flickerbulb

YouTube – Silly Audrey drinks milk and chats

i didn’t say i slept with your sister.

i didn’t say i slept with your sister.

i didn’t say i slept with your sister.

i didn’t say i slept with your sister.

i didn’t say i slept with your sister.

i didn’t say i slept with your sister.

i didn’t say i slept with your sister.

i didn’t say i slept with your sister.

this evening, as J2 went to open the back of our car, to get a cat out of it, he said, “i’m gonna open the truck”

according to J2, “trail mix” is the bag that says “chex mix” on it, and “chex mix” doesn’t exist.

the bag that actually says “trail mix” is not something he likes to eat, and, it is not “real” trail mix.

according to J2, “chest” is a game you play on a checkerboard, with pieces vaguely resembling mideaval characters, such as “knights”, “kings” or “pawns”.

according to J2, a woman who is great with child is “pregnick”

so, whenever we go to pizza king, J2 always wants a couple quarters, so that he can play some music on the “juice box”

so, that’s what J2 yells, instead of “open sesame” when we approach an automatically opening door.

where’s the line?

what defines “course joking” ?

is it simply using a (gasp!) curse-word?

is it lewdness?

is it always only in the ear of the beholder?

are there simply some things a christian should never say, under any circumstances?

(and if so, can you tell us without sinning???)

is what you ought not to joke about, or say, variable depending on whom you’re with? (and, yes, we know you’re always with god, that’s a given)

are there “levels” of course joking, with some stuff being okay for sally, but for jenny that would be a sin?

another point often brought up — by the more conservative among us, usually — is something along these lines:

“…but, if christians are not even supposed to give even the slightest impression of sinning…”

to which i resopnd: but jesus was accused of being a drunkard — surely those who did so got the impression he was a sinner?

also, this brings up a related point:

there is a verse that the KJV is very widely quoted, even by people who use the NIV or other translations normally:

1 Thess 5:22 (KJV) — “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”

this verse is often misused to say that everything a christian does should never be able to be confused with something evil, by anyone.

but, as with a lot of things, the king james 600 year old verbiage is getting in the way of what god was really saying:

most other translations say something more like:

ESV: Abstain from every form of evil.

anyway, back to course joking: when is what you say simply wrong?

the idea of what’s “obscene” has changed a BUNCH in the past 30 years.

(anyone in here seen the movie grease lately? — its filthy! filled with offensive language — that was perfectly acceptable in its day. and i bet that if the producers of that film saw what we put on tv during primetime, they’d flip thier lids, with the ammount of skin we show)

i don’t believe simply “offending someone” can be the gauge, as i have heard some contend.

this is because of what i read in John 6

The Words of Eternal Life

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life…”

perhaps that’s a different “meaning” of the word offend than is often meant — but, there it is: clearly simply “if it offends, it’s wrong” won’t do as a test of what is or is not coarse joking.

in any case, our words can offend without being coarse joking — and coarse joking can be coarse joking, i think, w/o offending anyone in the room.

i think this just goes to point out, as i sit here and think about it, how wise jesus’ teachings are.

he really didn’t come with laws, as it’d be so easy to simply follow a list of laws and think we’re OK in god’s eyes (read: pharisees).

instead, he came with advice on real heart-change. changes in heart that result in sensitivity to the spirit, the fruit of which ends up being that things such as coarse joking naturally disappear from our behavior.

(or something along those lines)

i think that does NOT end the question, however:

since it was implied in my question that jesus does, in fact, hear everything anyway.

if we didn’t think god hears all we do, the question would be rather moot, even.

so, as it is, the question of “would you say it in front of jesus” is really just re-phrasing the question, in a way.

additionally, we get into the same problem of “…something jesus wouldn’t want to hear…” that we do with “what others don’t want to hear”.

who “decides” what jesus wants to hear and not hear from us?

that, really, was the point of my asking.

where do we end up drawing the line?

how do we end up drawing said line?

i submit that the lines we draw have little to do with jesus, the scripture, or leadings from the spirit so much as they have to do with the culture we’re brought up and live in.

position: god doesn’t care a whit about about the grammar rules of whichever particular language you write in.

respect is shown by expressing a kingdom heart in a way that uplifts, rather than tears down.

by truly caring more for your neighbor’s best interests than your own.

this does not mean submitting to the prideful, destructive or downright meaningless traditions of your neighbor — to do so is NOT in their best interest, and only allows them to continue in their mistaken notion of what living in the eternal kingdom is about.

insisting that “god” or “jesus” must be capitalized strikes me as similar to stuff the pharisees pulled.

making a “rule” out of a custom, until it became a “law” — and somehow wormed its way into being enforceable by social pressure to the point that few dare question it.

i mean, seriously, we are talking about grammar here.

i think any reasonable person must conclude that god does not care, at all, whether we press the shift-key when typing the first letter of a pronoun referring to him.

what he cares about is how we live.

how we take care of widows and orphans. how we disciple those who look to us for wisdom.

how our very lives and the way we love on those around us reflect the character of jesus christ so much that they are drawn to him.

now, we humans like rules.

we pretend not to, but we love them.

we are constantly taking what jesus said, and making rules out of them.

we like to see if we have divorced, or looked at a naked chick, or said, “raca!”, and if not, hey! we’re doing okay!

but jesus never meant for any of those things to be “rules for getting into heaven” but rather illustrations of how, in some situations, a kingdom heart is likely to react, sometimes.

there are situations where the trouble of not capitalizing is not worth the rucus it’d cause (like at many of our grandparents’ churches), and times when it is (like here).

all of life is this way.

listening to the spirit, and having a heart that is more interested in the needs of your neighbor than your own selfish wants, we are able to discern how to navigate in this kingdom of god that we live in, and the situations can allow for all kinds of things.

apparently, according to ecclesiastes, there’s even a time to kill, though i plan to error on the side of caution on that one (!)

this capitalization thing is a rule that has been made, as a way to “see if we are OK or not”.

it’s a silly thing, and it has nothing to do with the kingdom, and yet we all know how people are.

people are funny about this stuff!

again, it all boils down to love for god, and love for people.

the boys and the girls
don’t speak the same language
they talk to each other
but they never hear

the girl will say one thing
the boy will hear other
the boy will say some thing
it will miss the girl’s ear

the girls and the boys
don’t share a vocab
they both know they’re right
and each other’s wrong

the boy says the wrong word
to convey the right feeling
the girl hears the right word
but the meaning is gone

the boys and the girls
both know something is missing
so they keep trying harder
to make themselves known

but the girls and the boys
will continue to blow it
as love can’t spoken
it has to be shown