Snow 2
We got a lovely covering of snow last night. I love snow. I love winter. It's possibly my favorite time of year. (Although, I must admit it's a tough call for which season I like best because all four really do offer something special.) For some reason the snow got me to wondering.
It seems to me we allow past definitions, phrases from the past, to remain as they are and we fear trying to change what they mean. It struck me earlier this year as we were planning our wedding that "Amazing Grace" wasn't going to work because it is too closely connected to funerals. Now the way I work is that I then want to use it all the more in our wedding so then the song can begin to be associated with happier occasions. I think it's a hymn of celebration, that we've made it to a good place. Needless to say a wedding is really no place to be fighting battles and attempting to change culture (for the most part, I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule), and we won't be singing it at the wedding.
Yet, this is the sort of thing I got to thinking about with the snow. We have the phrase, "Washed as white as snow." I've heard it suggested before that such a phrase is really actually racist. We so naturally associate white with good and black with bad. If you want to disagree try watching a cowboy movie or two and you'll see what I mean. Why can't we say, "Washed as red as a fire engine" or "green as grass"? I know, I know, it sounds silly. However, is that because we're so used to the original expression? If we were to start using other colors would it then be acceptable again to use "white as snow?" Is it even worth the effort?
I don't know. What I do know is I'm glad it snowed today. I'm a little sad I couldn't get the tires pumped up on the snowblower so I had to shovel the driveway instead. If that's as bad as my day gets, then I suspect it's going to be a good day.
It seems to me we allow past definitions, phrases from the past, to remain as they are and we fear trying to change what they mean. It struck me earlier this year as we were planning our wedding that "Amazing Grace" wasn't going to work because it is too closely connected to funerals. Now the way I work is that I then want to use it all the more in our wedding so then the song can begin to be associated with happier occasions. I think it's a hymn of celebration, that we've made it to a good place. Needless to say a wedding is really no place to be fighting battles and attempting to change culture (for the most part, I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule), and we won't be singing it at the wedding.
Yet, this is the sort of thing I got to thinking about with the snow. We have the phrase, "Washed as white as snow." I've heard it suggested before that such a phrase is really actually racist. We so naturally associate white with good and black with bad. If you want to disagree try watching a cowboy movie or two and you'll see what I mean. Why can't we say, "Washed as red as a fire engine" or "green as grass"? I know, I know, it sounds silly. However, is that because we're so used to the original expression? If we were to start using other colors would it then be acceptable again to use "white as snow?" Is it even worth the effort?
I don't know. What I do know is I'm glad it snowed today. I'm a little sad I couldn't get the tires pumped up on the snowblower so I had to shovel the driveway instead. If that's as bad as my day gets, then I suspect it's going to be a good day.
posted by pb @ 9:34 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:50 AM,
Chris Benjamin said…
interesting to be a pastor planning your own wedding.
my wife and i were married this summer by a lutheran pastor in nova scotia. he was excellent about almost all of our non-traditional requests, and it was very non-traditional. we suspected he was probably tired of all the standards anyway, being 25 years into his career.
the one thing he insisted on was a bible reading. we chose to skip the usual 'love is kind' because we wanted something unique that spoke to us. we went with a passage in which jesus said the greatest gift to god is to give what you have to others, to be just and kind.
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