Last Advent, working as a chaplain in a Level I Trauma Center during the Delta wave of COVID-19, I found myself cursing more than usual (and usual is not at all). What was the most curious was that I often began my curse with the word “holy”; for example, “holy shit.” Some hard stuff happened that month, including ministering with a family whose elementary school aged child died in an accident. I kept trying to imagine what the family was going through, and my reaction tended to involve strong cursing, curses that began with the word “holy.”
A few weeks prior, a coworker was really excited about eating his lunch and as he excused himself to go eat in his office, he said, “I’m about to get unholy with this food.” I knew he meant he was going to enjoy it and maybe even make a mess, but it reminded me of the quote by author Madeline L’Engle, that “there is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.” Eating food is holy. Enjoying your food is holy.
The space in which you lose a child is holy. The space in which you change your mother to DNR is holy. The work of hospitals is holy. The work of grieving is holy. Eating messy foods with gusto is holy. Just ask any two-year-old with spaghetti or birthday cake. There is no space where God is not. There is no space God cannot bless. And strong cursing can be holy. I’ve never been one for gratuitous cursing, and especially not the posturing “Look at me, I’m so cool, I cursed.” However, there are times when a holy curse word is the most appropriate word.
As the church calendar begins anew this Sunday, as we practice gratitude this week (or at least on Thursday), as the heaviness of the news cycle just doesn’t seem to let up, as we meet more and more folks who are grieving, may we offer words of blessing that give voice to the sacredness of the situation in which we find ourselves.
Beautiful!