general

Anything that’s not something in particular
general / life — Comments Off
7
Mar 10

war metaphor part ii

The metaphors we use to describe day to day events speak deep truths about the say we approach life in general. Missed to ground work for this discussion? Check it out here: War Metaphor Part I.

We unconsciously use war metaphor to in many different facets of our lives. Already, we’ve said that sports, and science, and conflict are ripe with it. We talk about inner battles, battles of will, waging war against pick-an-injustice. For those of us that are trying to model the way that Jesus lived, is it appropriate to approach the world with this same angst? (I was about to say “spiritual world” here, but I’d rather not divvy it up like that)

“War” and “Battle” are words that are used fairly often throughout scripture. And the old testament is practically crammed with God-ordained conflicts between people that claimed the lives of thousands. But most of these references are literal references – either to actual wars or the prospect of wars if the people don’t respond in a certain way. They’re not figurative – i.e. they’re not metaphor language. The other interesting thing you see in the prophets of the Old Testament are the references to the end of war – to peace. Micah 4:3 as classic example talks about the conversion of weapons of war and destruction into weapons of provision, and that nations “will not train for war anymore.”

The New Testament talks far less frequently about these concepts. Jesus mentions war when outlining the cost of being a disciple as an illustration.

Then there’s the armor of God. Can’t forget this. This is perhaps the most blatant use of war metaphor in the Bible when the author of Ephesians says:

Be strong in the Lord and in this mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

Perhaps this isn’t as metaphoric as it sounds. I’m not suggesting that there is literal armor – but I am saying that the readers and the author himself were literally being physically attacked and chained for their beliefs. They were, in fact, in a type of war scenario.

One last thing before I attempt to get far more practical with this. In this same passage we read this:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rules, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Growing up, I was very involved in a church that heavily used war metaphor to describe Christians relationship with sin. It was very much a battle, a near-literal altercation with demons and evil. Shouts of praise were often inter-mingled with battle cries. I understood that I was to be engaged in a spiritual war against an axis of evil (made up of beer, drugs, crossing “the line” with the opposite sex, smoking – up for consideration for the axis were cussing, lusting, and gambling). Looking back, it also took on the scope of “if you’re not for us, you’re against us.”

Given the significance of all things spiritual to many people, it’s not hard to understand why the fight becomes so important. All of this is very much in keeping with the use of war metaphor.

I felt as though that those who took part in any of the activities in the axis of evil were not just casualties, but they were brain-washed prisoners of war, recruited to fight the forces of good. On the one hand, I knew that I was called to “Love my neighbor as myself” but at the same time, these were “enemy forces” that had the potential to attack me. It’s shoot-to-kill time.

My biggest hang up with the use of war metaphor is that it promotes a sense of defensiveness. Even if we constantly on the attack, we feel as though at any moment enemy forces can strike. Defensive people and groups act very differently than the rest of us. There is a primal instinct that begins to emerge in even the most well-intentioned people. If at any point we feel threatened, we are liable to act out of desperation. In our figurative war, this could mean something as a comment/accusation that precipitates the alienation of a person or a group of people.

There is nothing as polarizing as war. Being at war means that opposing forces have become as diametrically opposed to one another as possible. It is the ultimate consequence to unmanaged conflict, or tension.

While it leads to alienation and destructive processes, there is a nobility to it all. In war, finding the power to continue the fight is admired. Officers are commended with medals or other awards for exceptional bravery. Conversely, there is shame is surrender, in humbling yourself to the enemy. It is a display of weakness to bow out of battle.

In the church, we have allowed this paradigm to permeate everything that we do. We have battle hymns and fight songs, chants that reinforce the diametric opposition of the forces of good and the forces of evil. And while there may be theological basis for this concept, that good cannot exist where there is evil, we are practically raining terror down on those that need our love the most. We rationalize by saying that we “love the sinner, and hate the sin” which can lead quickly to justifying our force with statements like “there’s gonna be some collateral damage,” or “it’s for your own good,” as if we have the capacity to decide what that should be. The consequences of our bloody battles are years and years of distrust, malice, alienation, and hatred.

