This is a follow up to my recent post on “Tips for Working With Teams: Angry Words.”
You might want to read that first, but this will stand on its own.This week there was a little mild controversy in the sports world where famous football coach and outspoken follower of Christ Tony Dungy took a strong stand and spoke out against the amount of profanity used by Jets coach Rex Ryan. I’m not going to get into the morality of swearing here, but I’ll take it a different direction in light of my last post.
A major clue that you have a lot of anger is the amount of swearing you do. That’s not scientific. I’m just stating that as my own opinion. Instead of worrying about whether it is ok to swear or not, maybe it’s worth it for people to think about what fuels swearing.
Most swear words are angry words. Go through them in your head (quietly if you’re in a public place 
. It’s true. Just about every word and about every usage applied has a context of anger. Same goes for our “spiritualized” or watered down versions of swear words that we use to express the same sentiment, but in a way in which we can feel less guilty and in which we don’t have people questioning our integrity (or Spirit-filled-ness for Evangelicals and Charismatics).
People who swear a lot have a fair amount of anger flowing. And there’s a lot of people who swear a lot which leads me to think there’s a lot of anger flowing in our society – most of which is building slowly within.To me the question that needs asking is not whether some swearing is ok or not or if it’s a “sin.” It’s a question of paying attention to what’s going on inside. Is it helpful to keep offloading our own anger and anxiety onto others through angry words? Or would it be better for our communities and our blood pressures if we dealt with the roots of our anger – our anger that finds a way out one way or another often without us realizing it!
I don’t have a huge problem when people swear around me – I don’t necessarily like it, but I’m used to it and sometimes there’s moments where I hear something and I think – “You know, that’s really the best way to capture this situation.” There’s one exception for me. I find it hard not to appreciate or derive some measure of joy when I hear the word “jacka$$” creatively used. That’s just me. I don’t know what it is, but it might be one of my favorite words in all the English language. And if I’m honest it’s because I’ve got anger – some righteous, some not – that fuels my attraction to that word. That’s how it works. And I need to be mindful of that even though for the most part it’s a benign guilty pleasure.
However, if people were to look at the organic nature of swearing as an outward expression of their inner life, there would be less judgment dished out by spiritual Pharisees and more repentance for various hostilities and grudges as well as healing for various scars and wounds.
In all this I’m not making conclusions that some situations might not ever merit a swear word or not. I’m just raising the observation and question.
Have you ever thought of swear words as “angry words” and as functioning as an outlet for anger? Do you think this is an accurate observation? How do you approach the issue of swearing and is it a sign of things that need attending to?
