Caddywhompus
If you’re not from the south, you may be confused by the title of this post. *Caddywhompus or catawampus is a good ol’ southern word that we use to say something is askew, awry, off centered or just not right!
That word came to my mind as I thought about how my life, here of late, has just seemed to be off! I had been feeling completely off balanced and, well, caddywhompus. My emotions have been all over the board. I’ve been allowing stinking thinking to sling bad thoughts around in my head at will. In a word… or two… NOT GOOD!!
As I was talking to Lord about it, he brought to my mind two memories from my childhood. Isn’t it fun to look back? I’ve reached an age, where I can look back and appreciate the things that I got to experience in my childhood that kids today, in general, never will.
When I was a little girl, I LOVED to hula-hoop!! I was pretty good at it too… then, not now. Then all I had to do was give that big ol’ circular hoop of brightly colored plastic joy (My English teacher would be so proud of me using so many adjectives! :D) a hefty spin and my 8 year old, almost non-existent hips took over. It was all about the rhythm. But even though I had that hoop going perfectly, a hula hoop isn’t meant to rotate around you perfectly. It’s meant to hug onto your body and ride around your waist on its inner rim as your hips swing from side to side and frontwards and backwards with wild abandon, causing an off kilter effect! Or, “causing it to go all caddywhompus!”
I was then taken back again to my prepubescent days, to a memory of me and my sister, Stacey, standing in front of our record player as we enjoyed playing our Bee Gees singles on 45s and dreaming of one day, each of us marrying one of the Brothers Gibb. I had dibs on marrying Barry, of course. ;) We’d have to put the 45 adapter on the spin table's spindle first, to make the small records fit, then place the needle down, ever so gently, as to not scratch the record and then we’d dance and we’d sing, in our bellbottom pants and oh so flowery tops, until our young hearts were content.
Flashback: Who remember the good ol’ days of listening to music on vinyls? Who remembers what you had to do if your record developed a scratch?! You’d have to tape a stack of pennies, three or four, to the top of the needle to weigh it down so it would stay in the grooves and not skip. LOL. I’m so glad listening to vinyls is cool again. ; )
Unlike the hula hoop, that rotates all lopsided, the record player rotates its vinyl record in a perfect rotation around the center axis, much like the planet earth rotates on its imaginary axis. It’s a perfectly smooth motion.
Flashback 2: (Boy did this post bring back some fun memories!) If your vinyl record got left out in the sun or too close to fire... got too hot, the plastic would begin to melt, creating waves on the record. Talk about caddywhompus! As the needle would climb up the hill of the wave the singer would start slowing down and slurring, then as it went quickly down the other side, they would speed up. It sounded hilarious.
God finally brought his two object lessons together to make His point. He reminded me of how silly the hula hoop looks as it swings wide on one side and the other is holding tight. Kind of like a penny that you’ve set to spinning and right before it stops it starts riding on its outside rim and gets all out of sync. He showed me that, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing lately. I’ve been riding around under my own power, living just on the edge of full devotion and not relying on Him to be the center of my life. I had been allowing too many “we need you birds” to take me from my place of rest and peace. I had pushed him to the side causing my world to feel like it was spiraling out of control in complete confusion and going all catawampus.
I used to tell my kids, when they’d come to me annoyed with a sibling for simply singing or whistling... or just existing, that the world doesn’t revolve around them. LOL. Aren't you glad it really doesn't? When we make Jesus our axis, our spindle on which we spin and we start REVOLVING around him, instead of ourselves, our lives become balanced and our heart starts beating to the rhythm of a new song. (Psalms 149:1)
"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trust in you." Isaiah 26:3 ESV
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*On a side note: I am a logophile!! Don't get torn up, that simply means that I LOVE words!! Specifically, I enjoy knowing the origins of silly words, like caddywhampus. Here's what I found out.
Catawampus (Caddywhompus is just the southern way of saying it.) comes from two words.
Cata means diagonally, as in cata-corndered. (Again, we in the south say caddy-cornered)
Wampish is a Scottish word meaning to wave about or to flop to and fro. (You've got to love the Scotts for their fun language that's packed full of silly words to say.) That reminds me of airdancers that the car lots use to get your attention. They are definitely wampish!
NOW YOU KNOW!!
