And the truth comes out!

The other day I was watching the local news when one of the journalists told us about a prisoner who’d escaped. Someone who’d been serving 40 years. For grand theft.

I find it disturbing that rapists and murderers are often sentenced to fewer years. But alas, we can call that the truth. It’s easy to see what a culture values more when you see how the people responsible for the losses of what it values are punished.

SEX! (and dating and relationships and other stuff)

I hate dating. Ok, I don’t really hate dating. Or maybe my hate for it isn’t as bad as I make it sound.

I just don’t like the way our culture does it. It seems like a lot of people have different definitions of it. I’d like it more if dating were generally defined as “spending time with a guy or girl with whom you click/have chemistry; getting to know him or her without a whole heck of a lot of pressure.”

See, it seems like “being too quick to commit” is a big part of what dating is in this culture. Scenario: guy meets girl. Attraction. They barely know each other, but they’re drawn to one another. Sometimes, they can’t explain it. But they want to act on that (which is natural). Maybe they’ll flirt, and go out a time or two, and – I’m speaking generally and hypothetically here, as this certainly isn’t the case for everyone or for every relationship. – it doesn’t take long for the two to decide (whether explicitly or implied) to see each other exclusively.

But something about that just irks me, honestly. Let’s say this new couple, whose attraction to one another – along with some initial similarities, shared values, etc. – was the reason they became an item, has been exclusive for a couple of months. Typically, they’ll get close, emotionally and/or physically, which almost always creates an attachment – an emotional and biological bond. And the more time they spend together, the more of each other they will start to experience – the good as well as the bad. He might notice some traits of hers that he really can’t stand. She might see some patterns of behavior in him that she doesn’t approve of.

When that happens, because they’ve already committed to be in an exclusive relationship – and usually therefore have become attached to one another – these things that he and she can’t stand about each other are “bumps in the road,” or issues to be worked through, “phases that will pass,” or reasons to admit that “she’ll change someday,” or that “boys will be boys” and they’ll brush them off.

I’m not saying a guy and a girl who are drawn to each other shouldn’t act on it. They should, by all means. They should hang out, get to know each other, go out on the town, talk. But I think guys and girls too often and too carelessly assume that being drawn to one another is reason enough to immediately be more than friends, and to commit to something exclusive. Dating, in our culture, seems like “committing to someone to see if it works” when I feel like conversely, we should really be committing to someone if…it works! Instead, I see so many people “doin’ the deed” far too soon (i.e. pre-ring exchange), which creates the only real bond that makes them want to stay together. But I’m fairly certain (as in, 100% certain) that that kind of intimacy should strengthen the bond that already keeps you together.

A good friend of mine dated this girl at the beginning of high school. They broke up, but became best friends. Strictly friends, but inseparable. After high school, he went on tour with his band and she went on vacation: it was the first time they’d been apart. While they were gone, my friend had an epiphany. This “holy crap, I love her and I can’t live without her” moment. Badabing, badaboom… he proposed. Now they’re married with three kids. Clearly not everyone will have a story like his, but I think stories like his are possible and even more possible if guys and girls approached “dating” differently.

Like, what if the guy and the girl from my aforementioned general and hypothetical scenario had done things differently? What if they spent time together, or “dated casually (i.e. “went out on dates,” but didn’t act like a couple, or what have you)” and held off on getting close physically. If he or she spent enough time with one another, he or she would eventually have noticed the same habits or patterns of behavior they can’t stand. I think it’s a lot easier to know the difference between “something to work through” and “a really good reason not to pursue a more-than-friendship relationship” when a person is free to come to that conclusion without feeling like it’s some kind of faux-pas, and when there isn’t an attachment to be broken.

I really feel like there’s such confusion between love and infatuation, and between reasons to commit and reasons to get to know a person. Even before they’re married, people are “taking” each other, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward because they find each other attractive (and until one of them comes to their senses). And they’re doing it because they think long-term exclusive relationships let you learn whether a marriage with the person would work. I kind of think that’s bull. We shouldn’t have to commit to a person to see if it will work. We should want to commit to a person because it does work. And I really believe we’d be able to tell that it works if we’d take our time.

