Say What?

It's a favorite pasttime (or is it passtime) of every generation: debating the actual words of a song, commercial, movie, or colloquial phrases when everyone in the conversation hears something different.

There might be a little dust on the what? The bottle? the Bible? the bottom? Don't let it fool you about what's inside.

And there's that new commercial with Rocket Man booming out the speakers. They show a handful of people tossing in their own last phrase, then the guy with the car with the awesome sound system finally figures out what the real words are. And everyone is like, "ohhhhh!"

Because when you see it, you get it. It makes sense.

Or does it?

Sometimes, we have those phrases that we've heard over and over again and we think we know what they are, how to use them, and how to spell them. I've already used one here: pasttime. But then someone inevitably posts something on FaceBook with an alternate spelling or some little twist that makes you have to stop and think because it looks almost familiar, but you haven't seen it like that.

Then, does that make more sense?

Pasttime. Something we have done for ages and thoroughly enjoyed; a historic or nostalgic concept/activity. Or as one of my friends put it several months ago...is it passtime? Something we do to pass the time; leisure; enjoyment; pleasure.

Either makes good sense, and to be honest, I kind of like passtime, too. Though if you'd asked me before I read that friend's status, I would have insisted it was pasttime. Obstinately.

Another one, and this is what kind of sparked this, I quipped on Twitter a week or so ago. I had always considered things to be deep-seated, but another status chose the alternate spelling: deep-seeded.

And I definitely like that.

I've had some things in my life - many I haven't been proud of, a few that I have - that I've considered deep-seated. And that, they were. They sat heavy on my heart like a lead weight. Just sitting there; seated deep. Burdening. Hindering. Oppressive. I wouldn't have thought anything so deep-rooted could be anything else.

But there are great, beautiful, wonderful things that God sets deeply inside of us. It can be easy to let these things be deep-seated, a burden of the life we should be living. Things we should be doing. Waking up in the morning, rolling our eyes, and saying, "Yeah, I know, God. It's still in there. I gotta live it."

What if we thought of these things we'd like to foster, these wonderful gifts, these deepest truths that rest in our hearts not as deep-seated, but as deep-seeded? What if we embraced them as planted within us, primed for growth, ready to sprout? What if we took what is deepest within us and saw it not as a burden, but as a chance for new life?

What a world of difference spelling makes!

I'm fairly certain I will use deep-seeded again, particularly when I encounter someone trapped in the deep-seated. I think it is a powerful tool for introducing someone to the power of Christ and His deep-seeded love.

So the next time you see - or hear - something that seems sort of familiar, but you can't quite make it out, open your eyes and ears a little further. There may be a hidden beauty in a different way of looking at it, reading it, writing it, living it.

Say what?