We see this over and over. Homosexuals have long been essentially metaphorically labeled as terrorists to modern-day Christianity. We go on the offensive against abortion clinics, perversely assuming that God is smiling as we spew hateful slogans, carry placards plastered with the graphic images of aborted fetuses, or as we literally use lethal force.

Hatred for Christ’s sake is still hatred.

As long as we continue to propagate war metaphor in our churches, we will continue to falsely indoctrinate our people to believe that anyone that is “in” is good and that anyone that is “out” is the enemy.

It continues to be striking to me that Jesus’ harshest words were for the religious. A man marked by unwavering compassion across people groups and ethnicities and situations turned hostile when he looked inward towards those who were thought to be representatives of God on earth.

We could learn a thing or two from this Jesus character.

It’s also striking to me that aside from the disciples, we never hear about what happens with any of the people that Jesus encountered. We know that he was kind and loved regardless of the circumstance and never implied that he was about to bomb the enemy with righteousness and blessed sanctification. It was seldom more than a brief encounter, the beginnings of relationship, filled with understanding, compassion, and grace. If we approach life as though we’re all in this together, that we can learn mutually beneficial things from one another, that we are all part of a well-intended creation perhaps we’ll see the transformation that we’ve been trying to force for so long.

And maybe, the other people will change too.

faith / general / politics — 3 Comments
3
Mar 10

war metaphor part i

“This is not language, this is the way people think.”
George Lakoff

There is no way that I possess any authority to say that as a culture we are obsessed with conflict and war and combat. What I have heard, and have seen, and am probably too keenly aware of have colored and/or tainted my thoughts on what I’m about to share. I have a lot of thoughts on this so my plan is to lay some foundation and the dig in with some meat a little later. We’ll see how that goes.

Since my college days, having spent many an evening lying on the floor by the fireplace reading about personality and ego and cognition, I’ve been captivated by all things unconscious. In particular, I have a fascination with our words and our figures of speech, our entire lexicon and the way that we choose (or often don’t choose) to describe people and places and things.

There is so much that you can learn about a culture just by studying words. Cultures that live in the isolated north and understand the cold and ice and snow have many more words for describing these things; they can say in one word what we might say as “light, fluffy snow falling in large flakes.” Understanding snow and weather conditions are critically important to their survival. I would be willing to be however, they have fewer words for money than we do, but more on that later.

For those of you that follow Rob Bell, you may have heard him make reference to something similar in a Nooma Video (002 – Flame) when he talks about love. Bell says that he loves his wife and also loves tacos. For the record, I completely relate; the best is when my wife and I get to eat together at Taqueria Mexico on South Blvd (much like we did today). In essence, Bell says that the words we use can provide great insight into internal processes and thoughts and feelings.

In reading another author (Don Miller, Blue like Jazz), I got reminded of a train of thought I started to have a number of years ago. Miller references the use of metaphor in various parts of our life – one example: the use of war metaphor with respect to dealing with cancer. These thoughts were presented by a professor at an alumni group gathering and Miller was captivated. The essence of the discussion as it was described was that we often use war-centric words when discussing cancer: we battle cancer, we combat cancer, we fight it. This implied conflict has actually been shown to make the process of dealing with cancer more difficult as it induces more stress in patients. The professor argued that it makes the emotional response more intense than it need be and people often forget the fact that the majority of people survive the disease.

As a caveat here, no one is saying that cancer ought not to be treated seriously, only that the metaphor we have come to use to convey the weight of this disease carries with it collateral baggage and that it would be nice if a more appropriate and helpful metaphor could take it’s place.

War metaphor is everywhere. Back to the cancer example, the British Medical Journal wrote about the War Against Cancer in 1934. It is all over science where we here about “invading species”, “biosecurity”, “killer cells”, and “methods for attacking viruses.” We hear it in sports when “epic battles” or “showdown of the century” are scheduled as pay-per-view events. Bush, Rumsfield, Cheney, and the gang quickly turned what was first referred to as a crime on 9/11 into a declaration of war and the ensuing 9 years have been framed as such ever since.

