Oh My Cotton Candy!!

What do you remember from your childhood?

I remember my friend Justin teaching me about God. He was a kid who lived across the street from me. I was probably six or seven at the time. It was an autumn day, because I remember the leaves were a charred, yellow. I could just barely see a squirrel nest in the towering oak tree above us. At the time I thought it belonged to a big bird. But no, my dad told me it was for squirrels.

Justin and I were playing a game. Don't remember what it was. Probably something warlike. Back then we played nothing but war games. When Ben came over and it was the three of us, we'd play a game called Psycho-Killer. Ben would put on my Friday the 13th hockey mask and brandish a plastic butcher's knife. I assumed the role of a police detective named, Frank Johnson... psycho-killer. The game's name had two meanings. Ben was the messed up, crazy, psycho killer. I was the killer of psychos like Ben. Except, he never could die. Like Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers, I could put him down with imaginary bullets, but within seconds he'd rise, as if empowered by a unholy, decidedly demonic Easter miracle. He'd chase us about... The game ended when we got tired or our moms told us to come home.

We weren't playing Psycho-Killer when Justin taught me about God. And Ben wasn't around. It was just us. Outside on a cool, weekend afternoon. Seems like it was a cloudy day, but I don't remember. Memory is funny that way. I don't know for sure what the sky looked like, but in my mind I imagine it as grey and overcast.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. Justin stared at me and gave me a disappointed look.

"What?" I asked.

"You're not supposed to used the Lord's name in vain."

"I wasn't doing that. What's that even mean?" I had no clue what this meant. I was a Christmas and Easter church goer at this time in my life. My parents just didn't feel like going I guess, and neither did I. I was a chubby kid, and the suits they dressed me in were hot and scratchy. There's a picture at my mom's house of me wearing a grey jacket with a dull, pinkish shirt. The clip on tie is like a lump on my throat. I'm smiling in the photo, but I couldn't have been happy. In any case, we didn't go to church, and I was not yet fluent in various dialects of Christianese.

You've heard Christianese...

"Are you saved?"

"The Lord led me..."

"I've been getting deep in the Word lately..."

Pretty basic, protestant flavored inanities. Folks, people in the real world don't know what these expressions mean, but that's to their credit. It's not because they're "lost," it's because they haven't yet been assimilated into a particularly asinine pseudo-Christian sub culture that lives mostly in the United States.

But taking the "Lord's name in vain" is not something to turn your nose up at. It's a King Jame's rendering of holy writ. Moses comes down and admonishes the Hebrews to not take the Lord's name in vain. Perhaps I'm a bit conservative, but I like to take Moses pretty seriously.

I had no idea, however, what in the hell Justin meant by his accusation. My vocabulary was thoroughly secular. We went to my mom, who was bustling about the house, cleaning something or another. Maybe she was making us cookies. She sometimes did that. She'd make chocolate chip cookies from scratch for me and my friends. We'd get huge glasses of milk and bathe each cookie liberally. Invariably, in my fervor to soak the cookie and then eat it, I would crack the softened cookie while attempting to withdraw it from the glass. A chunk of cookie would then float around in my glass of milk until I could rescue it with my fingers or pour it into my mouth by way of chugging.

But there was no milk and cookies this time. Plenty of other times, but not today. My mom was doing something, and Justin and I ran up to her and lay the matter before his judgment. Was I, her plump, well-favored son, guilty of a heretical disregard for God's name?! Justin told her what I said verbatim.

My mom agreed. "William, he's right. You shouldn't say 'Oh my God." Justin's mouth was open with a childlike wonder around his vindication.

"Oh... really?"

"Yes."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because... it isn't respectful to God."

I didn't want to disrespect God. So I accepted this lesson quickly and Justin and I went on playing. But I'm not really sure I understood what "taking the Lord's name in vain" actually meant. However, today I have a few more ideas. Here's a list... many of them, I've used myself.

Ways to Take the Lord's name in Vain:

1. Telling someone that God has moved you to either A) ask someone on a date or B) break up with a significant other.

2. Assigning God to political parties... and making God a central issue in political debate.

3. Hurting or murdering others because they don't believe in your God.

4. Telling a gay person that they are sinning against God by being who they are.

5. Expecting God to answer your prayers as if God was a Cosmic Santa Claus. Let me just tell you, God doesn't care about you getting a good parking space. God doesn't care about our favorite sports team. God cares if we are taking canned goods to the local food pantry.

6. Dressing our God up in red, white, and blue. God doesn't endorse one country over another. God bless the USA is a very narrow prayer... and if someone takes prayer seriously, they're going to be HAPPY to learn of better ways to pray. So let me suggest to you a pretty okay prayer: God bless the world... help us to be kind to one another, take care of the poor, and beat our swords into plowshares because...

7. ...God isn't cool with killing. Jesus never killed anyone, and he sure met people who could've used some killing. So, kill someone if you have to. Just be honest enough to realize you're NOT doing what Jesus would do. Because it's disrespectful to stamp God's name on killing.

8. Catchy Christian trends like WWJD bracelets and bumper stickers. Jesus said folks would know us by our fruits (by what we do), and not by our fashion accessories.

9. Making God smaller than God really is. For instance, God is bigger than one religious tradition. Oh, I know... someone's gonna bite my head off here. But seriously, Jews and Muslims and Sikhs and Hindus have prayed to God for a long time. We can debate the particulars, but never doubt it... God is the One they are talking too, no matter what name they're using. So let's not disgrace God by insisting that our version of God is the only way. This trend is based on faulty exegesis of the scriptures, anyway.

10. Lastly, acting as if the Bible is God. Technically, the "Word" of God is Jesus. "Word" also represents the orderly quality of creation. "Word," or "Logos" is why the laws of nature make sense (we believe). It's God's thumbprint on reality. Never is the Bible to be considered "the Word." While the Bible is an extremely important tool for hearing God, it is not a god... nor God, God's Self.

I think that using God's name vainly is about stamping God's brand on top of whatever agenda we want God to endorse. But maybe we do well to stop and wait when we feel this urge come over us. Maybe our best practice is to pray, "God, help me understand what you are about... and what I should be about today."

"Instead of saying 'Oh my god,'" my mom said. "You should say, 'Oh my goodness.'"

"Or oh my dear!" said Justin, being helpful.

"Or oh my gosh!" said my mom. "Or lots of things!"

I wanted to contribute, so I offered between self-satisfied guffaws,"'Oh my cotton candy!'"

Cheesy? Perhaps. But a lovely memory, nonetheless. And you bet your cotton candy that I'm still learning my lessons... mostly by being wrong.