"Darn darn floor"

I was reminded last night that I hadn't yet explained the origin of this blog's name as I promised in my first post.

The name "Darn Floor" was inspired by the 1987 Daniel Amos album "Darn Floor - Big Bite," which was, in turn, inspired by Koko the Gorilla. Koko was taught to communicate using American Sign Language. After experiencing an earthquake, Koko described what happened by signing "Darn darn floor bad bite. Trouble trouble." Given her limited base of knowledge and the limits of her form of communication, what else could she say? "Darn floor" is as good a description of an earthquake as any.

On their "Darn Floor - Big Bite" album, Daniel Amos uses this incident as a symbol of our clumsy attempts to explain God. Given the limits of our comparatively pea-sized brains, and acknowledging the limits of our admittedly complex language, our attempts to describe the ineffable are certainly going to fall short. We resort to metaphor. God is father, friend, lover, companion. God is just. God is forgiving. God is higher than the highest heavens. God is closer than a brother. God is a consuming fire.

Illuminate my muddled heart
Sweep the shadows from my mind
So I might imagine what you are like
And understand the great design

Darn floor - big bite
You are twilight, dark and bright
Darn floor - big bite
You are beautiful, a terrible terrible sight!

For me, the process of writing is quite like that. How can I put into words things that often cannot be described, particularly if I attempt to write of the things of God? When I started "Darn Floor," it was intended to be a place where I could use my limited language skills to talk about things that are too high for me; to lofty for me to attain.

I'll pray that writing it down is part of loving you

I really didn't intend to write about politics. However, I happened to start this blog near the end of a rancorous presidential campaign, and it was the foremost thing on my mind. As we move past the earthquake of this election season (I think there are still plenty of aftershocks to come) I intend to write about other things, but I imagine I will always save room to write about politics, because the subject interests me. Even so, I expect that what I have to say on any subject will be impeded by the limits of my comparatively pea-sized brain.

Sometimes when an earthquake hits, about all you can say about it is "Darn darn floor." But even though "Darn floor" is a not-quite-perfect description of an earthquake, it still rings true. I hope that no matter what I'm writing about, I can impart the ring of truth.

Thanks for visiting Darn Floor, and I hope you stick around. (And if you like this blog, pass it on!)

(This website has a link where you can hear the title cut from "Darn Floor - Big Bite." Enjoy.)