Words From The Throne

Last night, for want of better reading material, I took a dictionary with me into the bathroom.

Words interest me.

Lots of times, I’ll use a word thinking I know what it means only to find out that I don’t. So I check the meaning of a lot of words.

With my Southern accent, I apparently hear words different from other people. I remember in grammar school a teacher called me to the front of the room in front of everybody and demanded that I spell the word for that stuff the ocean is made of, the stuff boats sail on, the liquid people drink.

W.A.R.T.E.R., I proudly spelled.

Everybody laughed at me.

Anyhow, last night – God only knows why -- I looked up the word VERT and words related to it.

I discovered that VERT means the color green. It’s an Old English word which refers to green vegetation where deer browse.

I didn’t know that.

Maybe what got me started on this word search was that somebody on tv news said something about congress investigating some COVERT military operation. My dictionary informs me that in zoology the word covert means small bird feathers or “a flock of coots”.

Surely the tv announcer was not using the word covert, a flock of coots, to mean our distinguished senators?

On further investigation I find that covert also means “hidden, not openly practiced, covered”.

On the other hand, the word OVERT means “open and observable, not secret or hidden, open to view”.

I’d like to live an overt life before my children, with some things private but with no shady secrets.

When I was a kid, maybe 11 or 12 years old. A man down the block stopped my Dad and me on the street and asked my father for a cigarette. The guy was shaped like a string-bean and he constantly scratched his arms and acted as jumpy as a squirrel.

After the man walked away, Daddy said, “John, I don’t ever want to see you talking to him. He’s a pervert”.

“What’s a pervert,” I asked.

I’d never heard the word before.

Daddy explained, as only a father can, by whacking me aside the head and saying, “Never you mind! But I’d better never see you talking to him!”

Last night I looked up the word PERVERT to find the dictionary says it means “To cause to turn away from what is right, proper, or good; To bring to a bad or worse condition; To debase; To put to a wrong or improper use; To interpret incorrectly; misconstrue or distort”

Once when St. Paul was talking to a Roman army officer, a sorcerer named Elymas tried to turn the officer away from the faith. Paul said to the rascal, ”Thou child of the devil! Thou enemy of all righteousness! Wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?”

The sorcerer went blind. “Immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking someone to lead him by the hand”.

Wow!

Since I have macular degeneration myself, I can sympathize with the bad guy. But I certainly want to watch out that I don’t pervert the right ways of the Lord myself.

I’ve been in church services where I heard men who were being paid to preach Christianity teach something less. Instead of declaring that Jesus is indeed God come in the flesh, who died on the cross because of our sins and who rose from death because He is the Prince of Life, these guys, who get a salary to teach Christianity, get up there and say that folks should be nice because poor ‘ol Jesus was a nice guy who got whacked because he was ahead of his times but his spirit lives on in flowers.

Any man is free to believe as he chooses. I’d never dispute that. But to take money to teach one thing and to teach something less instead – I’d call such a guy a pervert of the worst sort.

O yes, the dictionary also says the word relates to sex, but you can look that part up for yourself if you’re interested.

The next word I examined was SUBVERT, meaning to undermine or corrupt. Enough said?

All last week Ginny got home from work later than usual every day because of road construction. That brings me to the word DIVERT -- To turn aside from a course or direction: Traffic was diverted around the construction.

It also means to distract or to entertain -- as in “NFL Football on tv is my main diversion”.

Of course, that brings me to the word CONVERT -- to convert the extra point after a touchdown, the kicker has to put the ball between the uprights. Unless the team goes for a two-point conversion; then, in essence they have to score another touchdown right after the first…. I think there’s a religious meaning too.

But, if a football team does not move advance the ball at least ten yards in four tries, the ball REVERTS to the opposing team.

Revert means to go back. For instance if I can’t make my mortgage payment, our home reverts to the bank.

But to revert is not always a bad thing.

The prophet Isaiah gives a good example of what it means to revert. He said, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon”.

By turning around and returning to God, we prevent many troubles, turn aside a lot of bad things and AVERT tragic loss.