Rector's Reflection—8 Pentecost, Proper 11
July 18, 2010

I love the eccentricities of our language. Actually, I love any language's eccentricities, but American English is the one I know best. One of my favorite "I Love Lucy" episodes is when Ricky was reading a story to Little Ricky. The story contained the word 'thought' which Lucy told him was pronounced 'thawt' not 'tho-git.' Then he came to the 'rough' whereupon Lucy corrected his pronunciation from 'rawt' to 'ruff.' Soon after came 'through' which, of course, came out 'thruff.' No, said Lucy, that's 'threw.' Not long after, a frustrated Ricky decided he'd had 'enew' and stormed out muttering something in Spanish.

Other eccentricities are figures of speech which, of course, all languages have. A literal read of 'go on line' makes no sense... particularly if there's no 'line' around. 'Call me.' "Call you what?" We know what they mean, but to a non-English speaker—not so much.

And then there are words that are made up but sound reasonable. My high school English teacher Mr. Cowie (I know I must have mentioned him before) refused to allow 'snuck' to be used as the past tense of 'sneak.' "Barbarians speak that way," he opined. He also was very careful to note that the past tense of 'get' was 'got,' and 'gotta' was not an acceptable substitute for speaking about an obligation.

This mini language lesson comes to you courtesy of a conversation I had earlier this week with my daughter whom I told, "I gotta go to Dr. Bond on Wednesday." (Hah—Mr. Cowie!) She said she had heard a speaker at church the previous Sunday who addressed 'gotta' and observed that that word is often the wrong way to look at things... and that made me think.

Thanks to excellent care from Dr. Bond and a plethora of other health care folks, as well as an array of pharmaceuticals, I GET to go to Dr. Bond.

In November, I gotta vote. No... in November, I GET to vote because, almost four hundred years ago, people undertook a dangerous journey to an unsettled and often inhospitable land to become pioneers and settlers of a new world. I GET to vote because over two hundred years ago, a group of men undertook a bold new expression of government based on the premises that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [and] That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" and they sealed this declaration "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence" and to this declaration they pledged to each other "their lives, fortunes and sacred honor."

Do you ever wake up on Sunday morning, look at the clock, and say, "I gotta go to church"? Well, thanks in large part to the folks mentioned above, you GET to go to church on Sunday and, conversely, you GET to choose not to go to church without fear of reprisal.

I gotta go to the grocery store. NO, I GET to go and I get to pick items from well-stocked shelves and coolers.

I gotta visit my family. No, I GET to visit my family because I can travel freely and efficiently and, all things considered, pretty inexpensively.

It occurs to me that every day presents us with GOTTA's and GET's. If your day is an endless string of gotta's, you'll probably be really exhausted—and even frazzled—at the end of the day. But if you reframe gotta's as GET's, it puts a refreshing spin on things... at least it does for me. And at the end of the day, I GET to thank God for it all.

Susan+