O My God

Lots to catch up on, as I was on the road and mostly listening to good music on our new car’s sound-system, then enjoying the Pacific Northwest and time with my people but not keeping up with the news. Upon my return I more or less caught up, several ‘stories’ catching my eye:

The Supreme Court of Catholicism continues its run on Broadway, culminating with a theatrical decision to be known ever after as “The Doctrine of Sam Alito.” When I heard the news of the Roe decision, first my right ear fell off, and then my left: The Supremes had accomplished another miraculous feat, that of separating women from their own bodies!

Then the Pope traveled to Canada to apologize to indigenous people there for the wrongs the Church had committed in the “past”. There being no business like show business, the Pope wore a native American headdress at ceremonies celebrating the occasion, watching the solemn festivities from the sanctity of his Papal wheelchair which was, in the not-too-distant past of Popeedom, known as the Popemobile.

Sometime during the journey I began to think about the not-so-subtle and the subtle shifts in our everyday use of the English language. For example, people no longer tend to say “I love you.” Instead they say, “I’d take a bullet for you,” which now means the same thing between two people in love as saying “I love you.” The words, “O My God” remain popular with people between the ages of 18 and 40 as an expression of shock, surprise, or outright dumbfounded-ness, as in “O My God Donald Trump was once actually President of the United States.” Just as often, however, the words “Perfect” or “Beautiful” now serve as increasingly popular substitutes for “O My God.” Yet hearing the phrase “O My God” still being used time and again as I did on my trip north I couldn’t help but wonder if the phrase hadn't entered the kingdom of heaven, or had been a conscious tool all along of the Christian conservative movement to convert heathens to the cause.

“O My God”, I suspect, has reached its statue of limitations, though the Supreme Court of Catholicism, while approving of the religious intention of the phrase, has decided not to hear the case, passing it on to the lower courts.