a new take on an old idiom

so i found out why my pastor is gone so much. there are two churches in a nearby town that don’t have a pastor, so 2 weeks each month, we send someone from our church to preach in those churches. anyways, that’s beside the point. right now, pastor sam is in australia, so yesterday, pak filemon was sharing from daniel. he was giving some background info about how daniel and his 3 friends were captured by the babylonians and how they were brainwashed. he was being pretty brave and trying to use english. it came out as “they were wash brain!” i thought THAT was pretty funny (once i realized what he was trying to say). but it got even better.

just for kicks (or perhaps for some more serious reason), he decided to read some of the verses from daniel 1 in english. particularly, verse 8. i have no idea what version he was reading from, but it came out as “but daniel made up his mind not to defile himself with the king’s food and wine...” to really drive his point home, pak filemon gave the following explanation (in indonesian).

“now, when i read this verse, i was wondering what ‘made up his mind’ meant. and i did some research. and the phrase ‘made up’ comes from the phrase ‘make up’. and do you all know what makeup is? (and most people did because while there is a word for makeup in indonesian, a lot of people – especially young people – just call it by the american word, makeup) so what is makeup for? well, if you want to look sexy, you might put on a little lipstick (and he acted it out. puckered lips and all). or if your eyes are too narrow and slanty, you might put on some eyeliner to make them look bigger. and if your nose is too flat, there’s even makeup to make it look pointier!! so you see, to makeup your mind is to menyelaraskan (to make something suitable) your mind! and daniel made up his mind.”

yesssss..... that is EXACTLY what that means.... i speedy quick wrote a note to explain to aswan (sitting next to me) that to make up your mind is an idiomatic phrase that really has nothing to do with makeup. it means to decide. i just needed someone to chuckle with. it worked. so then we were both sitting there trying not to laugh out loud while pak filemon dissected the english language. good times...