Wedding Irony

This may come off as a rant to some people, but that’s because it is a rant. Recently I went to a wedding at a Catholic church. Nothing super exciting or especially interesting until I happened to notice something. One of the family members of the bride happened to be wearing one of the shortest dresses I had ever seen someone read whether in or out of a church. Now as someone who’s not religious, the length of the dress being worn in a church didn’t bother me, what bothered me is the situation in which she was wearing said dress. It made it even worse when, at about three quarters of the way through the wedding ceremony, she is invited to the pupil to read a couple of passages out of the bible. One of these verses which she read happens to deal with modesty of all things. It was at this moment that I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit and was immediately and forcefully jabbed in the ribs but multiple women sitting around me. Maybe nobody else happened to catch the amount of irony that was flowing through the room at the time? Either way, it just started making me think about weddings in general, especially religious weddings.

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“I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes.”

1 Timother 2:9 (NIV)

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It is because of Bible verses such as this one that has caused me to giggle when I go to weddings, especially very lavish Christian weddings. I come from the school of thought that if you are going to talk to the talk, you should probably also walk the walk. However, you don’t often see much of that coming from religiously backed wedding ceremonies. Sure, there is the traditional changing of the guard from father of the bride to the groom, there is the tradition of brides wearing white as a sign of purity, etc. But how many of these should truly apply to modern weddings? Take brides wearing white for instance. Does anyone bat an eye when a bride isn’t a virgin, yet is still wearing white? The whole point of the white wedding dress is supposed to be a physical manifestation of the bride’s purity in mind, body and soul. Yet if you think of it, most brides probably only fit one of these descriptors. There or great numbers of people being married every day who have had unclean thoughts or are going into their marriages not being a virgin, so should they still wear the white? Most people would say it’s their choice. However, if they are having a Christian wedding, should they not actually follow the teachings of their religion?

Just food for thought.

Reflections of the Past

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

-Ernest Hemingway

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This quote is one that until recently, I had absolutely no clue existed. I heard it from a friend of mine after he heard that I was going back to school and that I was going to have to take a couple of writing/composition classes. I started thinking about this quote for seemingly hours after our conversation. I wanted to dive deep into the words, forage around, and find the true meaning of the quote. At first I thought Ernest Hemingway was just saying that you sit at a typewriter and just let the words flow out as if it were blood. However, the more I thought about this quote, the more I thought I was wrong initially. You see, it was at about this time that I also saw a quote that when mixed in with other thoughts in the recesses of my brain, decided it was going to completely change my thoughts on Ernest Hemingway’s quote.

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“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

-Maya Angelou

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Maybe after reading this second quote, you started to go down the same neural pathways that I did or maybe it didn’t change your thoughts at all. But when I read these two quotes together, I find a whole new meaning in the former. I started to think, maybe Ernest Hemingway wasn’t just talking about sitting down and letting your thoughts pour out, maybe he was speaking to something much greater. Maybe he was saying all you do is sit at a typewriter and allow your soul to pour out. The words, ideas, stories, and thoughts that you keep deep inside in the darkest corners of your thoughts, just let them out. If you do this, instead of attempting to force the writing, everything will become much easier for you. I attribute much of my success in my writing class to this quote and how it has helped me mold the way that I write.

It was from quotes like these with the addition of my writing class that I have started to learn the true strength of writing. Something that is effectively written, whether it’s a song, essay, blog post or even a Facebook status can get meaning across better than almost any other form of communication. It allows you to sit down and filter out all your filler thoughts in order to get down to the sharp point that words can create. With this said, I want to leave you all with one last reminder of how strong words can be.

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“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”

-Aldous Huxley

Ugly or Artful? A Closer Look at Our Language

As someone who never really thought of himself as a writer, I also became someone who never really thought much of the language I used. If I honestly take a close look at the way that I personally use the English language, I butcher it. If you were to visualize my use of the English language, you could think of it as akin to something like someone who has never filleted a fish, trying to do so on a very large, very expensive fish. The fillets often come out ugly and are pretty chopped up. Now luckily enough for me, when I’m writing, regardless of what it is, I have time to think through what I’m going to write down. I also have the ability to erase, delete, and edit what I’ve written. You can’t do that when you talk though, and that’s where someone like me gets into a lot of trouble. I’m sure many of you have heard the saying “he/she curses like a sailor”, well I am that sailor. Well, I was that sailor at one point. I am a Naval veteran and as many of my brothers and sisters around the world who have served or are still currently serving will tell you, we often curse…a lot. I would find myself often, using what more than likely was bad grammar but also throwing in curse words left and right. Honestly, I still do use a lot of curse words. Now here is the problem with me “colorful” use of language. It more often than not, is taken the wrong way (especially when heard out of context) or it is considered to be unprofessional. We of course could get into the background of different curse words but that would be besides the point and would more than likely would need it’s own entry, considering my feelings on the subject.

The meat of what I am writing comes down to how my use of language impacts different situations that I am in. People often have many different reactions to my “colorful” language. Some think that it is a sign of a lower intelligence level, some think that because I didn’t read enough growing up that my vocabulary is limited and therefore I use curse words, but others, such as my friends understand that I use the “colorful” language that I do, because I like it. I have found that though, not perfect for all situations, the language that I use and how I use that language has a strong impact on the situations I put myself in. It has a way of getting my point across much more directly than any other way of communicating that I’ve been able to find. I believe that this is because of how basic it is. Everyone can understand what you’re feeling or what you think about something based on the inflection of your voice or what kinds of words you use in speech and writing. If I were to use other words when I speak, people might be able to know how I feel about something, but of course there is no guarantee that those same people will actually understand the words that are coming out of my mouth. It is because of this that I choose to continuously keep my language colorful and basic and I honestly couldn’t care less about how most people feel about it.