If I date, I hope it’s to find a husband. And if I get married, I want to be able to say I knew I wanted to commit to this guy – I knew I wanted to share the rest of my life with him – because we make sense, and because even after being exposed to his dark sides and his annoying habits, there was more than just an emotional attachment that kept me tethered…, etc. I want to be able to say something like that instead of something like, “Well, I wanted to marry this guy because I was emotionally attached to him, and couldn’t bear to be separate from him, because it hurt too much.”

I see so many young people feeling like they have to make a relationship work – people who became exclusive to each other for the wrong reasons, and consequently got too emotionally/physically intimate, fostering the kind of bond that can be really hard to break, leaving them so attached that they’re trapped trying to make it work while blind to the reasons that it won’t.

And apparently, I had to get that off my chest. But, please, discuss. I’d love opinions!

Stuff.

Last Sunday, the St. Petersburg Times printed one of the saddest stories I’ve ever read. High fives all around to the writer, though, for telling the story so beautifully, even it if made me sob and want to use expletives.

For anybody who’d like to read it, grab the tissues. And for everyone else, it’s about a poor (literally) guy from Pinellas Park, Fla., who, for a variety of reasons, couldn’t work but couldn’t get a lot of financial assistance. His ex-wife paid $78 a month in child support for their two kids, and he could barely afford to give them anything. Long story short, he gave up. He wrote a note (and parts of it are beautifully quoted throughout the article), got drunk, called 911 and told them he had a gun to his head.

He hung up on the dispatcher (I was reading the story aloud [until I started crying] and when I got to the part about the dispatcher, I said, “Ditchbasser.” It was hilarious. You had to be there.). Anyway, he started firing shots out the back of the apartment. When the cops arrived, his kids ran outside. Their father followed and raised two guns. 

Since I think we all know what happens when one refuses to drop weapons in the presence of law enforcement, I probably don’t have to finish the story. But I will tell you why it’s the saddest story I’ve ever read.

The guy’s family won’t pay for a burial or hold a funeral, so for 500-something tax dollars, his body gets cremated and scattered over the Gulf. I don’t know the guy’s family. Maybe they can’t afford it. Or maybe they didn’t like him. But it’s sort of like one last kick in the cahoonies from a world that’s severely screwy. In a consumeristic, captialistic culture, it’s hard to fathom giving away what you’ve earned. It’s especially hard to give your stuff to someone who hasn’t done any work to earn it from you. Here, we’re taught to compete and earn and get and keep until we earn more, which we usually follow up with getting more and keeping more, etc. And what’s left is the “I earned it, you lose” attitude, and the “tough noogies” (only usually it’s more vulgar and laced with elitism) type of ability to move into big boxes of defense and denial (a.k.a.  gated communities) (Relax. I don’t hate rich people. Keep reading.)

But our culture says as long as we’ve earned it, we’re entitled to as much a portion of the earth’s finite pile of stuff as we can get. And the result has been a bunch of people with giant piles of more stuff than they will ever need, and plenty more people whose piles of stuff are hardly survivable. Like the guy from the article.

Even now – after a couple of years of feeling this way and a handful of months learning how to articulate it – I still feel pulled toward the consumerism and the capitalism I can’t stand. It’s natural, since I spent the first 20 years of my life learning to live that way. (I didn’t know any better!) But as a follower of Christ, I’m called to live counter-culturally. I’ve got to live in this world, but by a different Culture. And in that Culture,  it ain’t no thang (yeah I said it) to let your pile of stuff get a little smaller so somebody else’s pile gets a little bigger. Shoot, that’s part of the point.

In a book called Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne (I’m not obsessed.) said God wouldn’t create too many people and not enough stuff. A-freakin’-men, my brotha! Enough for everyone exists. We just need to stop believing we deserve it all.

Jesus for President

Last night, I sat front and sort of center on the floor in an auditorium at Discovery Church in Orlando. While I sat, Chris Haw and Shane Claiborne spoke and a couple of guys from Psalters played [amazing] music as part of Chris and Shane’s Jesus for President tour. Jesus for President is a book about politics for ordinary radicals. I’m only in the second section, but the talk inspired me to jump on finishing that book. In fact, I’d like to read a chunk before I fall asleep tonight, so I’ll make this quick.

Here’s what I got out of it (not including a high five from a nomadic musician I really admire and a hug from Shane Claiborne): Change isn’t something that should happen one day in November every 4 years. Change is something we can spark every day. We vote with what we buy, where we go, what we do, and who we represent and how we represent them.

