Dr. James L. Snyder
Growing up back in “the day,” most people put a lot of credence on promises and lived by the motto, “A man is as good as his word.” Most agreements were sealed with a handshake. If you said you were going to do something, you did it. Period.
Today it is an altogether different story. We need a lawyer with a pile of paperwork in order to do anything these days. A lawyer has the sneakability to make words say anything convenient at the time depending on what the word “is” is, and when you said it.
It matters not what a man says anymore only what he can get away with at the time.
This brings me to the dilemma flavor of the week.
Not mentioning any names, I am too much of a gentleman for that, but some person living in my house can be a little tricky when it comes to the usage of language. I may be the “wordsmith” in our house but she definitely is the “word butcher.” She can take any word and slice it so thin its meaning all but disappears.
A while back, we were having a little discussion centering on one of my favorite topics, Apple Fritters. Anybody who knows me knows that an Apple Fritter is at the top of my list of scrumptious delicacies. My motto: An Apple fritter a day makes it all worth living and two turns it into heaven.
Satan may very well have tempted Eve with an Apple but God has more than made up for that by introducing into humanity a freshly baked Apple Fritter. At least, that is my interpretation. Another theologian in our house has different hermeneutics on the subject.
In our discussion, I was reminding the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage that she made a promise that if I liked an Apple Fritter I could eat an Apple Fritter. I laid out my argument very clear, at least I thought so, and encouraged her to follow suit.
She then disrupted the whole discussion by insisting on evidence.
“When,” she said with a very suspicious look on her face, “did I ever say if you liked your Apple Fritter you could eat your Apple Fritter?”
It was up to me at this point to produce a strategy that would convince her she said exactly that.
“Don’t you remember,” I said as confidently as I could possibly muster at the time, “we were at a restaurant and our discussion centered on dessert.”
“I don’t remember such an occasion.”
I started to wiggle a little bit but I knew if I could win this argument at this point it would be a great win.
It is at times like this I wish I was a little more like a politician. A politician can say something and it means different things to different people at different times. It does not matter what they say at any particular time it can always be reinterpreted the way a politician wants it any particular time he needs it. Oh, how I envy those skills.
Let me point out very quickly that according to common knowledge, this is in no way lying. In fact, I am not sure what the definition of lying is anymore. Nobody lies, they are just being misinterpreted. They can get anybody to believe anything if they rearrange the truth in such a way it is no longer the truth but it is not necessarily a lie.
“Don’t you remember we were talking about dessert,” I said as calculatedly as possible, “and you said a person should be able to like what they eat and eat what they like?”
I sighed a deep sigh, smiling inside hoping she would not discover that inner glowing smile.
She thought for a moment and then responded, “I seem to recall a conversation along that line but I do not recollect that we were talking about Apple Fritters. The words “Apple Fritters” never came up in the conversation as I remember it.”
My challenge was to reconstruct the memory of that discussion somehow to fit in the words “Apple Fritter” or at least the idea.
“When I said that,” she said looking at me straight in the eye, “I did not have Apple fritters on my mind. In fact, if the truth were known, I had broccoli on my mind at that moment.”
How did broccoli get into this conversation? Nowhere in the recesses of my mind did the word broccoli ever appear.
I knew I was losing the battle at this point.
It is one thing to say something but it is quite another thing to hear something. Many times what I hear is not really what is being said. At times what is being said is not exactly what I hear, especially if my wife is doing the speaking.
Why is it people cannot say what they mean and mean what they say?
Only God really says what He means and means what He says. I like the encouragement he gives to Joshua. “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (Joshua 1:5 KJV).
Whatever God says He means and it never changes its meaning from one generation to the next. That is something I can really rely upon.
