Adverbs are Spiritual Quicksand

God repents us

“The Word of God is not rightly divided between Law and Gospel when there is a disposition to offer the comfort of the Gospel only to those who have been made contrite by the Law.”

Any reader already knows the truth of it.

Adverbs are the tell of every found-out liar. I whole-heartedly apologize for any offense I might have caused…

Adverbs are the trademark of every dime-per-word pulp fiction story. Sam Spade braced the suspect’s shoulders menacingly. 

Notice, no children’s book worth the encroachment into bedtime employs the little modifiers that most often end in -ly, not because Timmy can’t handle sounding-out “swiftly” but because adverbs aren’t needed for a good and true story.

In case you were sleeping boorishly in high school English class, Stephen King helpfullyexplains:

Adverbs … are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They’re the ones that usually end in -ly. Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind.

With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.

In On Writing Stephen King asserts that “Fear is at the root of most bad writing.” The fingerprints of the fearful writer are adverbs.

Thank Christ whoever crafted the wedding vows— Thomas Cranmer, I believe— had the cahones to avoid the adverbial. Consider how the common, seemingly harmless little adverb transforms the marriage covenant from a clear and simple (if terrifying) promise into a Sisyphean endeavor I can never know if I’m upholding aright.

Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?

vs.

Will you sincerely love her, whole-heartedly comfort her, genuinely honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, resolutely forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?

The former is merely an enormous and outrageous promise.

The latter is psychological torture.

Implied by and requisite to the gospel is that neither my will nor the rest of me is free.

Consequently, I am a stranger to myself.

Most especially am I in the dark as to the truth of my motivations.