I should note I am not necessarily in favor of the FCC’s decision. It is relatively irrelevant. Rather, my point above was that language can be a sacred thing, and arguing for the normalization of a word – by all accounts still a vulgar word, regardless of it’s semantic use (and I am speaking here of “fuck,” not “shit”) – seems to me nothing more than an argument for the wanton desecration of language. You are not necessarily making this argument, but we need to avoid making it. That line, too, can get a little blurry.

The nytimes writer, for instance, does himself no favor in citing the Cheney incident, since Cheney’s use of that word very explicitly incites the “coarse sexual image,” as does the term “motherfucker.” The fact that it does not immediately occur to us as such when we hear it perhaps suggests our own dimwittedness and/or desensitization, rather than any intrinsic semantic shift.

I’m reminded of the scene in “A Christmas Story” when Ralphie utters the F-word and what horrors follow because of it. Yet he heard the word, from his own father at that! There’s surely a double standard there. It echoes what the NYT writer alludes to: a federal government whose highest officials use such words in public acts of rage in places and during hours that we are paying for, and yet this same government is going to decide for people whether “their children” (read a certain segment of society that gets way too bent out of shape over bad words on TV) could be allowed to hear those words.

Meanwhile, parents can turn off TVs; viewers can choose their own morality, and not have it dictated by government, and make their own impact by not watching “NYPD Blue” or whatever else… After the first couple of years, that show’s ratings tanked; they kept “pushing the envelope” but the actual content lacked, and the marketplace (read everyday TV viewers) saw fit to get rid of it. Let people decide, for heaven’s sake, what they feel comfortable watching.

The curse word, as a sound, is simply that, and despite what some ancient western clergy thought, there are no sounds inherently sinful or satanic. The world of sound is simply one part of this material world, all of which was created by God, the Holy Mighty and Holy Immortal, and all of which is capable of being offered back unto God by humans as a royal priesthood.

I always thought Danielson, though perhaps a bit naïve, was on the right track when he encouraged his listeners to “shake hands with that middle finger.” In other words, our bodies, words and thoughts are to be transformed from the “worldly,” profane uses we have devised for them in our iniquity, and offer them as sacrament to the living God who is all and in all.

I am inclined to agree with Wendell Berry when he said, “There are no unsacred places; There are only sacred places. And desecrated places.” The same could be said for words.