Bless Her Heart

For those of you not raised in the South, let me tell you that your ears should prick up when you hear the expression “Bless her heart” for the mere utterance of it has given the speaker carte blanche to trash someone.

I’ve often observed that turn of phrase preceeding things like “…but she’s a mess” (or worse). In fact my own children were the ones who pointed out this dichotomous pairing of thoughts expressed from my own mouth.

Monday’s Washington Post had a quote by Nancy Pelosi speaking of our president: “Well, you know, God bless him, bless his heart, the president of the United States, a total failure….” The quote goes on.

And you know, I was thinking as I read it that regardless of our politics, it would be awesome if our “bless his heart” utterances really could be operative as prayer.

There’s no job I’d less rather have than president of the United States (ok, perhaps I’d less rather scrape slugs off of sidewalks, but does anyone get paid for that?).

Anyway, it’s a thankless job, and I do say, agree or disagree, current or future president, “Bless his (or her) heart!”

Really.

~ by holyvernacular on July 23, 2008.