It’s not easy being green
I love language. I love words and punctuation and tone. I
love the rhythm of words and the cadence of a paragraph. An
interesting trend in our language is our assignment of new
meaning to old words. Our habit of redefining words is
intriguing.
My brothers grew up watching Sesame Street. The series
that premiered in the fall of 1969 continued its influence on my
own children in the early 80’s. One of our favorites has always
been Kermit the Frog. His angsty, lyrical ballad, “It’s not easy
being green,” was included on the first Sesame Street album
that entertained our family when my brothers were little and I
can still sing the lyrics today.
“It’s not that easy being green. Having to spend each day the
color of the leaves….it seems you blend in with so many other
ordinary things…”
Kermit’s song was about being green. The color. Really,
green. He was bemoaning the “blandness” of his skin (is it
skin, on a frog?) and wishing that his was a flashy color,
special. Like red or gold.
I looked up “green” in the dictionary. Webster lists nine
definitions for the adjective that are consistent with Kermit’s
use of the word. These definitions primarily allude to color or
shade. Its tenth definition, added sometime in the last decade,
reads: “relating to or being an environmentalist political
movement; concerned with or supporting environmentalism;
tending to preserve environmentalist quality.” 1 There is a
“Green Party” whose charter lists these six guiding principles:
ecological wisdom, social justice, participatory democracy,
nonviolence, sustainability and respect for diversity. 2
When did “green” stop being just a color? When did it
become the representation of environmentalist policy? Kermit
would be glad to know that now it is popular and desirable to
be green. It means you recycle. That you look for products
that are “environmentally friendly.” It means that you favor
“green space” over industrial buildings. It means that now you
sort your trash. It takes a lot of work to be green. Kermit was
right in the end; it really isn’t easy being green.
Lots of words that meant one thing when I was in elementary
school have new meanings today.
Fly. It’s no longer just a verb. Now it’s a compliment. It
means “great.”
Beef. The infamous commercial for the Wendy’s Burger
chain that begged the question “Where’s the beef?” would have
new meaning today. Instead of literally meaning “where is the
meat in your burger” it might mean “what’s your problem”?
Crack. It used to be part of a skipping rhyme. You know,
“don’t step on the crack or you’ll break your mother’s back.”
If only the current meaning of the word were that innocent...
Grill. Not just your average outdoor cooking equipment.
Now, to sport a new grill is to have a new set of teeth.
So we’re forced to adapt to the new use of these and a myriad
of other words – or we just don’t use them at all. Which seems
to work. Almost-limitless elasticity is a unique beauty – and
curse – of the English language. I’m not sure I’ve deployed
any of the above in the more than 10,000 words that I’ve
written so far in this manuscript.
“Ezer,” “Helper” is not one of those words. We are not in a
position to redefine the Word of God . We cannot avoid or
replace the language that He has used.
Becoming Eve means recovering our understanding of being
an ezer from God’s heart and mind, not our own.
1
2
www.m-w.com
Wikipedia.org/greenparty