I swear.
OK, I’m not saying I’m proud of it, I’m just telling the truth.
As I have already made abundantly clear here at good ol’ Babybloomr.com, I am a big ol’ Christian. My faith is very strong, and very real and very much a part of my daily life. The incongruous part of this declaration is that I also happen to have quite a mouth on me. And not in a good way. Now I don’t mean that I walk around dropping f-bombs, or being blasphemous (trust me if I say “JESUS!” it’s probably gonna have a “Help me!” after it.), it’s just that in private my language is sometimes peppered with saltiness.
I’m not sure how that happened, I certainly wasn’t raised by cussers. (If that sentence doesn’t reveal my Arkansas roots, I don’t know what does– but ‘cursers’ just seemed a little pretentious!) My parents weren’t swearing people, even though they raised six children, which in my opinion should automatically qualify them for a Lifetime Free Pass in the cussing department. When I was a kid I can only vaguely remember a couple of times when my dad (never my mom, now that I think about it!) let fly with a few choice words. Those momentous occasions were usually preceded by things like hitting his finger with a hammer, dropping something on his foot, or not being able to get some mechanical thing to do what it was supposed to do. And even then it was never one of the really juicy ones, it was always just a relatively mild “D**n it” or “Oh s**t!” As I recall, it never shocked or upset me or made me doubt my dad’s eternal salvation. If anything, I thought it was hysterically funny because it was so NOT dad! Whenever one of my brothers or sisters were caught saying bad words, we were not told we were horrible sinners, we were told that we were intelligent children with good vocabularies and there were much better words at our disposal than those common, trashy ones. Mom and dad liked to go with the snob appeal approach, which worked pretty well at the time!
As I got older, I did the usual amount of middle school experimental cussing, but I wasn’t that good at it. It made me feel grown-up and daring, but honestly, I was still learning all of the lingo, so I wasn’t really using it very effectively. Fast forward to my high school years and on into my early twenties. That’s when I sort of honed my skills, profanity-wise. The thing is, even though I totally hung out with all the RIGHT kind of kids–no druggies, drop-outs or anarchists–a few of them had an exceptional talent for what I like to call the comic cuss. They used swear words in such a way as to render them so ridiculous that they ceased to really be offensive to me. They just became words, silly words, that were really funny. And while I am very aware that many, many people are indeed upset by any kind of swearing, frankly I have a high tolerance for this particular kind. And if we’re all being totally honest here, I think you might agree that when you are in one of those burned-your-hand-on-the-stove or idiot-cut-you-off-in-traffic situations, a plain old “darn” or “dadburnit” doesn’t always fully express the true extent of your feelings to the same satisfying degree that a well-chosen expletive does. Even if it’s under your breath. Or maybe it’s just me.
DISCLAIMER: I would never bust a cuss in front of anyone I remotely thought would remotely be bothered by it. I am not 16, I have no desire to shock the grown-ups. Also, I try my best to never say anything objectionable in front of minors– I don’t want to corrupt young minds and I don’t think foul-mouthed children are cute. I also don’t swear at people, I’d rather use a colorful well-placed bad word as an adjective to describe them. Because I’m a debutante that way. The bottom line is that though I would truly be grieved if I ever found out that I had offended or embarrassed anyone with my sometimes colorful language, I really don’t have a huge problem with it, within reason and with discretion. It simply does not feel like a moral or immoral choice to me, though I recognize the fact that it does to many people, so I behave accordingly. It doesn’t feel hypocritical to me that I would use ‘rude words’ (as my British friends call them) in front of some people and not others. I don’t have an agenda, I’m not trying to prove a point, or campaign for everyone to start turning the air blue. They are just words to me, nothing more, nothing less. Their potency is in the intent of the one speaking them and the perception of the one hearing them.
**I will also add another caveat here: What IS offensive, weird and uncomfortable to me is when people feel compelled to talk or make jokes about their sex lives in front of me! This happens in Christian circles more than you would think, I guess because they’re married and think it’s all legal and kosher so they can talk about the fact that they have hot monkey sex and are darn proud of it…? Eww. I don’t want those images in my head, for crying out loud! Also not a fan of the smutty joke– not a prude, it’s just that so often they simply aren’t funny to me. I have ZERO tolerance for racist or homophobic jokes, and am not afraid to call people out. Hate-speak IS the kind of language I fervently believe has no place in a Christian’s life. So yeah, I’m not a cesspool of iniquity or anything, you just sometimes might have to “excuse my French” a bit. (How did that quaint little expression ever get started, by the way?! Are the French notorious potty-mouths or something?)
How about you guys? Are you now convinced I’m going to H E Double Hockey Sticks in a handbasket?!I know I’m going out on a limb with this one, but I’m truly interested in your input. Do you ever swear? Does it upset you if someone does in your presence? Are there some words that bother you more than others? Do you think you can be a big ol’ Christian and still have your ‘sailor moments’? Be honest, you won’t hurt my feelings– and I swear I won’t cuss anybody out!
