Raunchy Grandmothers and Busty Fictional Women

Ellie is in an AP Language class.

She recently worked on a paper about a short story they had to read.

I read it too, because I like that kind of thing.

Ellie worked super hard on the paper.

I proofed early drafts of it but she turned it in without me seeing the final draft.

The other night, her and her friend were at the kitchen island, staring at the screen of Ellie's laptop, reading the teacher's responses to the assignment.

Ellie was curious about a certain comment the teacher made to a word she used to describe the woman in the story.

BUSTY.

No where in the story was there any reference to the woman's physical appearance other than she was tall and plain.

I think busty would've come up.

I asked Ellie if she knew what busty meant and she said,

"Husky."

No…

I told her that wasn't implied in the story either

and, FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, 

not a word usually used to describe women.

For me, husky meant a jeans size 

at Sears for bigger boys.

Which is terrible.

Her friend didn't know what busty meant either.

I explained and they dissolved into giggles.

Is it possible, busty is a dead adjective?

Not that I'm mad about it…

But how is it that in one generation a word just STOPS being used?

Now, I know, the world needs a good many words to stop being used, but how is it that BUSTY was chosen and not some of the others?

It made me think of McDaniel and how she used the word RAUNCHY because she thought it meant fancy in a tribute essay, for school, to describe my sweet, proper, Christian grandmother.

My grandmother never did anything EVER in a remotely raunchy way.

Including saying the word "cancer" 

or "the sugar" (diabetes) 

or "divorced" above a whisper.

What happened to using a dictionary?

I was just talking with girlfriends about how we took 

HUGE, heavy dictionaries to college with us.

Some were gifted them.

Now there's access to one on the phone.

There is literally NO EXCUSE for using words we don't know the meaning of or even slightly question.

Yet, here we are with raunchy grandmothers and busty fictional women IN MY HOUSE.

It paints a picture, doesn't it?

One my grandmother would be too horrified to look at.

P

McDaniel had an encounter with a guy in a restaurant in her college town.

She and her male Young Life co-leader were sitting at a table reading the bible.

A young man who resembled Bob Marley, walked right over to McDaniel in the restaurant, looked her in the eye and said,

"Hey, I know I'm not good with words and all 

but you are pretty as @#!*$."

He went on to say she was beautiful, amazing, and that he hoped she was as cool as she looked. 

She assured me that she had her hair up in a bun, 

no make up on 

and was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. 

She wondered if he was really talking to her.

He called himself P and thanked her and her friend for not calling him Pete.

P looked at her co-leader and informed him that he was in love with McDaniel and they were going to get married. 

"That's the love of your life! 

You are going to marry her!"

P was pretty excited about it.

No matter how they tried to tell him they were just friends, co-leaders in ministry, he insisted that history was happening tonight, they were in fact, in love, and going to get married.

P was so sure of it that he slapped a total stranger in the chest, pointed to McDaniel's table, and told the guy that he was watching history!

The guy didn't rise to P's level of interest or enthusiasm.

P went to the counter of the restaurant to order food and McDaniel and her co-leader tried to process what had just happened.

They laughed.

They freaked out a little.

They felt awkward.

They noticed P never blinked.

They caught P looking at them from across the restaurant and he whispered,

"That's your wife, man! 

THAT'S YOUR WIFE!"

They were amazed that they could hear him!

They wondered if he was some sort of 

dreadlocked prophet who never blinked.

He came back and asked what they were reading.

They explained it was the bible.

His response,

"You know the letter J?
The letter J is 500 years old! 

That's heavy, that's heavy!
If the letter J is 500 years old, how old is Jesus?

Think about that. THINK ABOUT THAT.
That's heavy!
We have to deal with this."

They answered that Jesus was older than 500.

McDaniel's friend asked what P believed.

"I believe that God knows I don't understand everything."

Whoa.

Then P turned to the two inebriated guys sitting near him and announced,

"These two are reading the bible! What are YOU doing?"

McDaniel feared a confrontation.

Then P focused on one of the guys and said,

"You are amazing! You are incredible!"

The guy looked like he was ready to fight him 

but didn't.

P mentioned how old the letter J was again (500 years old), how much he loved them, that his love was genuine and he loved their love for each other.

"Me and my mom were driving tonight and saw a UFO, 

that's heavy. She was in the military. Think about that."

P asked where McDaniel and her friend were from. They asked where he was from.

"Everywhere."

Then he left.

McDaniel and her friend were left with many questions.

Where was P really from?

What does P do?

Wait. A UFO?!?

P has a mom?!

After McDaniel finished telling me this story over the phone, she told me she had this feeling she's going to run into P 30 years from now, somewhere completely random, and he's going to look exactly the same and he's going to say the exact same things to her.

I was retelling this story to friends the other night and we all wondered about P.

Not if he'd been sniffing Sharpies or drinking some mushroom tea, but how was it that he was so free to speak in such an affirming way to people?

Strangers.

He looked at people like he really saw them (and not just because he didn't blink).

He spoke life to people, not just compliments.

It seems harder to receive 

yet impossible to forget.

What if that drunk guy who P called amazing and incredible, was hearing that for the first time?

What if, for a second, he believed it?

What if the goodness P exuded inspired someone that night to pay it forward?

What if someone overheard that God knows that we don't understand everything and it made all the difference?

What if Jesus has dreadlocks?

Oh, I am not claiming P is Jesus.

But he sure loved like Him in that restaurant.

Yes, I know he used explicit language, he didn't blink, and the letter J is way older than 500 years, 

but I know God uses flawed and broken people all the time to impact His kingdom.

God looks at us and really sees us as we truly are, not how we feel.

In Judges 6:12, an angel of God appeared to Gideon and called him a mighty warrior even though he was hiding, scared on the threshing floor.

God sent a messenger to remind Gideon who he truly was, not how he felt.

That's heavy.

In Hebrews 13:2 it reminds us to always entertain strangers because they might be angels.

Think about that. 

And in Mark 12 we are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

THINK ABOUT THAT.

I don't know who P is or what his motivation was that night, but I won't soon forget him and I wasn't even there.

And he is WAY better with words than he thinks he is.