Thank God for Harvey

I'm going to post here a thought by a wise man who I will call Harvey for the sake of this blog. He sat there patiently and listened to a lovely young woman and I having an endless discussion much like ones that have been going on on Facebook about "Is It Ever Okay For Christians To Swear?"  

  I'd gone over the fact that I've had the nastiest of feelings and things communicated to me in flowery language, and have often had love and affection expressed with the eff word showing up in the sentences that conveyed it. 
  It seemed to me like my counterpart was arguing that though the bible does not of course actually give us a list of how rude words can get before they're verboten (for instance, "pissed off," was, she felt, on the line, not being really swearing anymore, but almost), that there is such a list.  It seemed to me that she was arguing that we bow to cultural judgments (by what our church would have called "This World") and use its moral standards for what words were morally and politically correct, and which ones weren't.  So then I invited her to accept the clear fact that in classrooms, doctor's offices, courtrooms, principal's offices, police stations, senator's offices, evening television and everywhere else in our fair country, words like "boob" or "ass" or "pissed off" or "dick" or even "shit" have increasingly been accepted by the cutting edge of our culture, and are being used hourly everywhere, having been deemed not all that terribly rude anymore.  I then invited her to, if she wanted to accept society's obsolete judgments, also accept the "updates."  It wasn't getting anywhere, but it was fun. 

  She tucked her bare feet up under her, smoothed her jeans, brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked up at the ceiling to come up with responses a lot.  He sat, solid as a twinkly-eyed Atlas.  Occasionally, well-behaved and clean-scrubbed children approached one or the other parent and stood beside that parent, waiting to be acknowledged, so as not to interrupt.

  Eventually Harvey, who doesn't probably enjoy arguing very much and seems to take more comfort in clear, simple positions on things, got up.  He went and got out a bible to open to Ephesians, and also a book on Ephesians, to make the point that saying certain words was, he thought, always wrong for Christians. He felt that the bible presents this as a simple, clear position.  (I think position-taking is like judging.  Something Jesus avoided like the plague, when people tried to push him for a sound-bite, and so should I likewise avoid being forced to sum up my Christian liberty in "yes" or "no," "for" or "against" stances.)  

  This being invited to accept a hard and fast, always, every day, 24-7, in all circumstances for all people position-taking always makes me feel like someone's looking at my liberty and thinking I stole it and need to give it back.  And I want to say that Christ bought it, however I may be using or misusing it, and I feel the need to obey the two great New Testament laws: the law of liberty (that we be at liberty is, surely, crucial to that?) and the law of love (that we act well toward each other).
  In response, I talked about proof-texting bits of the bible to say something's wrong, when that part of the bible isn't establishing a "right" or"wrong" position so much as painting a picture of what's, generally speaking, ideal, and presenting how, generally, with exceptions made in certain circumstances, it would best, all things being equal, to behave in this way, usually. Most of the time.  Otherwise we've got a law.  And Jesus actually literally died to keep us from being responsible to live a life defined and shaped and bounded primarily by laws.
  And even laws have exceptions.  Jesus said troubling things about the Sabbath being for Man, not Man for the Sabbath.  He did "healing work" on the Sabbath.  David ate bread that was only supposed to be for priests, and that was totally okay, given the circumstances.  The bible is full of that stuff. You should read it sometime.
  But Harvey then impressed me deeply when he went on to point out something that we (other) two were totally missing, characteristically, in our sophistry: in that passage in Ephesians, there's a whole *next part* which goes with the part we were discussing. And we didn't even suspect.  Without Harvey, we were never going to get there. We were having too much fun with the first half, because it had naughty bits to it.  We were children of the Plymouth Brethren, always looking at stuff to not do and missing all the stuff to do.  (We suck like that.)
  Ephesians also says that, generally, ideally, most often, our talk and attitude should be characterized by thanksgiving usually, instead of generally being known to be filled with filthy joking, corrupt ideas and empty talk. (you should probably go read Ephesians, rather than have me quote bits of it and cite it so you won't have to read the whole thing.  It's pretty trippy.)
  Typically, the two of us were enjoying having an interminable argument about "are there any exceptional cases where it is proper to use rude language?" (with the old "God Himself does it in the bible itself!" vs. "No!" argument happening) and not even seeing the second half of the apostle's point. The "positive" part. About what should characterize our talk.  Thanksgiving.  You know, like on a DVD commentary, or at an awards ceremony.
  We do that, don't we? Those of us who are trying to obey the bible by insisting we not have our liberty spied out by old-school tradition and its adherents, and fighting for the freedom that Christ won for us (so that his sacrifice be meaningful, and hoping that one day Christians will be known for liberty and love) squaring off against those who feel that to ever do certain things even once is to dishonour God Himself, and the bible.
  Thank God for Harvey.  Because those of us who struggle with depression forget about being grateful.  Because at one and the same time, gratitude is an extra challenge for depressives, but also something that reorients our psyches lifeward.

  Despair is deciding (blindly) that we have absolutely nothing to be grateful or thankful for.  A good way out of it isn't as simple as counting a few blessings as if that worked like shock therapy.  But if we're sliding into despair and can feel it yawning at our feet, and if we know that despair is blindness masquerading as epiphany, and if we open our minds and hearts to there being stuff we're blind to that's thanksworthy, often this keeps us from sliding right in.  I heartily recommend it.

  Thanks, Harvey.