My Mini Rant

I am going to indulge for a few minutes in a mini rant. Please forgive me in advance!

I love to read. Because my bookshelves are laden, I have been trying to utilize the library more often especially for things that are “popular”. This means that I have to add my name to the wait list a lot.

Yesterday, I picked up 2 books for which I had been waiting—one since before Christmas. One was Water for Elephants because there is a movie coming out based on this and because, even though I'm usually disappointed in movies based on books (save one—the best of all time, in my humble opinion), I still like to read the books before the movie comes out. I also got Unbroken and I can not wait to get into it.

Since I was less excited about Water for Elephants, I decided to start with that. The book is about a traveling circus and is set in the depression era. I began reading and began to notice that some words were marked through blacked out. And, y'all, when something is blacked out, I have to know what it is.

I finally figured out that it was a curse word (one of the big ones that begins with G and uses God's name). I flipped through the book and, sure enough, all of them were blacked out.

Do I agree with this particular word? Absolutely, certainly not.

However.

There were other “biggie bad” words that were left unmarked. And, some of these are just as offensive to me personally as the one that was blacked out.

I am not a proponent of liberal uses of curse words in general; however, given the setting of this book and the characters that the author is building, I would think that these would be the types of words they would use. They are rough characters.

I do object to someone taking it upon themselves to censor a library book. One that they did not purchase. If you have a problem with the content of a book, take it back. Don't read it. The solution is very simple.

I wonder if this black pen wielding person thinks that vandalism trumps cursing? One has to be very careful when going down that slippery slope of moral police (whatever “side” one is on).

Like I said, I'm not a proponent of lots of salty language—nor I am a proponent of many of the ideas that are presented in some books. In all honesty, there are many “Christian” (and some extremely popular) that I would never recommend because they are contrary to Scripture. And, that in so many ways, is more of an offense to me than curse words (even the biggie bad ones).

I am saying that, contrary to the belief of many, the idea that morality will somehow solve all the world's ills is ludicrous. Many times much of our thoughts on morality are simply not Scriptural and we, as sinful human beings, tend to be very Pharisaical with our morality and approaches to others regarding it.

I don't know whether the author of this book is a Christian and, if not, I don't expect her to write with any thought to the Ten Commandments. Expecting a non-Christian to act as a Christian is tantamount to expecting a tiger to act like a giraffe.

I guess, in short, I'm much more comfortable letting God work in an individual's heart and change it as He sees fit. I'm just not at all comfortable with my ability to be the world's conscious. Nor am I comfortable with censorship. I am confident in my ability to “police” myself. I can choose not to read book, turn the television off, or remove myself from a situation. I am also a firm believer that, in order for society to freely function, everyone must have the right to freely say and write. Some offensive, even really bad things need to be remembered and read from time to time hopefully to insure that those things are not repeated.

So, to the black pen wielder, put away the pen especially on books that are not yours!

Rant now concluded.