If Everything Is Awesome, Nothing Is

A few years ago, Linda and I attended a Sight & Sound production, a local but nationally known theater that presents biblical dramas. Before the show started, I was standing in line waiting to pay for my Twizzlers. The fellow in front of me was paying for three or four different snacks when the nice young lady behind the counter asked him, “Would you like a bag for that?”

The customer excitedly answered, “That would be AWESOME!”

Something welled up within me that was dying to say, “Awesome? Are you kidding me? It’s really not!” I restrained myself. In the meantime, I thought of many adjectives that could appropriately have been applied to the scenario. “Awesome” was not one of them. As for the bag itself, I thought of “convenient,” “utilitarian,” even “downright handy.” As for the offer of a bag, I thought of “courteous,” but more likely, presuming the young lady’s training for her job, I suspected “obligatory” was the best fit. Nothing about the offer to place a few snacks in a bag awakened a sense of awe in me. Allow me to make my case:

1852 - Francis Wolle patents in the United States, and later in France and England, a machine that he devised for making paper bags.

1870 - Margaret Knight invents a device to cut, fold and paste paper bag bottoms, essentially, making her the “mother of the modern grocery bag.”

1883 - Charles Stilwell is awarded a patent for making a square-bottom paper bag with pleated sides that folds flat.

1912 – Walter Duebner invents a reinforced paper sack with a corded handle, the prototype of the shopping bag.

Early 1960’s - Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin invents the first lightweight plastic shopping bag.

There is much more information that could be shared on this matter of bags, but I am guessing that most readers found even these pivotal historical landmarks in the history of “bag-ology” to be mundane … at best.

Now, I realize that for as long as there have been youngsters and curmudgeons, the latter have always chaffed a bit at the language of the former. Even I recognize that there may be a certain “You kids get off my lawn” flavor to this particular rant. That said, “awesome” once referred to that which gave rise to a sense of wonder, amazement, fear, terror and/or trepidation.

It is probably a lost cause. I suspect that the specific word “awesome” has been diluted beyond recovery to the point that it may one day join the likes of cool, groovy, gnarly, rad, dope and badd (with two d’s, which apparently was a synonym for good) upon history’s ash heap of discarded slang.

Still, in defense of cranky geezers everywhere, allow me to pose one observation and one question:

The Observation: If “awesome” can be applied to everything, including snack items in a bag, then, eventually it cannot mean anything.

The Question: What words do you reserve for those times when, as a believer you reflect upon God … 

    … to praise Him for His creative might?
    … to contemplate His redemptive works in the past?
    … to bask in the reality of His unfathomable and yet, tender mercies?
    … to consider His unnerving holiness?
    … to rest in His unmerited grace?

If “awesome” is indeed lost to the ages as a meaningful descriptor, then, at least try to reserve some good adjectives for your Creator, Redeemer and King.

1The LORD reigns, let the nations tremble;
he sits enthroned between the cherubim,
let the earth shake.
2Great is the LORD in Zion;
he is exalted over all the nations.
3Let them praise your great and AWESOME name –
he is holy.   – Psalm 99:1-3