May 11, 2025
Dear Friends,
Recently I was with a young friend and as we were walking down Michigan Avenue in Chicago, he said to me, “Father, you are really drip today.”
I had no idea what he meant or what he was saying, so I asked, “What does drip mean?”
He said, “You look cool or awesome” as in what I was wearing,
“Drip,” “drippy,” or “dripping” are colloquial popular culture words that apply to how one is attired, what clothes you are wearing do for projecting an image that is cool.
I am not so sure that cool and awesome are apt terms to describe me, but I will take the goodwill behind the comment.
I remember when I first started teaching high school kids and they were “booking” here and there, and I had no idea of what they were talking about.
“Book” in the colloquial, popular culture vocabulary of the time meant, to leave of depart or go somewhere other than where you were.
I find the diversity of vocabulary to be interesting, even intriguing now, but there was a time when I was intimidated by not understanding what others mean in what they are saying.
Fear of language and vocabulary differences is rooted in our own lack of confidence in ourselves. We are afraid that we don’t have what we think or believe other people think we should have or believe we should have, so we project our negativity on them.
The Gospel this weekend and the First Reading last weekend are about words.
The religious leadership of Jesus’ day is not comfortable with the vocabulary that Jesus and his followers use to talk about the experience of the Good News. New words that are not a part of the existing official religious vocabulary, are a threat to their own self-understanding and the power that they have over their religion so they threaten Jesus and his followers and try to intimidate them into silence and to use what they believe are the correct words.
Words, indeed, have power, but they also have strength, the strength to challenge and console and heal and reconcile and disrupt and demean and suppress and lift up and create joy, and beauty, and truth.
Creating confusion around the meaning of words is a tactic that frightened people use to create a false sense of security for themselves in an effort to avoid thoughtful consideration of what new words, new vocabulary, might uncover about the truth of the matter, whatever the matter.
The weaponization of words is a tragic flaw in the evolution of human beings and human societies, it never really prevails, and it usually does a lot of damage to people and the pursuit of truth as an essential part of the continued evolution of the human person and the institutions that human persons depend on especially institutions that are concerned with the heart and the soul.
In religion, no matter the brand, we are essentially dealing with mysteries, and we almost always use words and ritual to give voice to the mysteries and the response of the disciples of that religion to their experience with those mysteries but the words and the rituals in no way exhaust the mysteries. Additionally, religions adopt music, dance, architecture, and art to further expand and deepen the human awareness of the mysteries within which live.
Fear of words and fear of vocabulary by prohibiting words and restricting or limiting or denying vocabulary in religion almost always results in the oppression of people and results in not a religion but a fantasy of fetishes rather than sincere, real, mature faith.
Words and vocabulary are used to give meaning and understanding to the common life of human communities and institutions, words develop and create systems and manners and mores that define the boundaries and perimeters of human communication and human dignity and codes and taboos that enable us to pursue peace and justice and accountability and hope.
The words of the Declaration of Independence are in part, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
Unity, respect, and love was the ultimate goal of the Declaration of Independence, we must admit that realizing those goals is easier said than done and that the system of government that they gave rise to is a work in progress always by and for all of the people and not the prerogative of a few.
Check out again or for the first time the books, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell and It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, books about words, vocabulary, and human fallibilities.
Peace,
Father Niblick