Kids.
That’s how I see anybody under 50, now.
I suppose this is a phenomenon that happens to all of us as we age, but the older you get, the younger old sounds. I see people complaining about problems they are having in their 30’s and secretly wish I had those problems again. I’d take 30’s problems all day long.
And don’t even get me started on the 20’s. Nobody in their 20’s, provided they are healthy and not experiencing severe trauma (and remember…Starbucks being out of cappuccino is NOT trauma), has any real problems.
And if you’re a parent, watching your children grow, you realize, as you get older, that there are things you thought were big deals when they were kids, that weren’t such big deals. And you look back and think to yourself, “If that happened now, I wouldn’t be so upset about it.”
Because most things turn out to be not such a big deal.
I remember when my son first said the “F” word in my presence. He was 7.
He was asking me to help him fix a lego he’d built. As I was examining it for where the fatal flaw was, he said, “Dad, did I just f… it up?” Hearing that word come out of a 7-year-old’s mouth is jarring. And my first, instinctive inclination was to jump on it and lose my temper and make a big deal out of it and create a moment he would never forget, so that he’d never use the word again.
But I sat calmly, looking at the Frankenlego he’d seriously effed up.
Then, I answered him in a low tone, “No, buddy. We got this.”
Then, without looking up or even shifting my gaze, I addressed the sailer in the room, “He bud, where did you hear that word?”
“What word, dad?” he asked, innocently.
So I used the word back to him….calmly. And he said that he’d heard some older kids on the bus using it. He said that he wasn’t sure what it meant but it sounded like when something was really messed up.
Then he asked me the most 7-year-old thing you can ask a dad, “Did I use it right?”
And I kind of crumbled. My sweet boy didn’t have a foul mouth. He wasn’t a bad kid. He wasn’t spewing obscenity for the sake of obscenity. He was just learning words, trying to use them correctly.
I said, again without looking up, “Oh, you nailed it. But, hey…do me a favor…don’t use that word anymore, okay? It’s actually a really rude thing to say around people. Especially around moms, teachers and grandparents. They really, REALLY get offended when they hear it. So, let’s just take it out of our vocabulary. Okay?”
He shrugged like 7-year-olds do when they don’t really understand things, and said, “Okay, dad. But what about the lego?”
And we fixed the effed up lego.
I’m happy to report that my son (as a child) was F-word free. I cannot report the same about my son as a teenager. But he still understands the rules about teachers, moms and grandparents. And he is a verbally respectful, descent human being…in public.
When he’s playing video games with his friends? Well, let’s just say all the legos are effed up…pretty much all the time. Guess what? Those legos were effed up when I was his age, too.
I think my point is this…
My son didn’t need me to wash his mouth out with soap. He didn’t need a spanking. He didn’t need some drama…over a word. He just needed his father to help him fix the lego. THAT was the issue for him. THAT was his source of pain in that moment. So we focussed on the lego and had a casual conversation about words…which are just cultural expressions anyway.
There seems to be a lingering outrage over the Sam Smith/Devil worship thing, on the Grammy’s this past week. And, right on cue, the memes about holy wars and culture rot and the underground satanist agenda being promoted by Hollywood and the press and on and on it goes.
And, hey, I don’t deny that stuff is happening on some level.
The Satanist thing is real. And there is a theory out there that kinda goes like this…
We’ve gotten the good guys and bad guys mixed up, in the theological cannon, and that Satan was actually the good guy, trying to help humanity grow and learn and get better. And God was actually the bad guy, trying to keep humanity ignorant and repressed and backward.
So, he (God) promised an afterlife with all the things in it nobody was allowed to have in this life, if they would just obey his every word and bow to him and, blah, blah, blah.
For the Satanist, they don’t think they are “evil.” They think they are on the side of the misunderstood angels, simply trying to move the human race forward. So, in that regard, I suppose you could say there is a “Satanist” agenda out there. And the ones who buy into it, believe they are on the actual correct side.
They use classic, religious imagery (horns and robes and whatever) to tweak the other side. Because they see the other side as innocent rubes who are simply being manipulated into constant ignorance.
But those of us who believe in Jesus as the answer to all of those paradoxical problems; God is love but also commands Israel to kill every Amalakite man, woman and child – God is love but also destroys humanity in a flood – God is love but also prohibits people with certain proclivities from entering the kingdom of heaven, believe that we are the ones on the side helping humanity.
Somebody’s wrong.
When I see somebody like Sam Smith parading around in a Halloween costume, paying homage to the devil, I think of him like my 7-year-old son saying a bad word for the first time.
I see him as a kid trying to fix his lego.
And somebody, somewhere, hasn’t helped him fix the lego. They’ve focussed on his bad word. But the lego has remained effed up.
People go where they are loved. Period.
If you belong to a group – any group; church, club, fantasy football league, bowling team, it’s because the people there accept you. They help you fix your legos from time to time.
If you are a guy like Sam Smith, and you’re constantly told that your lifestyle is going to send you to hell, you will eventually look into the keeper of hell as an ally. Why wouldn’t you? He seems to be the only one interested in your lego.
Don’t get me wrong, here. I’m not trying to re-write the bible or re-form anyone’s deeply held beliefs. And, yes…Jesus IS the answer. And if he is all-powerful, I certainly don’t fear anybody wearing horns and a red sparkly suits. That’s all just theater.
And I don’t see the kids out there worshiping Satan, as anything other than kids looking for help with their legos.
Maybe if we spent more time helping with the legos and less time freaking out about the words, the kid with the broken lego wouldn’t go looking to Satan to help them fix it.
And maybe we’d realize that this “holy war” was already won on a cross, anyway.
R
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Regie's Blog 
Well said, as always. I don’t understand the pearl-clutching, either, over this silly outfit. As for the song being an LGBTQ+ “anthem”, as I’ve heard some say – it’s about a cheating husband. Why would anyone want to embrace it as “their” song?
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