An author that I am quickly becoming interested in, thanks to my newfound interest in linguistics is George Lakoff, an expert on all things language (two books are on the way as I write – I’m sure I’ll have some follow up, providing I can find the time to read them).

He wrote an incredibly compelling article just 5 days after 9/11.

As a child in New Jersey, the NY city skyline was a major part of his life and as a cognitive linguist he finds deep meaning in the words that we use as individuals an culture to describe both the buildings and the events that took them down and he can describe the physical, neural circuitry that undergirds this meaning.

The article as a whole, though obviously biased politically, is incredibly insightful. Click here for a long, but really good, read.

Lakoff does say that the Administration searched for metaphors to help them understand this event – the first response was that of framing the event as a crime, which connects to various parts of our consciousness as involving criminals, justice, courts, lawyers, innocence/guilt. Hours later though, the event was reframed as an act of war, which brings it’s own imagery: “casualties”, “enemies”, “military action”.

What I don’t want to do here is turn this into a commentary about the response to 9/11. The implications pointed out in this article with respect to war metaphor are what really interests me as we’ll need them to frame some later discussion.

War implies good and evil, correct and incorrect, right and wrong. It is only evil that can “justify” the expense, the collateral damage, the death that is associated with war. Lakoff says this:

If our enemy is evil, we are inherently good. Good is our essential nature and what we do in the battle against evil is good. Good and evil are locked in a battle, which is conceptualized metaphorically as a physical fight in which the stronger wins. Only superior strength can defeat evil, and only a show of strength can keep evil at bay. Not to show overwhelming strength is immoral, since it will induce evildoers to perform more evil deeds because they’ll think they can get away with it … Nothing is more important than the battle of good against evil …

My two cents here is that “war” is the ultimate polarizer. We can come to the table to discuss if we are any closer but war occurs when two factions helplessly diametrically opposed to one another.

Lakoff goes on to suggest that if we operate outside of this good and evil paradigm there are many facets to any issue and that invoking war metaphor stations us to think in terms or either/or.

Now would be a good time to stop and breathe.

*inhale*

*exhale*

There are times when the use of war metaphor is appropriate and times when its use has unfortunate results. At RealitySandwich.com you can read about several such instances that are in the latter category. For example, one “invading” blackberry (oooooh, scary) was held responsible for hurting a Californian bird population. Scientists argue that war metaphor causes us to think in terms of eradication instead of exploring more helpful symbiotic relationships. In fact, some even say that this is why a former president decided to merge the government department responsible for “invasive species” into the department of homeland security.

So what do we know?

War metaphor is prevalent. It’s sometimes appropriate; other times, it’s not. When it’s used, our culture, our neurons, our experience, our relationships all contribute to the way that we frame the situation at hand. We have a conscious awareness of what war means but, perhaps more profoundly, we have a deeply-seeded unconscious understanding as well that invokes imagery of good and evil, justification, victory, defeat, and collateral damage.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations …. or I’m sorry.

Here is where I’m really interested in going with this next. I grew up in a church whose very structure and existence was built around the concept of war metaphor, the ultimate in good versus evil, God vs. Satan, sinfulness vs. righteousness. I understand the mechanism by which our churches arrive at war metaphor, and I’m really interested as to whether or not the church is an appropriate home for these concepts of war – that’s up next.

faith / general — 1 Comment
24
Feb 10

lent

It is always slightly peculiar when anyone asks me, “What are you giving up for Lent?”

I’ve been religious at various points in my life in the truest sense of the word, but never that religious. In small-town Newfoundland, Lent was always perceived as a Catholic tradition and as a good protestant boy, I protested it by simply ignoring it.  It’s never been something that I’ve understood well if at all from either an historical or a practical perspective.

