This post is dedicated to my friend Kelly, who gave an age-old truth new life by (beautifully), (intelligently), and (thoughtfully) finding the right words.
We sat on a slab of wood along the bank of the Erie Canal, eating frozen custard and swatting at the mosquitos that peppered the August air. Though two years had passed since we had last seen each other, Kelly is one of those rare friends with whom I share a common language not marred by time or distance, so it was no surprise that we were now engrossed in a conversation somewhere under the broad category of “the meaning of life.”
In our conversation, Kelly discovered a simple yet profound phrase that made life seem to retreat from the distortion of fun-house mirrors into the light of clear day.
“I want to live adverbially,” she said.
~~~~
adverb n.
“An adverb is a part of speech that normally serves to modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, clauses, and sentences. Adverbs answer such questions as how?, when?, where?, in what way?, or how often?”
Adverbs (seemingly) exist as second-class citizens in the hierarchy of the English lexicon. In English classes, we are told that adverbs are the least necessary part of speech, that you can (easily) delete them without changing the meaning of the sentence. In fact, using (too) many adverbs is a stylistic weakness. Instead of (lazily) inserting an adverb to describe the word “went,” you should (violently) discard the adverb like a smelly banana peel, and instead, (confidently) choose a precise little verb like “scooted” or “slunk.” It is my theory that if the parts of speech were on Survivor, the adverb would be voted out at the first tribal council, being (wrongly) typecast as the bikini clad model who is nice to look at, but (unfortunately) is (basically) useless.
Noun n.
“The part of speech that names a person, place, thing, or idea. The following words are nouns: child , town , granite , kindness , government , elephant , and Taiwan . In sentences, nouns generally function as subjects or as objects.”
It is nouns who sit (pompously) on their concrete or abstract thrones of security, knowing that they are under no threat of being (inhumanely) struck through by an editor’s inky sword. They have no fear of being ignored or discarded, because sentences (simply) can’t exist without them. They are the subjects and the objects, the alphas and omegas of the kingdom of words, the undeniable focus of our sentences.
~~~~
The hierarchy of the parts of speech is amoral when describing grammar, but nouns do not only boast kingship in the realm of abstract language, but in the concrete living of our lives. Just as they do in our sentences, the nouns of our lives tend to function as the subjects or objects of our focus. We are told by our culture that nouns define us. Nouns like success, money, achievement, and security become our reasons for existence.
We seek after these nouns, continually unhappy because we mistake them as the end goal. A sentence cannot be formed without a noun, and likewise, we believe that life is not worthwhile without the needed nouns. We push the adverbs of our lives to the wayside, those words that describe how we live, and in doing so, the verbs with which we strive for the nouns are tinted with exhaustion and hopelessness. We work (anxiously), we save money (fearfully), we achieve (greedily). The nouns lose their luster when negative adverbs define a life; the thrill of an achievement or a paycheck is dull and quick in comparison to the lengthy angst that pacing our lives with negative adverbs creates.
When Kelly said, “I want to live adverbially,” she proposed a complete paradigm shift in the way we view our lives. That we focus less on our physical circumstances, and more on our reactions to them. That we focus less on the end result of our work, and more on fulfilling the process gracefully. We don’t always have control over our nouns, but we do have control over our adverbs. I am always amazed when I hear stories of those much less fortunate than me who live their lives with immense joy. Whether pained by sickness or poverty, these special people live out the adverbial life, and their joy is untouchable.
I, on the other, hand, often find that true joy eludes me because I do not fight against the default adverbs that I have allowed to direct my thoughts and actions. The adverbs “fearfully,” and “anxiously” have constantly modified my verbs and tainted my nouns, and it is my hope that as I grow, I can learn to own the adverbs, “confidently,” and “trustingly.”
Living adverbially is not a new idea; Paul describes the peace of living adverbially through the strength of God in Philippians 4:12-13: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
No, living adverbially is not a new idea, but the power of being content whatever the circumstances has become so mired in clichés that its beauty couldn’t strike me until Kelly found the words that would resonate in a word nerd’s heart. I cannot control the nouns in my life, but with my eyes on the Loving One who is in control, I can live my life trustingly, hopefully, joyfully.
