Waterfalls

Recently I’ve learned that just because cussing is not appreciated in the Bible Belt, this does not mean you can’t use the Lord’s (or his son’s) name in other ways and means. So although “Oh my God” is unacceptable, it’s considered completely normal to cry out “Praise Jesus!” when you get an A on a test. Not using the Lord’s name in vain is thus open to interpretation, a surprising feat since most people seem to take the bible very literally in all other cases. I know it makes no sense, but there it is. I’ve tried telling my students they should praise themselves when they do well on a test, but that doesn’t seem to go over very well. So I’ve given up, and instead taken notice of the interesting ways in which people use the Lord’s name.

For instance, the other day my department chair had me confused when he told the faculty he had had a “come to Jesus” talk with students who had plagiarized. I was pretty sure he hadn’t attempted to convert them to Christianity (99% of our students our devout Baptists anyway), and it took an explanation from husband-dear to clarify this one to me. Basically, giving someone a “come to Jesus” talk means you give them hell, you tell it to them like it is, you don’t hold back. I could see how those terms could be a little too direct for the average Georgian, and since the Christian reference does fit in with the local religious discourse, “come to Jesus” works just fine down here. It’s just a little difficult imagining my old department chair telling the faculty, who were far more likely to just be coming back from their meditation-yoga-chanting retreat in the Tibet mountains than a church, that a “coming to Jesus” talk was what was needed to get a student back in line.

And our state government is not to be left behind either. This morning GPB reported on the opening of the new session of the State Congress, and they included a brief excerpt of the prayer offered at the ceremony. Usually these prayers are nondenominational to a fault (I’ve heard Air Force Chaplains mention at least four different deities in one prayer at a Christmas party one year), yet this one was everything but that. The pastor compared the start of a new legislative session to a birth, and not just any birth, no, the birth “we just celebrated”. Although I appreciated the indirectness of this statement, the meaning was almost too obvious. I mean, I always knew the Georgia State Government was powerful, but this just added a whole new dimension to their lawmaking abilities.

Sometimes, though, trying not to cuss becomes funny. Our kids know not to cuss. So when one child wanted to tell a story of how a friend of his misbehaved by cussing, he said “g.d” instead of the actual curse. Of course, his brother didn’t get it, but the youngest refused to say the word in full. So then dad decided to help out, and explain it in terms of opposites; “It’s like the exact reverse of Anti-Christ Waterfalls”. Of course, I had to interject that “damn” is not the same as “dam”, but they got the point anyway. So now our kids, our usually well-behaved, church-going, parental-authority fearing boys go around saying; “Well Anti-Christ Waterfalls!”

Is it really horrible to say I think it’s hilarious?