Sorry, school’s ramping up, so I think this blog might lie fallow for a while…

I want to write on the unity of the church, but that’s going to take at least an hour and a half to write, and I don’t have that kind of time…so I just post an old story.  Bear with me.

Anyway, sometime ago, Pastor John Shim invited me and Mike Gardiner over to play Settlers of Catan.  This was before I was Nate’s piano teacher, so this was one of the first times I had ever gone over to the Shim’s place.  Also, this was the second time I had ever played Settlers of Catan, so I was still kinda fuzzy on the rules.

(By the way, Will taught me the following acronyms to differentiate between Pastor John Shim of Evangel and Pastor John Kim of Lighthouse: PJEB and PJLH.  This is how I will refer to them from now on in this blog.)

So we’re playing Settlers and everything’s going great.  I think it was me, Mike, PJEB and Nancy playing on the dinner table, with their kids, Abby, Nate, and Anna seated around watching.

My strategy that game centered around getting the green metropolis.  I think the green metropolis is already kind of overpowered in that game as it is, but during my first game, Dennis Ju had gotten the green metropolis, then misinterpreted the rules so that it became completely gamebreaking.  (I think that’s a pretty safe explanation for non-Settlers players.  If you don’t understand, 1) you should learn to play Settlers, and 2) Dennis completely abused the rules that first game.  If you ever read this, Dennis, you cheated.  Also, I miss playing Chinese chess with you.)

After some time, I finally got the privilege that I was waiting for the entire game: the ability to pick any card I want after certain dice rolls.  And the first time I was able to exercise my privilege, I naturally went for a commodity card, one of the more powerful cards in the game.  That’s when Nancy stopped me, saying, “Oh, Tim, I think the rules say you can only get a basic resource card with that.”

This is where you need to empathize with me.  Of course, I was kind of bummed out that I couldn’t pick what I wanted…but more than that, I was just kind of annoyed that Dennis had run away with my first game as badly as he did.  So I said the first thing that came to my mind: “Aw, Dennis SCREWED me!”

Gasps of shock.  I look around the table, and Abby, Anna, and yes, Nate all have hands over their mouths.  The air is still.

I’m still kind of confused, but finally, Nate breaks the silence, saying, “We don’t say the word ‘screwed’ here.”  Abby and Anna are nodding at me.

Immediately, I am filled with embarrassment.  I mean, this is one of the first times I’ve ever been to my pastor’s house, and what do I do?  I set a terrible example for their children.  So (of course) I say the first thing that comes to my mind: “Aw CRAP!”

Gasps of shock.  Fortunately, I keep the words that I want to say inside my head this time.

…

After I became Nate’s piano teacher, I slowly started learning the words to avoid in the Shim residence.  I stopped using the word “sucks”.  I avoided “shoot” and “freaking”.  And I definitely avoided “screwed” and “crap”.

But I don’t think anything really changed.  When I say that I removed the word “sucks” from my vocabulary, that just meant that I replaced it with “stinks”.  And I replaced the other ones with things like “fiddlesticks” or “monkeys”.  (By the way, I have a terrible story about the latter one…I won’t repeat it here, but I’ll just say: you’d think that “monkeys” is safe to use in public, but it’s not.)

I think I’ve realized this more as I’ve started to play pickup basketball more.  When I play basketball, it’s not the “safe” swear words that come out.  And it’s in these moments that I realize that I’ve modified my behavior rather than the heart that is behind the cursing.

It’s a hard pill for me to swallow, because I like to feel that I’ve got the sin of anger under control.  It’s simultaneously humbling, and yes, annoying to have to admit that I still need to work on yet another area in my life.

But as I want to keep playing pickup with people on Mondays and Wednesdays…and as I start to get to know the people there…and as I want to be a good witness…well…I’m going to need to face this.

-Tim

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