Chris talked about Exodus and about how some called to wander into the wilderness felt that slavery was more stable than that. It felt safer, more stable and comfortable to stay in the bonds of slavery than to wander into the wilderness, sleeping in unfamiliar places, surrounded by entire cities worth of people who’d probably call them their enemies.

Such a parallel! I’ve been bound for so long to this world’s culture that no matter how called I feel toward counter-culturally living like Jesus (which would probably feel a lot like wilderness wandering), I seem so stuck inside this society.

But last night was another push in the right direction.

Let’s stop pretending that we’re making progress.

Oh say, can you see
the denial in you and me?
“Industries are dying,” he said.
“Let’s create new ones…
everyone deserves prosperity.”
Define prosperous.

I know how funny you thought it would be to be all like, “Hey! [insert my name here]’s about to be an adult, so let’s mess society up and make her think she has to live in a place where everybody repeatedly makes horrible decisions, and then repeatedly makes more horrible decisions to try to fix the consequences from the first set of ‘em!”

Joke’s on me. Give it up already!

BREAKING NEWS: study shows living an unhealthy lifestyle could lead to poor health

“New research shows food and mood go hand in hand.”

“New study shows not enough sleep may be bad for your eyesight.”

“Lack of sleep linked to high blood pressure.”

“Stress could increase risk of heart disease in women.”

Get out. I am shocked. I could never have imagined such links. This has caused me to be taken aback…

NOT!

Really? Studies? Like the kind that cost money? Because for free, I would have said the same thing. And I’m pretty sure most of us could.

out on a limb

Hey Usher, this person just wants to be like Jesus!  But Deacon’s right. It is hard to go out on a limb for Him. Pray for me?

- – -

One time, at work, a colleague asked if snacks like Jello and pudding are healthy. Now, I’m no expert (despite my obsession with holistic nutrition), but I gladly gave him my answer.

I said “Honestly?” and he said, “Yes.” So I said, “No.”

See, truly, I think the only food that is genuinely healthy is food that naturally occurs. As are most things in life. Simply put, we’re living where things that naturally occur aren’t so desireable. Maybe it’s because advertisers make us think that what naturally occurs isn’t as good as what they can give us.

hair dye.
wrinkle cream.
makeup.
hair spray.
anti-frizz serum.
razors. shaving gel.

Gray hair, wrinkles, hairy pits and legs and zits are all signs of functioning bodies; all of these things are natural (zits are natural, anyway, because of to what we expose our bodies). But we’re living in a society that says that it’s not.

And that’s sad.

Apathy

So the eye roll I got from the cashier who thought my Obama/Hillary answer was unacceptable has sort of stuck with me since yesterday. I started to mull it over and made a realization: I am not apathetic.

Matthew 6, which has also stuck with me, says no one can serve two masters. Well doesn’t who you’re serving determine the path you’ll take? Mid-conversation with about twelve (exaggeration) different people recently, I’ve said one of a few things.

A. I know I don’t make a lot of money, but I’m not worried.

B. I’d like to do something nuts, like give up – quite literally – everything I own.

C. Maybe I’ll move into my own (cheap) place, since it’s hard to embrace the things I want to embrace while I live with people who aren’t into it as hard corely as I am.

And the response has been pretty much the same: “How on earth could you survive?”

And that’s when I do one of two things: just stop talking ’cause I know I’m just not getting through, or say, “Dang. You’re right.” And, I’ll be honest with you, it’s my lack of faith. But I long to truly trust.  I want to be able to give away what I need, saying things like ”this dinner is mine, but there’s a lady outside who needs it more” or “this is my favorite jacket, but I’m really not cold and that kid is” or “I know I only have a quarter tank of gas left, but this money might buy that guy a bus ride home.” Even now, when I think about doing these things (and not everything will always have to do with the homeless we encounter), I get scared. I’m all like, “shoot! I’ll buy the lady dinner, but I’m not giving her mine.” and “Heck naw, this is my jacket! I’ll find the kid something else to wear.” or “Dude. How am I going to get to work?” I’m also all like, “Yeah, if I give my gas money to everyone who needs it more, I’ll be late to work every day and therefore, fired.” which all, to me, sounds something like “How on earth could you survive?”

First, as Christians, I don’t think earth survival should be our biggest concern.