There have been Easter seasons that I’ve attempted to do this, though none so striking that I actual remember which of my vices I denied myself of.  I seem to recall giving up soda or pop or Coke (my attempt to be geographically sensitive here) though never having been a connoisseur  of these sugary tonics this denial came ripe with built-in success.  I understand that this can be a struggle for some people, who are as hopelessly addicted to the stuff as I am to the java.  Surely at some point during my pious college years there were other things: fast-food is coming to mind but has only slightly less built-in success than soda (and then, only because of my then college-student status).

And here I am again happily adrift through another lenten season with no plan of organized self-denial.  It’s not that I don’t see the value.  The value is incredible.  Self-denial is a discipline practiced by maybe 0.00000343% of the world’s population (that number MAY be inaccuate – i.e. a complete fabrication).  Lent has the potential to be an amazing expression of incredible faith and trust.

It also has the potential to be self-aggrandizing, ego-buildling wish-wash.

Let’s be honest with one another: most of the people that we know that practice Lent do it not for any religious observance or because of their desire to fast alongside Jesus in the desert for 40 days in preparation for ministry.  No, instead it’s to see if we can actually survive the withdrawal of caffeine or the dangerously low levels of blood sugar that we’re bound to experience.  And the self-aggrandizing bit: that’s about proving to yourself and others that you, against all odds,  can actually drive PAST Starbucks on the way to and maybe from work.  It’s building up the ego.  It’s blatant self-promotion in the face of subtle self-denial.

Perhaps our lives should be about self-denial every day.  Perhaps there is enough to go around if we’re reasonable and generous.  Just maybe we can help somebody get back on their feet and we can possibly be satisfied with a 32″ LCD instead of a 42″.

I realize this may not be your thing.

Given that Lent ought to be about preparing for something new – reminiscent of Jesus’ preparing for three years of ministry – perhaps we can revisit this season with that spirit.  Jesus didn’t go to the desert to avoid drive-thrus and biggie sized fries.  He prepared to present the greatest “message” of all time to a people that were beaten down by oppressors.

It’s an incredibly different environment from what WE live in.

How will you take the next few days (it doesn’t need to be 40 – you won’t lose credit) to prepare yourself for a new part of life?  Maybe it’s time to think about what the next step is.  Maybe the old is done.

I’ve got a low-grade aversion to people – people in small doses are fine but in general they find ways to annoy or irritate me. If Lent is about denial, then why not deny ourselves the easy way out – take the long hard road through the desert instead of substituting iced tea (or sweet tea) for soda.

I want to face my fears and my aversions instead whim-ping out.  I want to deny myself the option of using the self check out at the grocery store and instead place myself squarely in the vulnerable position of having a conversation with an unknown human.  I want to deny myself the opportunity to stay silent and speak up and ACT up when people are being treated with injustice.  I want to deny myself the opportunity to passively-aggressively share my views and engage in actual dialogue.

Lent this year is much different.  It’s not denying myself of something.  It’s denying myself of self.

faith / general — 3 Comments
20
Feb 10

baritone

I used to lead worship.

That is, I used to pick up a guitar and sing songs in front of people with the hope that these acts would, in supernatural way, aid in making a connection with some heavenly being.

I do not have any evidence that this effect was ever realized.

What I do have is plenty of instances where the less tolerant worshippers would fold their arms and refuse to let the silky strains of my every melodic utterance work the righteous miracles on their hearts that they so badly needed. And it’s quite damaging to ones ego and/or self respect. Could it possibly be that what I believed to be my tonality-touting, rich, baritone voice was more accurately described with words like nasally, infuriating, grating, or irksome.

“Thank you, Desmond, for those infuriating moments of connection with the Savior of the world.” I imagine them saying as they left the sanctuary better suited to live like Jesus.

Seeing men and women fold their arms rather than engage with worship did not infuriate or anger me. Instead, I remember thinking how sorry I felt for them missing an opportunity for connection. It would be dishonest of me to say that this very thing did not damage my own level of confidence to a certain degree. I cannot think of a time since when I eagerly subjected myself to the judgement of others by standing in front of them with nothing but my guitar and a voice.

It would also be misleading for me not to disclose that, in my admittedly long list of issues with what we’ve traditionally called “church” life, issues like these cynical and cold receptions rank fairly high.

