I am amused how expressions have changed through the years and unless you are speaking to someone of your own vintage, you can be completely misunderstood.
Years ago, anything that was a-okay was “hot stuff” including the good looking boys…now everything is “cool.”
I have watched styles appear and disappear every decade or so. I recall pencil line skirts so tight at the bottom, that even with a four-inch slit, you could barely step from the road to the sidewalk. And “drapes”…now there was something to see and no young man looked so “with it” as those who wore drapes. (Slacks with wide knees). Often the knee measurement was up to 15 inches. I once expressed to my boy-friend at the time, that I didn’t much like them. The next day he presented me with two pairs and I was able to make two skirts out of them, one for me and one for my sister, The photo I have of him in a pair of them, is still around and brings a smile to my face.
Similarly, I have seen Christianity move in different directions through the years, especially the Catholic faith and the Protestant relationship with it. We have both warmed up to each other.
There is a new Catholic church in our town…it is almost a cathedral and I love going inside and enjoying the beauty and majesty of the place. I have good friends who worship there…friends who discuss their faith with me and whom I occasionally pray with. They have been to my church and enjoy our smaller community of faith and the kind of fellowship it offers. I do not always agree with their ideas about things but then not everyone agrees with mine either. I do believe God knows what our needs and talents are…consequently He has never asked me yet to organize the Church Supper…and neither has anyone in the congregation. But any other event is okay and I’ve done Anniversaries and great Garage sales.
My daughter has been visiting and several times I have expressed something, only to be found I have been completely misunderstood. (This happens in all families I know). Often the problem is I am thinking in terms of the past and those terms have morphed into something entirely different. It is a puzzlement.
I find that Scripture I read a decade ago, often speaks to me now in an entirely different way and expressions leap off the page that had laid silent for years. I think God is leading me and so are my Bible Study ladies, who so often are full of wisdom.
The different versions of the Bible can be helpful (but sometimes confusing) and it doesn’t hurt to read a few of them to gain new insights.
I hope I have grown in my beliefs…I like to think I have but I also know God is not finished with me yet. I still have a lot to learn.
Photo by Bess Georgette via Flickr, CC 2.0