Secondly, doing any of these things would get us in trouble in some way, shape or form. No doubt. We’d get dirty looks, if nothing else, from strangers who see us handing our dinners to homeless people. We’d get dirtier looks if they saw us giving them money. We could totally get fired. But what path are you on if what other people think of you and the loss of a job are your biggest losses? Which master are you serving when you say, “Where I live, getting dirty looks and losing jobs is bad. There’s no way that’s gonna work out for anyone.”?

Maybe we should trust like Jesus did when God said he’d have to die on a cross.

Anyway, apathy. I don’t think I’m apathetic. Apathy depends on which master you’re trying to serve.

Joy to the nations when Jesus is king.

I’ll be blunt: my office smells really good right now. It’s somebody’s lunch.

Now, I’ll be relevantly blunt: Maybe we should vote for Jesus. A little earlier, I walked to a nearby market for lunch (couscous salad and some tofu and broccoli, if you’re curious), where the cashiers questioned me and my political affiliation.

“How do you feel about Obama and Hillary?” one of ‘em asked.

“I really don’t care,” I smiled. ”And I don’t even know if I’ll vote.”

Another of ‘em seemed sorta mad.

“If you’re not going to vote, you shouldn’t say anything,” he said.

And I said, “I didn’t say anything, except for ‘I don’t care.’”

Maybe I should care. Maybe I’ll learn why when I go to Jesus for President in July. But right now, bluntly, I don’t care who’s president.

America needs a King.

Qualifications: Willing to give up material possessions, popularity and constant comfort. Is not a wuss.

I was a little pissed this morning, partly due to PMS and due partly to “society.”

I’m always afraid my calling it “society” makes it sounds like I don’t think I’m part of it. I need to work on finding a better word. But, nonetheless, I was pissed. Possibly perturbed. It just irks me – physically, sometimes – to know so few who share my vision.

Have you ever seen one of those movies that stars a girl who knows that she knows that she knows the truth? She’s so certain about it, but she works, lives and walks among friends, family and strangers who think she’s a nutjob. Well, welcome to my world.

It’s not like people walk up to me saying, “You’re a nutjob.” I rarely even get dirty looks. But what I feel – dare I say – called toward – is the kind of thing the girl in the movie grasps. I know that I know that I know this is right. But everything around me says it’s wrong.

My world says I need to make a lot of money. My heart says God will provide. My world says I can do what I want with my body. My heart says this body isn’t mine. My world says my life is in my hands. My heart says it isn’t.

Twenty-two years in church, eight years at a private Christian school. My priests, leaders and teachers always told me to trust God. And I always said, “I do.” But who among us does?

I don’t think Jesus was all like, “Ok, so right now, I want you to trust me. But in 2008, I want you to trust your medical doctors. I want you to trust that even though you’ll be eating food that – unbeknownst to most of you and blocked mostly by the denial of the medical professionals that you trust – is going to cause all the cancer and heart disease and high blood pressure. But then, I want you to trust in your insurance companies. They gotchu, dude. And right now, I want you to trust me. But in 2008, I want you to trust in your jobs. I want you to trust that your skills will pay the bills, via the cash they’ll earn ya. I want you to trust in your bank, to keep collecting it for ya. I want you to trust that when you have enough of it, you can use it to buy the biggest house and the better car and all the stuff to fill them.”

I do, however, think Jesus meant what he said in Matthew 6.

 19“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!  
24“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

 25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[b]? 
28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

It irks me that I can’t articulate how I feel about all of this. (My friend Nick thinks there’s a reason for that: act now, articulate later.) But I’m going to try anyway.

I guess, ultimately, this is where I’m at:

Jesus said it himself. The sparrows don’t store up, and God still provides for them. We’re so stuck, though. We like to go around saying, “Yeah, I trust God all right.” If we do, what’s with all the insurance? Not just the health insurance, and the car insurance and the life insurance. But the everyday insurance: why do we donate our old clothes to thrift stores when we could drive down town to hand them out? Why are all the clothes we donate the clothes we wouldn’t wear anyway? Why do we only give what we don’t want, but keep what we don’t necessarily need?  Why do we write checks to charities across the world but walk right by the old guy with the cardboard sign that says “hungry?” I guess we want to know that we can give, but not too much. Why do we panic when the layoffs start? Why do we buy lottery tickets? I guess we want to believe that we can trust, but not too much.

Oh, we of little faith.