15th
UPCHUCK
WORD OF MY BREATH
Now, if my Dad was reading my blog, the timing of this word would be perfect, because every April 15, was not his favorite day of the year, and he would have approved of this particular selection of the day. Perhaps some of you agree. However, that is not why I choose the word, upchuck.
Today, I choose this word, and it is all my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Ogburn’s fault, because ever since I learned a brand new word on the first day of school, the meaning of words has been a passion for me. Let me tell you what happened.
My family background was a medical one; my father was a Radiologist, my mother was a Registered Nurse, so naturally, all bodily function terminology was technically correct. I had never heard the word ‘upchuck’, and on the first day of Kindergarten, when we got the tour of our new classroom facilities, Mrs. Ogburn used that word when she said, “In case any of you children need to upchuck, you must make sure that you use the facilities in the restroom in the back of the classroom.” I was completely puzzled. In my family, we vomited. Nobody upchucked. But instead of admitting I didn’t understand, I thought, I deduced, I considered, until around craft time, finally I figured out what I thought she must have meant in the context of what she was saying. From then on, I was hooked; I had to know what words meant; every word was unique and special to me, and if I heard one that I didn’t know, I was compelled to figure it out or look it up.
Today, ‘Dictionary.com’ is on the ‘speed click’ bar of my computer screen and only a split second away; before that, I always had a Webster’s Dictionary with me if I was reading a book, because encountering a word I did not know would oblige me to stop and find out its meaning before continuing on. I spend hours a week looking up the Hebrew and Greek meaning of the words in the Bible, just because I NEED to know what those words really mean; especially stimulating is the fact that it sometimes takes several English words to fully interpret the meaning of foreign ones; curious that I took French III and German I back-to-back in my Sophomore year at High School, loving every minute of it, and it is so interesting to me that I forget the important things, like the fact that lunch was supposed to be eaten 3 hours ago.
It is fascinating to me that there is something that makes even God want to upchuck, which I did not understand for a long time, until I was struck with a serious physical weakness and clinical depression, and was no longer able to feel my own feelings. Anyone who has dealt with chronic pain and who is honest about it, has experienced a certain amount of depression or anxiety, but few people have become familiar with the numbness that accompanies the deadening of the emotions that is almost paralyzing. The type where your teenage daughter, afraid that you are in danger of imminent death, lays her head on your lap and says, “Mama, please don’t die. What would I do without you?”, and you have absolutely no emotive response coming from the core of your being at all. This kind of tepid lifelessness is something that I believe is abhorrent to God, but not for the same reason that most people preach from pulpits all the time. I think it saddens Him as a Father who loves His children.
I think God can deal with people who exhibit strong emotions; there are examples in the Bible of many of them. I relate this to Physics. I know from my father, who had a Ph.D. in Physics, that it is easier to direct an object that is in motion, than to start one moving, that is stationary. That is how I see the connection between God and people with strong emotions. They express their intense feelings to Him and they become the object that is in motion that He can direct. The lifeless, clinically depressed person, unable to feel anything at all, is the object that is stationary. Physics 101.
It is not God’s wrath that says to the Laodicean church, “Because you are tepid, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth,” it is His Love for them, as their Father. He wants to get them rolling out of the spot; and with His help, the help of those who love them, and the help of people who have the correct expertise, they can get rolling. Those are the three things that got me rolling, and I haven’t stopped rolling yet. I think that is one of the other laws of Physics.
I’m not sure, but I think Mrs. Ogburn might take umbrage to the fact that the book of Revelations uses the word ‘vomit’, instead of her word, ‘upchuck’, but I’m sure she’ll get over it.
