(cotiunued)

My apprehension of another faith lesson was immediate.  It has shaped how I use language to this day.

I attended a local kids’ art-and-crafts camp for a couple of weeks the summer I was eight or nine.  On the last day of camp, there was a little show of our work.  As Dad and I strolled through the simple display, he was silent, as he often was.  Trying to fill the silence, I was chattering, as I often was.  “Isn’t that adorable?” I asked about something or another.

Dad stopped stock-still.  He looked deep into my eyes.  My chatter died away.  Then he spoke. “Nothing is adorable except God.  Only God is to be adored.”  

After all these many years, I can still feel my face burning with shame.  This was no patient lesson about Noah and the flood.  Nor was it a gentle lesson about worship or a secret lesson that he didn’t even know he was giving about how to pray.  This was serious as could be.  This was a flat-out correction of something very wrong.  I only had to be told once.

In fact, except in prayer, I have never since uttered the word “adorable” or any of its variations.  I cringe when I hear them used casually in conversation, when “cute” or “pretty” or “special” are what’s needed.  I have never even written them until now.