Chris Pratt is as cute as a button, and I thought about as deep. He was in Parks and Rec, lead roles in every cheesy commercially killer movie you can think of from Guardians of the Galaxy to Jurassic World. He married a similarly “perfect” starlet, Anna Faris who spoke openly of her devout feminism and total coolness of her implants.
But I found out last night Chris Pratt is a human.
On Saturday he was awarded the “Generation Award” (what?) on this year’s MTV Awards amid hundreds of screaming teens in the audience. He could have done the hip glib troll of Trump. He could have gotten “real” and teary and thanked his living loves or solemnly gone on about a newly divorced life.
But instead, Chris Pratt used the gift of profanity to tell a truth far deeper than even the near death of his son, the actual depth of his lost marriage or hiding the smell of a bad dump at a party. In accepting this absurd award, lauding his extreme 2D appeal, Pratt launched into a “9 Rule” litany of what is to be human and loved by God:
- Breathe. If you don’t, you’ll suffocate.
- You have a soul. Be careful with it.
- Don’t be a turd. In this real world, it is illegal to slap people. Don’t take advantage of that fact. If you’re strong, be a protector, and if you’re smart, be a humble influencer. Strength and intelligence can be weapons, and do not wield them against the weak. That makes you a bully. Be bigger than that!
- When giving a dog medicine, put the medicine in a little piece of hamburger. They won’t even know they’re eating medicine.
- Doesn’t matter what it is, earn it. It feels good. Five bucks earned is better than 10 bucks given to you every time. If you feel like crap, look at your life: What do you have that you didn’t earn? Do something to earn it. A good deed, reach out to someone in pain, be of service; it feels good and it’s good for your soul.
- God is real, God loves you, God wants the best for you. Believe that. I do.
- If you have to poop at a party, but you’re embarrassed, because you’re going to stink up the bathroom, just do what I do: Lock the door, sit down, get all the pee out first, okay? And then, once all the pee’s done, poop, flush, boom. You minimize the amount of time that the poop is touching the air, because if you poop first, it take you longer to pee, then you’re peeing on top and it’s stirring it up, the poop particles create a cloud, goes out, and then everyone in the party will know that you pooped. Just trust me, it’s science.
- Learn to pray. It’s easy, and it’s so good for your soul. You just close your eyes, you list off people for which you are grateful, ask for protection for the people you love. You don’t ask God to help you win the big game or anything, just ask him for the strength to accept the outcome, no matter what. Pray. Don’t be embarrassed by it. You let people see you do it, it’s good for their soul, too.
- Nobody is perfect. Nobody. None of us, not you. People are going to tell you you’re perfect just the way you are — you’re not! You are imperfect. You always will be. But, there is a powerful force that designed you that way. And it loves you, it accepts you for exactly who you are. It forgives you for your flaws no matter what they are. And if you’re willing to accept that, you will have grace. And grace is a gift. And like the freedom that we enjoy in this country, that grace was paid for with somebody else’s blood — do not forget it. Don’t take it for granted. It’s a gift for which none of us are worthy, so do your best to earn it. Just be kind, don’t be a bully, be of service, do not be a turd. God bless you, please get home safely.
Nobody is perfect, least of all Pratt, me, you: even his beloved surviving extreme premie birthed son will be human in his error and flaw.
But a dissolute upbringing involving homelessness, smoking weed in Hawaii, and making millions doing movies that play best when you are high or in mid insomnia are clear evidence to him that he was made by something that loves him, and those fully failed parts are what can reveal the love of that creation.
I am fully profane. My casual language has gotten me into several very awkward, even damaging, moments in the past year. Like Pratt and Paul of Tarsus I often do the very thing I do not want to do, and cannot seem to do the very thing I want to do. We are human. Some of us are simply, fully, profane.
Like Pratt, I can extricate myself from smelly poops, get the small things like administering pet vitamins done. But, like Pratt, I forget to breathe. And I need to be reminded to pray.
I need to know that in the failures – like Chris Pratt’s marriage, my words, Jesus waving off the Canaanite woman seeking his healing love – my humanity does not preclude, but in fact facilitates Grace. All of life’s shortfalls can seem more like the table scraps of God’s banquet, and it is pretty easy to only see the flaws of our lives rather then the miracle that created them.
The only way I can know that I am loved is to know that I am forgiven, that I am not the ass that I could easily conclude that I am. I fail every day. I act like a turd. I hardly pray at all, because, well, who cares what I think?
But perhaps the profane know their humanity better than the pious. Because we err and hurt on a regular basis, we are intimately acquainted with just how unworthy we are of the gift that’s been given us, the one that Chris Pratt tells us was paid for by someone else’s blood, the profane made sacred. Would that I never forget it.
Poop, flush, boom.
COMMENTS
6 responses to “The Gift of Profanity ”
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Thanks Duo. I needed this today. We must be related.
Amazing; Grace.
Bravo Duo. You have echoed much of what occurred to me when I saw this little clip a week or two ago. I spoke with you briefly at MBird NYC in April after your presentation. Keep up the good work!
Charles Gaston
THANKYOU!