@#$%!

Finally, the full blog post you've all been waiting for/dreading!

Let me first start of this post by saying that I will no longer be following the original format that I made for myself. I’m not often inspired to write anymore now that I’m not required to for school, so when I am, I don’t feel like restricting myself with some stupid set of writing rules.

Let me also mention this before I get into what I really wanted to talk about in this post:

In my last post, I told a story about the love of God, and then I mentioned at the bottom as an “edit” saying that I didn’t entirely agree with myself on that point anymore and that I would post again soon explaining why. I’m going to do that now.

The story I told, was actually a pretty good representation of the way I feel about the subject of God’s Love, or really just “love” at all. The thing was, I used that story to explain away the highs and lows of my relationship with him. I was trying to say that my love to God meant more because I still chose to read my Bible even when I wasn’t that close or inspired to talk to God. I said that I was glad that I wasn’t always in that super close relationship to God because it made me work harder to love him, thus: making my love mean more to him. After talking with my oldest sister, I realized how incredibly silly that idea was, and laughed at myself for thinking it. *sigh* Ahh past self, what an idiot you were. 

Anyway, I realized that God doesn’t want us to go through those “spiritual lows” where we aren’t as passionate about him and stuff. He wants us to be in that place where he’s our closest friend 60/60/24/7/52/10/10/10! (sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year, ten years a decade, ten decades a century, ten centuries a millennium!)  Anyway, that’s it. On with my real post.

Here we go. Sorry for taking so long, but what the #%$@, who really gives a $#@! Anyway? I can start any time I #$%@ well please thank you very #$%@ing much.

Are you offended yet? Yeah, maybe, but at least I’ve got your attention.

About a year ago, I began to allow myself to use some language that most Christians wouldn’t consider to be very “holy”. I honestly couldn’t see any problem with it, since I didn’t really see anywhere in the Bible that it said that it was wrong. I just figured “As long as I don’t say anything like this around people who are all strict about this sort of thing, I’ll be fine. I just don’t want it to become part of my vocabulary”. I didn’t really see any problem with it other than other people thinking I was “immoral” or something because it went against their personal convictions.

 After that, I began living by that rule, “to never let it become part of my vocabulary”. The thing is, no matter how hard you try, it gets harder and harder to not be affected by something the more you open up yourself to it.

 I since I made that rule for myself, I began to listen to a lot of music that contained such language. Read a lot of media that contained that kind of language, and talk to a lot of people that used that kind of language. Like I said though, after a while it became harder to keep that more vulgar version of the English language from melding with my own version. I began to get all these songs stuck in my head, humming along to them. The other day, in fact I thought to myself “Man, it’s a good thing I’m only humming, or else all these people would think I’m some sort of heathen with all this ‘bad’ language”.

You may be saying to yourself now “Ok, that’s great, but what does that matter to you Garrett (you flipping pagan), I thought you just said you didn’t think it was a sin or anything?”. Well, that brings us to now.

 I’ve been thinking a lot tonight about this dilemma of how to keep enjoying media that contained this language that wasn’t accepted by “my people”, and still not using that language myself. I’ve never said anything among my family that would be considered overly vulgar, but I had a few times around other people that didn’t really know me that much. I didn’t really even care that much at the time either, but I was just thinking about it tonight. Even though I don’t really find these words so offensive to myself, if I used them around anyone else at all, either their view of me would change, or their view of ‘cussin’ would change. I would be an influence either way.

If my previous philosophy were correct, that still probably wouldn’t matter to me. But I’ve now come to realize something: this language of vulgarities isn’t only considered offensive among Christian circles. It is, in fact, a way of being rebellious in nearly all social settings. Even though it may not be considered a sin, the initial idea when you begin to swear as a young teen is that you want to break some rules. You want to be known as someone who makes their own choices, and not just some kiddie who only does what his parents tell him. It seems like it the rebellious attitude behind the language that’s the real problem here.

So that’s what I was doing, in those situations where I would use this language around maturing young people. I’d be planting a spirit of rebellion when I’m supposed to be the ultra-sheltered goodie-goodie preachers kid, I was the cause of a spirit of rebellion against authority.

In light of this (and a few other Bible verses), I deductively reasoned out that I should cut off my intake of vulgar media. This media includes (but is not limited to) all my music on my computer with such language (I truly will miss you Ben Folds, you were an inspiration to me musically and in song writing style). I’m not sure how far I’m going to take this yet… I’m going to have to do some more thinking and praying… Either way, thanks to that stinkin’ old Bible of wisdom and and junk, I just lost a butt load of my favorite music. Thanks a lot God for being so perfect and wise and stuff or whatever. Gosh.

Recap: I'm not keeping music with vulgar language in my musical library any more because of the influence it may have on people who falsely assume that I am a good role-model.

Until next time. 

                                                                                                   - Garrett 

(Is this weird? I don't remember if I used to sign posts or not. Oh well. Maybe it'll be a thing now. We'll see)