"Efficially" Down and Out

I was typing on Facebook this morning, and I wrote "efficially," trying to spell "officially." Yeah, for me, that's pretty bad. Story time!

When I was in 8th grade, I was a pretty weird kid. Okay, so, I'm still a pretty weird kid. Anyway...one thing that I did excel at in those wonderful years was school. I really didn't have to try very hard to make a good grade. One of the weirdest classes I had was my English class with Mrs. Householder. Her husband, of course, was the infamous Coach Householder, the high school football coach. He's about as "good ol' Southern boy" as you can get, and so it was pretty funny when Mrs. Householder told us that she was a feminist. Looking back, Mrs. Householder was really not a feminist at all, in my humble opinion. She just wanted all of the women in certain parts of the Middle East to be able to wear a t-shirt and jeans if they wanted, instead of those fully covering robes. We watched and read "Not Without My Daughter" starring the fabulous Sally Field. At the time, though, everybody, myself included, was on board with Mrs. Householder's "feminism" and wanted to liberate the masses. I felt kind of bad for being born male. Alas, we shan't dive further into this, as it is not the point of my story. Mrs. Householder was the teacher in charge of the 8th grade spelling bee. They had this really weird system in my middle school where there apparently were too many kids, so we had to be split up into Blue and Gold teams so each member of each respective team would only have classes with members of only his or her team. I was on the Blue team, which was nice, because most of my good friends were Blue. Most of the girls and popular guys, though, were on Gold, and so sometimes we felt a little inferior, being Blue and all. (Blue and Gold were our school colors by the way.) So, as the spelling bee preparation began, we had to be chosen from our English classes to participate. I, oh so naturally, was chosen by Mrs. Householder as I held high her torch of feminism. It was pretty funny actually, I memorized all the words up to "P" on the one (1) sheet of paper they had given us and easily won the Blue Team spelling bee before we reached "D." I am not even sure we got to "F" before probably the smartest kid in our grade lost on an easy word. I can't recall what the word was, but I do remember him coming back with a dictionary and claiming that Mrs. Householder had incorrectly pronounced the word and demanded to be let back in the running. Yeah, that one didn't fly. Oh well, Jacob. At least he moved past it...eventually.

So the Gold team was all popular guys and girls who spent more time on their makeup and newly found interest in the opposite sex than spelling, and it was no contest. Yeah, personal appearance, what's the big deal? Spelling is where it's at! But really, yeah, I won the school spelling bee with one other girl. We were chosen to represent Seymour Middle School in the county-wide spelling bee just a few weeks later. This time we got a real spelling list, which was kind of cool at the time. It was a real book, and it just had all these words in it. Like a really, really cool dictionary, only it wasn't in alphabetical order, more like easy words to hard words. I think I started to freak out when I saw words like "diplegia" and "bivouac" but I did my best to study, or rather, store away in my short term memory.

Finally the big night came. I was sharply dressed and brought a sharp wit to match it. I casually made my way up to the microphone for the first word. I looked around at my competitors (most of whom wore glasses) and thought, "I am so much cooler than every single one of you." Yeah, I was a jerk in 8th grade. Okay, so I still have jerkish tendencies from time to time now, but you have to admit, I've improved. Yeah, so I stepped up to the microphone and received my first word: airplane. A scoff forced its way out of my mouth as I stepped back and glanced to the ground with a smirk of over-confidence and spelled that word down like I flew airplanes for a living. A round of applause erupted from the crowd as I sauntered back to my seat. I was good, real good. My second round came. The word? Carrot. Again, a slight smile crossed my lips until he read the definition. Not a vegetable? Oh, you mean like a diamond? The little "kt" abbreviation? Oh...well...oh. C-A-R-.....ok. C-A-R-......O-T. EPIC FAIL. No, Logan, the word is spelled carat, C-A-R-A-T. In shame and humiliation I weeped openly as I sheepishly dragged myself off the stage into the audience of parents and losers. A torrent of tears flowed down my face as I approached my parents, their heads hung in disappointment and defeat.

Actually, not really. I walked off stage, kind of bummed, but whatever. I didn't really want to progress to the state spelling bee all that bad anyway. Standing in front of all those people performing, who would ever want to do that? Now if I could just figure out why I went into music...

All that to say that I, for the most part and except for stupid words like "carat," I am a pretty good speller. So, when I spell "officially" "efficially" I'm pretty down and out. The rain doesn't help. You know what does? Knowing that comps will be over by this time next week! Yay! In other news...

I believe that the Bible is the infallible, inspired Word of God. I think if you have the resources, you should study it in-depth, going back to the Hebrew and Greek and looking at (although being very discerning with) other documents from the time period. I don't think that that kind of study is necessary for the Holy Spirit to bring life to the words. I think sometimes in an effort not to "trust ourselves" we want guidance and maybe affirmation from those that have a different take on what the Bible says to make things fit just a little easier into our culture today. Trust God and trust the Bible. American (or European or African or Canadian) culture is not even close to defining an objective truth. Know what is? Yep. The Bible. It's not outdated; in fact, it stood the test of time for the past, oh, 3500 years or so. So, yeah. Just needed to get that off my chest. God is good.