “Sorry, Reverend.” I don’t when or where I finally got past that but a big influence was our wonderful Wisconsin Association Minister, Jim Savides, who to say he “swore like a sailor” was to put it mildly

In our family, we seem to have to unconsiously moved far beyond that a very long time ago. When our intrepid daughter turned out to have no qualms about using her sparkly language around her parents and when we in turn had no adverse reaction we were there.

Reaction and worry about certain “bad” words probably won’t go away. However, give credit where credit is due. When Rep. Rashida Tlaib referred to our dear President as “motherfucker” how much more of a perfect description do you want?