Awesome and Amazing

What most captured my attention while watching the New Year’s Eve festivities on TV was the number of times I heard the word amazing. According to Miley Cyrus, the crowds were “amazing”, the weather was “amazing”, indeed, the whole night was just “amazing.” I wondered what happened to “awesome” as the catchword of the day. Not to worry, someone else threw out “awesome” as well as “amazing”.

Since I am convinced that our use of language guides our thinking, I thought how odd that these words, previously used to describe God, were now used to describe purely secular things and events.

Popular worship songs continually refer to our Awesome God in direct reference to many Bible passages, with one of our most enduring gospel songs being Amazing Grace, of course. So how did a rather neutral slang expression such as “cool” come to be replaced by two words that, more often than not, previously were used to refer to God? Could this be another clear indication of our society replacing God with the things they think we should really be worshipping?

If our shoes and dresses are awesome and a crowd of people gathered for a secular event is amazing, then what words do we have to describe God? We still have the old standbys such as “all knowing”, “all-powerful”, “holy”, and “righteous”. Except most of those words have also been usurped. Oprah and her ilk tell us we can “know” and “have the power.” And “righteous” has been a slang term used to describe an “ok” person for quite some time.

Those of us who believe in an all-powerful and all knowing God also know we have no words to adequately describe the indescribable. Yet, because we are mere mortals, it is through our language that we must attempt to convey to others the greatness of God. George Orwell knew this when he wrote “1984.” Change the language and you change society. The emptiness of the secular world is mirrored in the language they use and they clearly have no use for God.

Daily Struggles

Why is it so often such a struggle for us to do what is right? We start each day with the very best of intentions, and then somewhere along the line we mess up.

For those of you old enough to have been raised on the Baltimore Catechism, you will recall the first question, “Who made me”. The answer was “God made me”. I chose to believe that as “a matter of faith”. If I believed in God, then it was an easy leap to believe He made me. Not only did He make me but also, He made me in “His image and likeness. That part took a bit more work on my part. The catechism of the Catholic Church says this about being made in the image and likeness of God:

Jesus himself is the answer. It means to be holy and loving, to give oneself for the sake of others even to the point of death, so we might share eternally in God's life, our souls united again with our risen bodies. (Catechism, 459, 460).

As I got older, my understanding of the story of creation in Genesis grew from a literal to a figurative and symbolic story. I no longer believed, for instance, that creation took seven days, as we experience seven days. The kind sisters at school helped me to reconcile science and faith and how beautifully they fit together when viewed through the lens of faith.

It is clear when reading Genesis that Adam and Eve were special from all the other creatures. Being made in God’s image, it was possible for them to be drawn toward truth and love, and all the other great attributes we apply to God. They also had what no other creature had and that was a soul. The tricky part was the free will.

When Adam chose to believe the tempter’s lie, “You will be like gods”, he earned for us a weakness in our abilities to always choose what is right and good. Are we completely corrupt, as some believe? Absolutely not! The majority of our hearts and minds are ordered for good, for the glory of God. But, we did inherit a weakness of spirit that tells us that we can be “as gods”, and worse, make it sound perfectly rational.

So, what are we to do, gentle reader? Awareness is the answer. We spend more time being aware of the dangers the world poses for our goods than we do to the dangers to our souls. We lock our houses, put alarms on our cars, and wear white at night. We need to remind ourselves every morning that we will be tested to choose good over evil. Every time we choose virtue, we will be strengthened and will be in conformity with the “image and likeness of God”.

Have a wonderful and temptation free day.