Prompts and Triggers
Today’s prompt is a little triggering. Triggering might be one of those words.
Having spent too much time on Twitter, I have to go with “gutted.” Everyone on Twitter/X is absolutely gutted over everything. The popular meaning (bitterly disappointed or upset) supposedly originated in 80’s British prison slang, which makes sense because Americans on Twitter also love saying “cheers.”
“Cliché” is another one. I’d like to run an ad during the Super Bowl reminding everyone that nothing is cliché. Something can be a cliché, but the adjective they’re looking for is clichéd.”
In terms of what we talk about on this podcast? The word biblical gets thrown around a lot, usually by people who are misreading, misquoting, or misusing the Bible. Except in the UK, and if you’re Liam Gallagher, because then it just means awesome.
Word of God suffers in the same way. Did you know the Bible does not really call itself the Word of God? It can’t. It does, however, call Jesus the Word of God. And so does Karl Barth.
I was thinking today about the difference between how we think of God as God (the God of all creation, of the entire cosmos, the author of all reality) versus how we think about God in terms of our daily lives. On some level, I believe these are the same, but I also know that I navigate my personal needs (prayers for my family, for example) in a very set way. We all have ways of containing (more generously, interacting) with the Mystery. In a way, these practices, routines, and rituals are something like household gods. They can, of course, become idols. But the ancient phenomenon of household gods took root for a reason. We need imminent and immanent ways to interact with the transcendent and ineffable. So we make little statues or we draw lines of division. We create labels, all of which are overused.
In the Christian story, God comes to us (to space and time, literally) and to oppression, poverty, anxiety (the human condition generally) in Jesus. It’s as if God says “there’s no proof of life in your idols; follow me instead.” And, of course, we kill him. Idols can’t respond. They can’t tell us our prejudices and hatreds and selfishness are wrong. Jesus can and does. So we kill him. Then we replace him with a book. We forget that Jesus is the Word (the creative agency, the mind, the full revelation) of God and we settle for the Bible. We put our perspective of it in a place of honor with the rest of our household gods and then we say that shelf of lifeless artifact tells us all we need to know about Everything.
If the word biblical is overused, the word idolatrous sure isn’t.
Dying Metaphors
“A dying metaphor is a derogatory term coined by George Orwell in his essay Politics and the English Language. Orwell defines a dying metaphor as a metaphor that isn’t dead (dead metaphors are different, as they are treated like ordinary words), but has been worn out and is used because it saves people the trouble of inventing an original phrase for themselves. In short, a cliché. Example: Achilles’ heel. Orwell suggests that writers scan their work for such dying forms that they have ‘seen regularly before in print’ and replace them with alternative language patterns.” (Wikipedia)
Tom Spanbauer calls clichéd words and imagery received text. I learned that from this essay by Chuck Palahniuk.
Worst Church Ever 