Daily Verse | Leviticus 22:31
“Keep my commands and follow them. I am the Lord.”

It’s Thursday and “Thursday” sounds like “thirsty,” doesn’t it? What rhymes with thirsty?

A guy on one of my socials went on a rant yesterday that strongly resonated with me but clanged like a trash can rolling down the street in a hurricane when it came to my obedience as a follower of Christ. I whole-heartedly agreed with the general thesis of his disapproval, but the rant was peppered through and through with a vulgar expression of contempt for those against whom he railed.

As a writer this causes me tension. I’m sometimes tempted to let loose with a barrage of salty speech when I read about the antics of our political class. I’m not shy about calling the Democrat Party a “garbage” party, but that’s about as far as I’ll go most times.

This guy, on the other hand, was not constrained by the Spirit.

Look, I’m a reasonable person most of the time but I just can’t [redacted] stand it anymore. I’m [redacted] sick of Joe Biden and I’m [redacted] sick of the people defending him and his policies. I’m really [redacted] sick of pretending that I’m not [redacted] disgusted by all of you on a daily [redacted] basis. I’m sick of not calling you stupid [redacted] Democrats trash when that’s exactly what I think you [redacted] are.

OK, not very edgy since I removed each use of his choice expletive. If you read it while ignoring the redactions, it makes complete sense and is still strongly worded. He goes on like that for several paragraphs, using variations of the same word throughout.

What’s appealing about the spicy version of the rant is that it underscores the fear, anger and grief that at least half our nation is experiencing right now. We feel it with him.

Am I grieving the unconstitutional reordering of our society? You bet.

Do I fear where this will lead? You bet.

Am I angry about it? You bet.

But, as a believer, I have to part ways with my ranter friend when it comes to the coarse language. That, too, is hard because the cultural Marxists don’t impose any restrictions on their language or their dirty tactics to get their points across.

The apostle Paul spoke of salty speech, but he meant something different.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Colossians 4:6

What Paul is saying is that a believer’s speech must always be spoken with grace or piety and enhance the conversation much as salt enhances the flavor of food. Unfortunately, [redacted] doesn’t fit Paul’s description.

One of the things I admired about Trump was that he gave as good as he got and there are times I wish I could freely do that. I often feel like I have to use a Montblanc luxury pen to write dainty script in ink when what I really need is a carpenter’s pencil to fiercely scribble in graphite lead.

Poet versus prophet, perhaps.

I’m working on that.