I am Vizzini

In The Princess Bride, Vezzini repeatedly employs the inappropriate word inconceivable. Finally, Inigo Montoya calls him on it saying, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." As a 10-14 year old, I followed my father's advice and read the Britannica Dictionary. That exercise taught me the value of words and to use a dictionary to clarify meaning. Last week I came across the word sanguine and the context made no sense until I looked it up and found that it had nothing to do with bloody nor with death.

Individual words and phrases convey unintended meanings without proper understanding. Learning allows us to see oft-repeated phrases in a new light, as though it were a first encounter. Consider Exodus 20:8. "Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy." I have long felt it's meaning was so clear and obvious that I refer to it as a Primary or Sunday School 101 answer.

I won't even bother writing the lists of the things that you should do and the things you shouldn't do on the Sabbath. Depending on your religious faith you may be talking about activities that you must do as well as diversions that you must avoid on the Sabbath, which could be Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Before you mentally finalize your own list let me have you reflect on the rest of the Sabbath-day verses in Exodus.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

I have spent my whole life creating the list of things that I should or shouldn't do on the Sabbath to better live that commandment. But that interpretation is almost like the erroneous myth that we only use 10 percent of our brain. By focussing on my conduct on the Sabbath. I am only considering 1/7th of the instruction. I could be up in the night, and I am writing this at 4:25 a.m., but is it possible to keep the Sabbath day holy, even if I follow my list to the T, if during the six other days I have not labored?

Today I do not answer the question, rather I leave it for our collective consideration with an assurance that over the next several weeks and months I will be using a dictionary as I ponder the meanings of:
Remember
Sabbath
Day
Holy
Work
Labor
Rest

I am sure these words do not mean what I think they mean.

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