And, yet sometimes I wonder in some ironic twist of fate and peer-pressure if these attitudes, conceptions, and notions aren’t the very things that cause me to huff and puff and rant about why I have no time for “church” as it’s understood to be. In my cosmic pew, I am crossing my arms or, better yet, surveying the exits for my chance for a bathroom break.

I should be very clear here. The word “church” is an automatic aversion to me. I’m playing this Sunday at a church to help out a friend but it will take every ounce of self-control not to huff and puff and heckle from the back row. It is not because I don’t believe that Jesus is who he said he was, its because I don’t believe that we’re who we say we are as Christians. I think Christians have little resemblance to Christ – and my default position is skepticism and cynicism.

I wonder if it’s these examples that I’ve lived or my resentment that has made me this way. I wonder why, if I believe that they were the ones missing out, why I’m the one that now rejects opportunities to lead worship gatherings.

Confidence is an interesting thing. At 30, I’m I feel like I’m only now becoming comfortable enough in my skin to speak with any kind of assertiveness or courage. Even then, these times seem to be at least as much the exception as the rule.

I hope my feelings towards church are not rooted in cynicism. I do not want to be the man with his arms folded and brow furrowed in disgust. He’s repulsive to me. He represents a complete antithesis from Christ – the ultimate in self-absorption and selfishness. He worships his creator the way that he best sees fit and everybody else is wrong.

Which, for someone with my convictions, is a possibility that we can sink into. We can easily become prideful and tout our tolerance and acceptance with the same stubbornness.

Even though I don’t see eye-to-eye with the church about the way business is done it’s important for me to struggle to see the good. I’ve dwelt on the bad for a long time – that’s no great accomplishment. I still want to be one that finds the good and celebrates it.

But it’s difficult.

It’s as difficult as getting back up, warming up the old baritone voice box, and bursting out with free-spirited song.

general — Comments Off
15
Feb 10

reality

New post called “reality” up at the equitas blog. Check it out here.

general — Comments Off
7
Feb 10

accomplishment

Most days in most cities in this country, people are driven to accomplish.  For many, a successful person is one who has risen to the top of the proverbial food chain, whose salary now is substantially more than it was “back then”, who has purchased a house, and who has well-adjusted and responsible children.  In this country, this is further heightened by our incredibly toxic tendency towards individualism: “I (an individual) have accomplished (of my own accord) some incredible things.”

What is incredibly telling about the whole thing is that we seem to despise more of the process of achieving this success.  We trudge unwillingly to work most mornings, we fight traffic, we battle deadlines and duke it up for the best positioning on the corporate ladder.

For some reason, at least for part our lives, we’re told to believe that this is the way it is.

I have a friend who often says that he hears that “some people go to work every day and actually enjoy what they do.”

Why are we burdened by these processes? Why do we hate them?

In a cultural coup d’état this same angst, permeates all of the passages of our lives.  Whether we’re fighting traffic on the way to the park, or anxiously awaiting news about a potential raise, or dreading the “travelling” in travelling home during the holidays, or trying to shed a bad habit, our minds are transfixed on outcome, on accomplishment.

When you’re scanning the horizon, you’re bound to miss incredible details right in your path.

I recently watched (for the nth time) a talk on TED.com by Adam Savage, the Mythbuster.  In this video, Savage talks about two of the obsessions of his life as a creative model maker.  First, an obsession with the legendary Dodo bird and acquiring by any means possible a replica of the Dodo skeleton and, secondly (and perhaps even more obsessive), a quest for an as-accurate-as-possible replica of the Maltese Falcon as described in Dashiell Hammett’s book of the same name.

Savage recounts spending countless hours, and resources, and finances, and brain power pursuing these projects – completely obsessed with building the perfect models.

Only, as he wraps up his talk, he comes to the realization that the “accomplishments” never were what these projects were about. Quite the contrary – for Savage it’s the pursuit.

