Let the Words of My Mouth and the Meditations of My Heart

Do the words of today's title sound familiar? As a child attending the Methodist church with my grandmother, I said these words during the liturgy every week; I confess that I don't remember where they were in the liturgy. And this morning I have a house full of company and will not take the time to research properly this prayer, which goes: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Musician Fernando Ortega set these words to his own music, and I was playing that CD in the car when I went to the farmers' market this morning. Driving is not good for my meditations or my words--how quickly the profanity surfaces when another driver does something rude or stupid or I hit yet another car-engulfing pothole. So, for my morning prayer, I sang along with Fernando, hoping that singing such a prayer would get in the way of my cussing. And I did not cuss while driving this morning; this could be due to the prayer or to the fact that no other driver did anything rude or stupid. I won't waste energy trying to figure that out--I'm just happy to have run my errands minus the bad mood and the ugly words.

I don't think I cussed with any regularity until I was living in another country. I adapted well to my life there and did good work for that two-year teaching assignment in Ajloun, Jordan. But of course the culture shock sets in sooner or later, and it hit me in the form of sever depression about six months into the assignment. Also, it started leaking out in dribs and drabs of anger and frustration. I had tried unsuccessfully to tune the piano at the school where I taught, and it did not want to hold a tune. And at some point, for the first time in my life, I said, "Fuck" to an empty room. And I have to say, it felt very good. I realized then that there's a perfectly good reason for cusswords.

I do believe that there are appropriate times to swear, but they are few and far between.  Sometimes, swearing is actually a form of prayer--and I know some people will take great offense at my saying that, but if the Holy Spirit interprets our moans and sighs into the prayers they truly are, then I think she does the same for the swearing that is actually an expression of panic or pain or fear.

Three reasons cussing is not a good thing: 1) Usually it's used in a harmful way, in anger toward other people, and anger is rarely the best or most constructive response. 2) It becomes a habit way too easily. I really have trouble not swearing now; it's a habit I'm not proud of and try to put the brakes on. 3) It's death to creativity. I live in the part of town where "fuck" stands in for just about every part of speech. People who swear a lot are not developing creative ways of expressing themselves. In fact, I believe that profanity shrinks the vocabulary. Rather than coming up with a truly accurate description of your feelings, hopes, frustrations, and ideas, you just utter a few raw words, which shuts down the creative process.

Today, we hope to drive to Warren Dunes State Park and hang out on the beach and climb the dunes. This will involve driving on interstates on a Sunday, dealing with parking lots, having uncomfortable incidents with sand, wind, and possibly other people, and being grandparents in person, which we are rarely able to do. There's some stress in all of that--even good events bring stress. And so my prayer today is, truly: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.