Jeremy pointed me to an interesting thread over at Faith Commons, an emergent church website. Looks like part of the discussion centered around a piece Jeremy had written about “Bullshitian Gnosticism“. Jeremy’s article is littered with profanity (as it should be), which prompted the following reply from one of the readers of Faith Commons:
I read Jeremy’s piece — he may do himself and those he would like to represent a disfavor by resorting to ghetto speak — but he certainly demonstrates his freedom to blast others.
Another commenter, Bill, later defends it saying:
Quite frankly, the ghetto-speak seems somewhat more genuine than lofty theo-speak. We are going to disagree with each other sometime, after all. Although there are better ways of disagreeing and making one’s dissatisfaction known, I prefer the shoot-from-the-hip approach to the academic lynching-by-words.
If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know that I more than agree. I’m not afraid to sit here and tell somebody to “eat a dick”, that they are a “retard” or that they are a bunch of pussies. I not only think this isn’t a bad thing to do, I think it’s actually a good thing. Too often, I find that people who play the spiritual game start getting into this really floaty realm of “enlightenment” and “energy” and they start tip-toeing around everything, and really cutting themselves off from statements with real actual impact. I like to think that dropping the “F-Bomb” from time to time amidst otherwise high-falutin spiritual discussion is really good. It snaps people back to gritty earthy reality. It zips us out of the holier-than-thou context of most spiritual conversation into one where we’re actually real people, with real feelings and opinions. It’s a place where we’re allowed to be wrong, and it’s okay to be a screw-up and make mistakes. I for one find it a lot less stifling than the alternative. And before you get started in that direction, it doesn’t matter to me that some people are turned off by it. I’m not here on some religious crusade to turn everybody into me. I’m just out here exploring this stuff for myself. So, fuck you!
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6 Comments
i think the f-word brings enormous relief to people in tense situations.i slide it into hypnosis sessions and seminars,if i sense an openness to it and i tend to get a feeling of,oh,yeah,he`s one of us,as a response…….and i am more effective in my work as a result.
i forget who it was who did the bit about the different ways in which the word fuck could be applied,it may have been george carlin,but the list was extensive.
yeah thats a good point. the F-Bomb definitely explodes tense situations, which is i think what a lot of spiritual-talk tends to turn into. either it gets really moralizing or really heady and intellectual, or just abstract as shit, and dropping a little FUCK YOU ALL back into the mix helps everybody cool out again
and people who respond negatively to the word tend to be the ones who want the tension to remain.
Fuck You
I was in the middle of doing some pretty intense magickal work with Starhawk, the witch and activist, with a small group of very mixed experience. It was plain to see that for a few people in the room, including myself, there was a lot of inhibition there - “am i doing this right? am i magickal enough? shit, what gods are we supposed to be calling right now?” So in the middle of an invocation Starhawk stopped and just blasted a big old fart. Cleared all the bothersome inhibitions right out of the room.
a different kind of f-bomb, but useful for spiritual work as well….
hilarious. ive heard her interviewed on sue supriano and find it impossible to imagine her doing that. but it makes her a hell of a lot more human, thats for sure
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