It is the pursuit that teaches lessons about living, that stretches the mind and the soul, and that finally wins the hearts of our desired.  It is the pursuit that we remember, that we value.

Accomplishments, then, are merely milestones in a perpetual pursuit – temporary targets that have our attention only for a short while until the pursuit brings us to a new place.

And this is why there ought to be no end to the pursuit – because there is also something more enriching, more worthy of the chase and the effort.  This is also why when we stop pursuing these milestones begin to crack and disintegrate.

Marriages go unfulfilled when we are not continually pursuing our spouses.  When we feel as though we’ve reached some goal, when we feel vows are simply eternal in and of themselves, what was once love begins to wane.

Self-confidence begins to fail when our career pursuits become stagnant.  When we’re in a place that we don’t want to be, when we see no way out, it’s so easy to sit and wallow in self-deprecating despair.  But it’s the pursuit of something different, something new, something better, that renews our energy.

Crave the pursuit.  Value the pursuit.  Keep an eye for these milestones that we all have and that we all aspire to, but seize the moments of every day to learn from the processes of our lives, the journeys.

Because pursuit is what it is all about.

general / goals — Comments Off
4
Feb 10

goal two

It’s been a while but I need to outline my second major goal for twenty ten.

By the end of this year, I will have outlined and starting working on a book.  The topic is still very much uncertain. How I will convince somebody to actually publish this yet-to-be-conceived work is not even on my radar.

But, by the end of 2010 I will have an “outline” – not just in my head – but on paper – and will have begun the writing process.

This has been on my mind literally for years.  I sat in a leadership session once being led by McNair Wilson and during one of the activities he directed everyone in the room to write down something that they had always wanted to do but was either too afraid, or too uncertain, or too nervous to do.

I wrote (and I still have the notebook to back this up!) “Write a book.”

Other than that, at this point, I don’t have anything to share except that this blog is a part of that process – that sitting and writing – sometimes forcefully so – is critical to the completion of this goal.

So, just one month into this new year, thanks for humoring me and please stick around to see what happens next.

general — 1 Comment
25
Dec 09

blessing

If indeed we are created with any resemblance to our creator, Christmas is the season which should most sway our daily pursuits.  It is at Christmas that we see the first creator to created human touch.

It is love birthed into difficulty and pain for the purpose of making bad things better and life worth living.

It is spirit being wrapped in fleshy desires and needs and constraints to teach us how to live unconfined, unsuppressed, un-bottled-up lives.

It is compassion that wants to wildly replicate, without limit or condition.

It is gentleness from the unheralded manger to the uncontested cross.

It is light that neither exposes the darkness, nor conquers the concealed, nor brightes the shadows; it is light that warms, and glows, and pulses with truth like blood through the wrist; it is light with which darkness simply cannot coexist.

May you live with the same gentleness with which Christ entered and existed the created world.  May your compassion not seek renown, or reward, but may it be ultimately transforming for those that live in its wake.  May your spirit burst from the confines of your body and compel others to live as though there are no shackles or chains that could ever contain this life lived with purpose. May your love bring the promises of a far off heaven to the here-and-now earth. And, may your heart radiate a light so pure and strong and compelling that darkness and shadows are forgotten.

This is the gift.  Not the prospects of escaping a wayward humanity with its pain and suffering and questions.  The gift is faith: the faith, so strong, of a creator for His masterpiece to hold ultimate power in their arms, to plot a new course for humanity, and to truly live the unconstrained life.

Merry Christmas.

faith / general / life — 3 Comments
21
Dec 09

gift

For the past several years now, Kristy and I have not actively given each other gifts at Christmastime.  In fact, except for some of the closest children in our lives, we really haven’t given any one gifts at Christmastime.  And we’ve never really taken the time to explain this odd behavior.

It may equate me with the “Grinch” but Christmas does not do much for me.  In past posts, I’ve alluded to my problems with doing for the sake of doing, free from any rationale.  You may recall my thoughts on church, for example.  This is a quite honest representation of who I am as I person: I need to see the rationale before getting behind something.  There has to be a strategy or a purpose.

