I believe the English language to be very limited so I’ve taken it upon myself to invent words so that I might express myself more effectively. One of my favorite words that I’ve invented is “mormer”. Years ago my wife and I had an argument about who loved who more. I’d say “honey I love you” and she’d respond “I love you more”. I was stymied… you can’t beat more… unless… “honey, I love you mormer” (mormer is more than more). She immediately objected “mormer is not a word!” “Yes it is”, I’d retort “it’s in the dictionary” (I took the liberty of writing “mormer” in our family dictionary between “moribund” and “Mormon”)“You can’t do that, you can't just write it in the dictionary!”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t have the authority.”
“Who gave this Webster guy the authority to invent words? And if he can do it why can’t I?”
“You can’t just give yourself authority to make up words!”
“I can, and I just did… I have mormer authority than Webster.”
“Mormer isn’t a word!”
“It’s in the dictionary!”
Family hi-jinks aside; I do occasionally wonder though who it was that gave Mr. Merriam Webster the authority to be the arbiter of words. Don’t misunderstand, I haven’t wondered to the point of taking action to find an answer… but I have lazily wondered as to why he gets to be the end all of word definition. Is he infallible? Not in my opinion. One word that I believe Mr. Webster and his wordsmith cohorts have defined inadequately is the word “God”.
The standard definition of God is this: “the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.” Or, simplified: “any deified person.” But in my mind that simplifies things way too much. To me God (or god) is the person, object, group or activity that we turn to and trust for redemption, guidance, provision, comfort, justice and truth. For example; if you lose your job, where do you go for guidance and provision? If you are wronged, where do you go to seek justice? When you are in dire straits, from where do you seek comfort? Answer those questions individually and you will likely find out who your personal god (or God) is. But we can also answer this question corporately, as a nation.
What god does America turn to in time of need? For many Americans when they lose their job their first call is to their god of provision, the state’s unemployment office. If they are wronged even in the slightest way, many will immediately turn to their god of justice, the state’s court system. And for what seems to be a majority of Americans, when they find themselves in trouble with their finances, their health or their future, they ask the federal government to comfort them by offering to fix their problems by giving them a house, an education, free healthcare and a job. We are swiftly moving toward a theocracy in America, with the state acting as our god.
A country is judged to be a theocracy when men and woman are willingly and/or forcibly led by other men and women who purport to be the intermediary between the people and their god. These leaders act as the definers and arbiters of the rights and liberties that they claim to be given by their god. In theocracies the individual is thought by the ruling class to be incapable themselves of understanding god’s directives and therefore ill-equipped to govern themselves. So in the minds of these bureaucrats we the people must be told by them, the divinely inspired, what we can or can’t do with things like our property, our body and our businesses.
Here in America, under the auspices of fairness we’re being told by our high priests in Washington who we can hire, fire and what we can pay the employees of our privately owned businesses. In some cities we’re now being told that we must appease the consecrated food clerics by sacrificing trans fats, corn syrup, soda, and salt. And it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find a city to reside in where you don’t have to bow before the city arbiter of color when painting your own house. Individual liberty is being usurped by the state and we seem willing to give more authority daily to those who believe the state to be the definer of our rights and liberties.
I don’t know nor do I necessarily care who gave Mr. Merriam Webster the authority to define words; in the end, it makes very little difference in my life. But when we deify the state as we seem to be doing, giving it the power to define our rights; we risk much more than trans fats and sugary sodas, we risk the liberty to choose for ourselves whom we will serve. So before you willingly give up more authority to the state, choose today who you want to serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
For those members of the word police that snickered with that condescending Ivy League har har laugh when I wrote “Mr. Merriam Webster”… I know Merriam was not Mr. Webster’s first name… it was a joke… lighten up! Merriam was his wife’s name…
No comments:
Post a Comment