Monday Morning Musing: Catchphrases

Last night, after a very long workday, my Beloved and I sat down to watch the 50th Anniversary special of Saturday Night Live.  On Sunday.   The easy math tells me I was a young teen when this iconic show first hit the small screen, which means that I wouldn’t have watched the first several seasons.  My parents would not have allowed it.  But I remember watching it in college and beyond.  I appreciate that as a person who works on Sunday mornings now, I can stream it later in the week.

So many of the catchphrases from my young adulthood come from SNL.

 How often do I ring a doorbell still and think: Land shark!  Candy Gram! 

Or when I order a Cheeseburger somewhere,  it’s always in the back of my mind:  Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger, Pepsi, Pepsi. 

And later, Dana Carvey’s Church Lady signature snark Well, isn’t that special?

Or Mr. Bill’s Oh Noooooooo.  

Later there was Party On, Garth and We Are Here to Pump…you up.   

And Talk Amongst Yourselves. 

If I’m paying attention, I still borrow these catchphrases regularly.  They’ve become, not only a part of my own vocabulary, but cultural linguistic touchstones of the last five decades.  The New York Times even wrote about them; I came across this article doing a little research for this post. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/31/arts/television/-saturday-night-live-skit-catchphrases-quotes.htmlarticle

Catchphrases not only take us back to another time or occasion, but they have the potential to remind us of a greater truth.  I don’t know that any of the aforementioned phrases do that, but Gilda Radner’s Rosanna Rosanna Danna definitely offered us something to think about when she declared: It’s Always Something.

As I spend time with people these days, whether one on one or in small groups or in larger classes, the conversation almost always comes back to the same thing:  the pace at which this new administration is dismantling a just and equitable (or at least on its way to being more just and equitable) society. At the very least, it is disheartening.  It seems that it is, quite literally, always something.  The rights of some set of non-white, non-straight, non-male, non-US citizen, non-conservative folks are being stripped away.  Scientists are not heard or respected.  The poor, the hungry, the fearful are all being reviled rather than supported, and if you heard yesterday’s Gospel reading, you know that this isn’t at all what Jesus taught.  It’s always something, indeed.

And the question comes round every time: how do we manage ourselves in all of this?  How do we still step in, step up, and step out on behalf of those that the government is treading underfoot?  How do we tend to ourselves in the process? 

I don’t have a lot of answers.  I have some ideas that I’m trying out for myself, though, and in light of anything being sure and certain, I thought I’d share them this morning. 

·      Observe a pattern of resistance and rest.  Find active ways that you can speak or act in resistance to what is unjust in the world.  I HIGHLY recommend the 5 Calls app, which will help you identify issues, give you the phone numbers to the offices of your representatives and senators, along with a script to use when you call.  I hear, from those who work there, that calling is more effective than writing an email or letter, but if you can’t call, please write.

There are other ways of resisting, too, but this is one of the most accessible I’ve found.

Then, dear ones, find space to rest your body, mind, and spirit.  I don’t mean binge watch a favorite show on the couch with chocolate (but hey, if that’s what you need, no judgement at all!) I mean, do the things that land softly with you.  Show yourself compassion.  Tap out if you are too anxious or overwhelmed to stay in.  And come back, because this fight, this world, needs your voice, needs you.

·      Find ways to persist and pray.  (Clearly I’m a fan of alliteration). If you aren’t the praying type, find ways to offer your larger intention when you persist in the work.  I am making this phone call, donating to this group, writing this letter, having this conversation, so that people are free to be fully who they were created to be.  That’s a prayer, even if that’s not what you call it.

·      Look for chances to reach out with compassion and courage.  Not every encounter demands our loudest or most anxious response.  Courage can be bold and big and it can also be quiet and thoughtful.  The same is true of compassion. 

David Whyte, poet and theologian, offers us words in a way that is different from the writers of SNL.  His writing doesn’t lend itself to catchphrases that remain across decades.  But they do offer hope in a time when it is sorely needed.  Here’s what he says about courage: “To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences. To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about: with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or with an unknown that begs us on and always has begged us on.  To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.” (from Consolations).

Rosanna Rosanna Danna was right; it is always something.  And sometimes, beloved ones, that something is beautiful and hopeful and filled with good courage.  May we be the ones, who in what we do and what we say,  carry that into this broken world.

Now, go….talk amongst yourselves.

Radner as Rosanna Rosanna Danna