To be even more specific, it’s not enough to simply have rationale – it’s not an “as long as you can justify it, I’m in” scenario – obviously, the justification and rationale have to align with my beliefs and morals and personality.

It is at this level that Christmas begins to fall apart for me.

Christmas has become the perpetual out-do-myself game.  It’s on a grand scale so we may not even realize it, but for so many of us, this year has to be bigger than last.  Better parties, blingier gifts, nicer decorations, 1000 more bulbs. I wonder if we haven’t made Christmas into a milestone, some point of reference to gauge our progress (read: net worth) year over year.  Last year I was able to spend $X so this year, if I’ve had a successful year, it stands to reason that I should be able to spend $X + $Y.  If not, we’ve obviously not worked hard enough, long enough, made a big enough impression on the men “upstairs” (either literally or figuratively).  Certainly we give gifts away because it’s what culture and baby Jesus would have us to do, but I wonder if we don’t give in a spirit of self-measurement.

It’s not hard to imagine.  We get a card from someone that’s not on our list and some primal guilty panic sets in.  What is the drive behind it?  Fear that the we’ll “owe” the sender something that will strike the cosmic balance in their favor?  Do we honestly think that the forgotten ones are sitting with a Santa Claus style checklist, cross-referencing every piece of festive fan mail that arrives at their doorstep?  Just because we do it ourselves, doesn’t mean everyone does :)

My argument is that this is reflective of the yearly benchmark that we’ve set for ourselves.  More cards out mean more friends this year over last.  More gifts out means more expendable income this year over last.  Net growth is what we’re really after when we venture out into the wilds that are our bliss acquisition depots (a.k.a. shopping malls).

It’s important to be self-aware and introspective.  I don’t want to devalue those things.  What is off, however, is our tendency to measure worth in financial or material terms.  Sure, we’re constantly bombarded with financial news.  It’s strange to go through a day without encountering a stock ticker or at least some reference to which direction the DOW has been headed lately.  It’s understandable for us to measure ourselves by the tools that we have around us – in much the same way that I still find temperatures in Fahrenheit or distances in miles to be confusing at times.

In previous posts, I’m clear about my position that Christians have ruined the church.  Something similar is true for Christmas.  I don’t want to put this all on the church – only to say that this season has been ruined for me.

The beauty has been the rediscovery.

We haven’t completely disengaged from the season.  There are things that still have value and purpose.  But becoming indebted to financial institutions is not my idea of a good time.  And Christmas is still a milestone for us.  But instead of measuring the ways that we’ve made more money in the past year, or met new people that need to read the latest installment of the Smith saga and receive a picture of us sitting under our tree, we’re able to figure out ways that we can give.  We know we’re not “wealthy” when you compare our checkbooks to those of our neighbors, but it’s a beautiful thing to not be in want.  It’s an amazing place to be.

It frees you to be able to mobilize resources, no matter how meager, to help somebody that’s in need.  So instead of buying stuff, and wrapping it in stuff and packing that in stuff, we’ve been able to give.  Maybe it’s a house up the street or maybe it’s children in a country halfway around the world.  We’ve participated in programs like World Vision and local programs designed to help children and their families nearby.  The year we’re helping build wells in Malawi (http://www.equitas.cc).

And, if you’re busy buying Christmas gifts this year – don’t worry, I’m not at all saying that you’re efforts are in vain and stupid and a waste of resources that could otherwise be used to feed the poor.  There IS great value in gift giving – that’s the way that many, many people express their love.  I’m simply saying that, for my wife and I, we’ve chosen to reroute the resources we have to other things.

So, you’re not getting anything from us this year…. again.  Honestly, it’s not that we don’t like you :)  We like you very much.

Merry Christmas

general — Comments Off
21
Dec 09

Explanation

The past couple of weeks have been quite hectic and surprising and fun. The biggest deal was that my parents showed up unexpectedly for my 30th birthday which meant we had lots of time to go the the symphony, play golf, and eat, and very little time to blog.

But, now that life has returned to some semblance of normality, so will my postings.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →