L-A-O-D-I-C-E-A-N
So the news from yesterday is that
thirteen-year-old Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas is the
reigning 2009 National Spelling Bee champion. The young girl won
after correctly the word "Laodicean" which means a person who is
lukewarm or indifferent, especially in matters pertaining to
religion. The word comes from the ancient city of Laodicea which
was rebuked in the book of Revelation for being indifferent
regarding their so-called faith (Rev 3:14-22).
The fact that this word exists is somewhat funny and cringe-worthy
both for the same reasons. This city is remembered in history only
for being lukewarm in matters of religion so much that their name
became synonymous with this. If you tried to come up with a similar
word today for some people group you'd have protesters hitting the
streets with picket signs crying racism. But history comes up with
these kinds of words which is funny. I just hope that 500 years
from now the words "asian", "asian-american", "grad-student" or
"texan" don't mean something bad because of something I did.
