The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a wonder to me. Here are children in the age of text-messaging pseudo-words spelling the most difficult stuff imaginable. I mess around with words for a living and more often than not I don't have a clue as to how to spell the tough words they are assigned.
This year the winning word for 13-year-old Kavya Shivashankar, from Olathe, Kansas was Laodicean, which, as you're dying to know, means indifference in matters of religion or politics.
My eyebrows went up when I heard this because Laodicea is actually a biblical place name. It is one of the seven cities of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) named in the mysterious book of Revelation, at the end of the New Testament. In chapter three we find the seventh and final letter to these churches:
14 ‘And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation:
15 ‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot.
15 ‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot.
16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
This is an indictment of indifferent faith which is complacent and self-satisfied. The passage goes on to accuse the Laodiceans of being materially wealthy and spiritually poverty-stricken. As weird and confusing as the Revelation of John can be, there are some passages that are strikingly current. Interesting that this word somehow made it into the spelling bee.
I can feel a Left Behind novel in the making!
2 comments:
I think kids with long last names must learn to spell much earlier than peers with short phonetically simple names. Just an observation.
I am struck by the number of kids in these spelling contests who of Asian extraction -- for all I know they could be third or fourth generation.
Some of them have long and convoluted names, from my Western perspective. But some of them have names such as Lee!
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