In Search of the Perfect Euphemisms

If the International Commission on English in the Liturgy had written the Gettysburg Address:

Eighty seven years ago our parents set up on this continent a new nation, programmed in Liberty and based on an egalitarian model.

Now we are involved in a big interpersonal confrontation, trying to discern if our nation, or any nation structured on the same value system, can last very long. We are meeting on the scene of a significant dialogue in that process of discernment. We have come to dedicate a part of it as a memorial park for those who became deceased so that our important government agencies can continue to do their good work. We are doing a good thing.

But when you look at the bigger picture, we cannot dedicate or bless this ground. The brave human persons, living and not living, who dialogued here, have made it special, far better than we are able to do for better or worse. The media will not publicize our remarks very much, but everyone will remember what these human persons did here. It is up to us who still are alive to finish what those human persons who dialogued here started. It is for us to take up the big job still remaining – so that these human persons who have passed on will inspire us to finish what they started – and that our community will promise not to treat them as useless – in order that our government made up of human persons and run by human persons to promote authentic justice and peace for human persons will not be discontinued.

One must keep up with the times, but lordy the reformers do have a way of turning wine into warm lemonade.

Via On The Square.