At a Loss For Words

(Now, for my next trick, I'm going to connecting two random thoughts and turn them into one coherent theme. Or at least try. Let’s see how it goes)

The reviews are in on my latest post, "My Night in the Penalty Box" and while the feedback was pretty good, there was one critic- who also happens to live with me- who found the piece littered with a little too much profanity. Of course, she's referring to the language spewing from the mouth of 'Barney Fife of the North', the overbearing and  over-sized undercover security cop who detained me in a small room somewhere in the dark bowels of the Spokane Coliseum after catching me throwing a snowball at a referee between periods at a Spokane Flyers hockey game, circa 1977.  (Whew... nice run-on sentence, yeah?)

But combing through the random files in my brain, when it comes to writing dialog I distinctly remember more than one English or Creative Writing instructor constantly drilling this concept into the empty space between my ears “If you want your characters to sound genuine, don't write their words for print; write them as  people actually talk.”  This, he explained, I could do by listening to conversations, inflections and everyday speech patterns. So I when I quoted 'Sergeant Yukon of the Coliseum', I wrote exactly as he was, a genuine a-hole with a very foul mouth. 

The man hurled profanity like a stuck-in-the-on-position pitching machine, and dropped    F-bombs as an Allied pilot might have carpet bombed Nazi Germany. I only wrote what I heard and, actually, left a lot of the worst I heard out of it. Comparatively speaking, I made the guy sound like a peach.

So it wasn't me cursing like a merchant marine, though there've been times when I have.  I know all the words, and a few others, and have used them, unfiltered and uncensored, for no other reason than I could. I used to think swearing impressed the girls, and made me sound cool and more worldly. All it really did, though, was highlight a less than agile intellect. It's one thing to be a 15-year old, vulgarity-spewing knothead; it's something totally different (and not very flattering) to still converse as a lowest common denominator adult. But that was a long time ago. Like in high school. Or college. Or maybe after…..or maybe into my late 30’s.

Okay, so there may have been times when I’ve had bit of a problem with profanity; a problem avoiding it. Times it’d tumble out of me as naturally as Lake Ontario tumbles over Niagara Falls. But more recently, as I’ve morphed from a gutter mouth kid into thoughtful mature grownup (insert laugh track here) I’ve managed to wring most of the bad words out of my vocabulary. But I haven’t completely ‘lost it’. Sometimes there's just no better substitute than a juicy curse word and, though I hate admitting it, have been known to let a lot of ‘em fly. It does, however, beg the question, "Do you pray with that mouth, too?"  Doh!  Once more, real life collides with my faith. Uh-oh. So I begin to grapple with the larger issues, like how can I swear to be a Christian and still swear like a heathen? And on a far more eternal matter, can the Holy Spirit really exist in someone who still has a potty mouth and writes in blue language?  It's at these times when I feel like such a moral failure.

(Okay, this is where I try and marry two threads together. Let’s see if it 'takes')

It was in this weakened state, over the weekend,  that the lovely Amy and I went and saw "Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader". I've seen all the Narnia films and each one has entertained and inspired me. But in each instance, whenever Aslan comes on screen, for some reason I start to feel tears welling up from someplace deep within. I mean, I know the story. I've read the books: Aslan is God. But each time I see Him in these stories it leaves an indelible imprint on my heart and soul. It's almost as if I was having a religious experience; as if I was in the presence of God Himself. Maybe I was. Or am.

But it’s a completely involuntary reaction. I don't think about it, plan for it, or run to the refreshment stand to avoid it- it just happens. In Aslan, I see Jesus. I see the Father, the Protector and Defeater of Evil. The feeling is real and there's nothing I can do to change it.  Yet here's where I draw the parallel and find my comfort: while my vast reservoir of salty language hasn't completely dried up, apparently neither has my heart or soul. God's not finished with me and continues to work on me. If this was not so the image of Aslan and what he symbolizes would fail to move, change or challenge me. And that hasn’t happened. So there is hope.

Of course this doesn't excuse me from polluting my writing and conversations with trash talk. But it does mean that this scrub-brushed sinner with the sometimes colorful way of expressing himself, by face, is accorded forgiveness and redemption  And if I can become so deeply moved by a C.S. Lewis character in a movie merely representing the God of the Universe, imagine what it'll be like when I really see Him face to face. And I don't have to see any future Narnia sequels or coming attractions to know how my own future turns out, because I've already read that other book and know how it ends, too: we win. I win.

And that'll be the Hollywood ending to end all Hollywood endings.