Surely I am not unreasonable!

 

 

 

 

Today in my reading of the Proverbs I was feeling really uncomfortable with the subjects in chapter 6. Especially around verse 9 where it discusses the sluggard and in verse 11 when it says your poverty will come on you like a prowler. So I hurried past that topic and got to the next and I realized that I had never looked up the definition of the word perversity.

 

I have read these Proverbs many times. My habit is to read the chapter that coincides with the date (roughly every other month I get the joy of seeing just how far I fall short of Solomon's/God's idea of the perfect woman.) The point is, after years of reading these verses, I said to myself "exactly what does perversity mean?" So, I got the oldest dictionary that I own - Webster's copyright 1940. It said that perversity was the quality of being perverse.

 

per verse   to pervert, corrupt, overthrow    Turned aside from the right; turned to evil; obstinate in the wrong; froward ; stubborn ; intractable ; cross ; petulant ; untoward

 

Well then! I can not speak for everyone, but most of these words are not in my every day vocabulary. Stubborn usually shows up every few days, the word cross was a staple in my elementary school reader, I have said the word obstinate a dozen or so times in my life, petulant has come out when dealing with some children over the years, but I usually have to read the others. 

 

I needed to have a modern day understanding so I used GOOGLE. 

 

pərˈvərsitē/

noun

noun: perversity; plural noun: perversities

1. 1.

   a deliberate desire to behave in an unreasonable or unacceptable way; contrariness.

   "they responded with typical perversity"

   synonyms:

   contrariness, awkwardness, recalcitrance, stubbornness, obstinacy, obduracy, mulishness, pigheadedness; More formalrefractoriness "out of sheer perversity, he refused" unreasonableness, irrationality, illogicality, wrong-headedness "the perversity of the decision"

2. 2.

   the quality of being contrary to accepted standards or practice.

   "the perversity of being able to carry a gun but not purchase a drink"

Ok. I now can continue on with my day. Oh no! I must find out about panhandler.

These sorts of detours are the reason that some days I feel as though I have accomplished very little and why the first verses of chapter six scare me a bit. Until later ~Rita Darlene