"Latin Levity"

A few mornings ago I was absolutely blown away when I flashed for a moment on the magnitude of Kosmic Generosity’s willingness to set before me constant opportunities to see a little more clearly the complex of spiritual principles involved in maintaining contentment as basic nature.

There, right in the middle of washing a dish, I found myself bearing witness to a perfect example of the kind of wake-up call David brings to our Sunday celebrations every time he sings Keb Mo’s insightful tune, “It’s Just God Trying to Get Your Attention!” On the morning in question, She sure was getting mine!

I had fried myself a couple of eggs over easy, slid them onto two pieces of low-carb toast, brewed a steaming cup of decaf and settled in for one of my favorite morning treats . . . enjoying a nice leisurely feed with my nose stuck in an interesting read.

In this case it was James Carville’s latest book, Had Enough? - a precisely documented and wickedly witty revelation of the latest shenanigans of the body politic. A classic moment of the book involved a piece about Carville nominating ex Nebraska senator Bob Kerry’s lampooning translation of a Pennsylvania senator’s name as the “funniest political sound-byte of the 21st century.“ Seems the playful Nebraskan had circulated a communiqué suggesting that “Rick Santorum is Latin for asshole.”

I was delighted to discover that even in the decorous ambience of the Senate, at least now and then, a refreshingly unrepressed departure from its traditional decorum sneaks in, if for no other reason than to give its members an opportunity to plug into “God trying to get their attention.” But, I digress. The point I am working at making has nothing to do with Senator Kerry’s grasp of Latin, so let’s get back to the revelation contained in the washing of the dish. ..

Unless, that is, someone reading this is creating a sense of “being offended” by my reporting of Senator Kerry’s transliteration. In that case, let me congratulate you and suggest you consider the possibility that Kosmic Generosity is trying to get your attention to focus on an opportunity for spiritual insight quite different from the lesson God had in Mind for me at the sink.

Let us both be diligent, therefore, in our willingness to keep our wineskins fresh and open to the possibility that each of us has been blessed with a chance to embrace an insight containing the potential to “set us free” to “maintain contentment as basic nature” rather than suffer aimlessly out there in the “far country” stuck somewhere between the rock of moral indignation and the hard place of santorum retentive.

If you do happen to be creating a sense of offense by characterizing the word “asshole” with labels like lewd, crude, obscene, vulgar, profane, etc., and Senator Kerry and I indecent, disgusting, insensitive, foul mouthed, odious, etc., for using it and reporting it, let me suggest that you bite the bullet of avoidance and self-righteousness, and take a look at what could well prove to be a major source of your self-imposed suffering... a tendency to miss the potential for lightheartedness contained in the Gospel of Matthew, sixth chapter, verses 19 – 21 where Jesus reveals the prime directive for “maintaining contentment as basic nature.”

In that teaching He encourages us to be mindful in remembering not to get caught up in the fool’s game of making anything on earth so important (a process He defined as (“laying up treasure”) that it diminishes our capacity to “maintain contentment as our basic nature.” His counsel, of course, would certainly include our tendency to assign inordinate value (treasure status) in the sense of cultural correctness to the specific words we use in describing the ever changing flow of form and circumstance we call our lives.

Each event, situation and experience we encounter along life’s way has a label, a thought form, a word, that identifies it, gives it meaning and assigns it value. “Asshole” is one of those words. Yet, even though it is an eminently clear and useful expression in its role of identifying various aspects of our human experience, for some long lost reason it has failed to pass muster in the culture wars.

It’s as if it has been classified a linguistic terrorist that threatens to sneak into conversations all over the English speaking world and destroy them with words of mass distastefulness. Therefore, it seems likely it will languish, probably for a very long time, in the lingual equivalent of a Guantanamo chicken coop for the lewd, the crude and the rude. And, sadly, this poor, harmless asshole will, quite likely be given no access to a language lawyer or even George Carlin to champion its cause. Pity, to think of the suffering and degradation heaped upon this innocent utterance simply because it grew up in the wrong neighborhood.

Happily though, most folks have not laid asshole up “as a treasure” in the sense that encountering it in the verbal commerce of their lives will not contaminate their capacity to maintain contentment and connection as their basic nature. On the other hand there are some folks who consider it a testament to their moral certitude that the word never passes their lips and odious, vulgar, obscene, lewd, crude and just plain nasty when it falls on their ears. Chogyam Trungpa would describe these brothers and sisters as being stuck in a profound state of spiritual materialism . . . the pride filled practice of digging a misguided sense of elevated status and image out of their illusion of moral superiority.

Jesus would say, “It seems you’ve decided that not hearing, seeing or saying the word “asshole” while you take up space in time is more important than your potential to maintain contentment and connection as your basic life experience, which is to say you’ve laid up your treasure on earth rather than in heaven.” I’m sure you get His drift. And let’s not kill the messenger here. I’m just reporting Him like I hear Him. I encourage you to be mindful about any tendency to hear me suggesting that we all sign up for Pottymouth 501 and turn the air around here blue.

There is a lovely virtue to all those things we’ve assigned values like noble and pure and of good report to. Practice them impeccably. Enjoy them. Let those qualities inform your acts and your utterances. Just do your best, though, to experience the grace of not closing your mind or your heart if you bump into someone like me, for example, who now and then reverts to a native tongue containing words that might be generously described as “colorful.”

I’ve got a hunch that that would be an example of the kind of spiritually informed choice Jesus knew it was going to take to finally weave us together in an authentic coalition of unconditional acceptance for every feature, anatomical and otherwise, each of us brings to the gathering . . . our minds, our values, our beliefs, our religions, our politics, our sexual identities and preferences, our ethnic origins, our heads, our hearts, our hands, our color and , yes, even our assholes. Just let me say that I can assure you my life is unfolding a hell of a lot smoother ever since I gave up my job as Paragon of All Things Virtuous. Now, about that sink-side revelation…

“What’s that, Lyte? You say I’ve run out of space? Oh well, not to worry... We’ll pick up on the “revelation at the sink” in April’s issue. In the meantime... Happy Valentine’s Day, dear hearts and gentle Unitics!”

Enjoy the Grace!.
--Chad

© 2004 Rev. Chad O'Shea

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