Ads and Temptation

I picked up the latest edition of one of my favourite mags this weekend. Sandwiched in between articles on how to renovate my apartment, I see this ad:

(go ahead, click on it...I'll wait.)

To say I was "insulted" betrays the real issue. You see, after the fact, I looked into this thing - I guess eHarmony.com and Chemistry.com have some kind of freakish rivalry over who can get who to hook up or whatever. I could seriously care less.

What insults me is that the people that made this ad, whether intentionally or not, have shamed everyone who doesn't believe "like they do". They are not just attacking one man who believes a certain way; they are attacking everyone that shares this "archaic" belief that sex before marriage is best avoided. And that it, in fact, might just be harmful and fundamentally poised against God's redemptive purposes.

Wow, this world pisses me off. It latches onto Christians with serrated teeth and accuses them of being judgmental. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they do try and force people into their way of doing things, when those things may not have a whole lot to do with Christ and His redemptive purposes.

But SEX...(got your attention?)...SEX, this world has it covered. Sex isn't "holy". Sex is completely fine outside of marriage. Especially if you're in a "relationship" - after all, we're not monks and nuns here. We have needs. This isn't 1952. Right?

Maybe.

Or maybe the topic of sex is so positively shame-laden because both Christians and the world have lost their way. Maybe we should not suppress it, or let it run rampantly uncontrolled. Christians and the world have done both, at different times, in different ways.

Maybe sex and holiness are indistinguishably intertwined. Maybe sexuality doesn't have a whole lot to do with a penis and a vagina, and a lot more to do with connection. Vulnerability. Integrity, within myself, and with others.

Commitment.

How dare some bulls**t advertising agency suggest otherwise. They are allowed to state their opinion, as they should be. And I am allowed to be pissed, and to take them to task.

This post probably makes me seem a little more conservative than I really am (okay, maybe a lot...I don't feel very post-modern right now. I feel more Dobson-ish..). I'm just pissed off. It's a very present struggle to be a Christian, and I wrestle daily against discouragement and temptations that would so easily derail me.

I'm a single Christian. I've been single longer than I thought I'd be. And I am PISSED OFF that some ad agency would come along and would try to add to the shame that was so hard to give to the Father. I'm pissed that they would want to make it harder for me.

But they have failed. Christ's blood flows in my veins.

"Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard time are inevitable, but you don't have to make it worse - and it's doomsday to you if you do." Mt 18:7, The Message

That is all. Next time we shall talk about Peeps and more pleasant things.

Causes

I find that there are nearly limitless causes with which one could become involved with today. This quote has been floating into my life a lot lately:

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

- Howard Thurman

So much of our generation has rebelled against the "obligation" of Christian service, instead of finding joy in what we do and relating to those we do it for.

I have found such wisdom, peace, strength, in letting go - and when I think of the things I have done without peace and joy in "Christ's name"!

I now know, without condemnation in myself, that these things were done not out of a genuine desire for holiness and Christian service, but out of my own lack of sense of self. I was simply trying to give out of an abundance, a reserve, which I did not have. Even the widow which Jesus praised so highly for giving her last, gave out of what she had to give.

May we, as Christians, come alive inside. Start living. May we now become genuine with ourselves, and with a world that needs to see people ALIVE in Christ.

Galatians 2:20 -

"I am crucified with Christ, so that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."

How my perspective on this verse has changed! The closer we draw to Him, the closer we should be drawing to our real selves.

Let Me Grow Young

A month or so back, a co-worker casually told this story, about her grandfather I think it was...the story has haunted me since. I'd like to share it.

The story goes, that her family was gathered at the house one night. The grandfather, in his 90's, still insisted on taking his turn with the chores - this night, he was washing the dishes as the rest of the family socialized in the living room. At one point, someone noticed that granddad was taking an awfully long time with this chore.

They found him slumped over the kitchen sink, dish and washcloth still in hand.

And she said that the entire family gathered in the doorway. No one screamed, or cried.

They just...marveled.

They just...stood, in awe.

In reverence, to a life fully lived.

I usually picture someone's last days spent in a hospital bed, maybe some feeding tubes. Sickness, pain, everyone holding their breath through the night to see if he or she "made it" to another day. But not this man.

He was just living life, doing a perfectly ordinary thing. In one instant, he was washing a dish, fully present in the same world he had spent the past 90-odd years. And then...he was gone.

It makes me reverent.

He went somewhere. He lived life, then he left. Where did he go?

Heather Nova is a new favourite of mine: "Sitting here I remember, it's easy to smile. Let me grow young, like a brand new day, like I've just begun."

This story, these lyrics, they slap me across the face, they pour ice cold conviction down my back.

I burn, something in me screams, to lead people somewhere. To take my turn at my post.

To wash the dishes.

How can I feel younger at 30 than I did at 20?

Because there is purpose, passion, authority, which compels me forward to take people somewhere they've never been. It's easy to grow old on the inside, which is what God is really concerned with: our heart, our inside.

What screams inside you?

We never have to grow old. We were never meant to.

Let's all go somewhere together.

Let's grow young together.

Being Green in an Apartment

I have had several discussions the past few weeks regarding home ownership vs. renting. I am tempted to (though I won't) go into the philosophy behind land/home ownership, and why it is not the achievement, status marker, or privilege it once was. Witness the plethora of "subprime" loan defaults, and what this has done to the world economy.

But land ownership no longer means you "own" the land. Let's say you own, and would like to be green. Put up a solar panel or install a compost box in your front yard, and you earn the wrath of your sullen neighbours. Thou Shalt Not Violate the Neighbourhood Covenant. Thy lawn shall be cropped, your car shalt not lie upon cinder blocks, and you and your family shall be beautiful, easy on the eyes, and loving at all times for thy neighbours' benefit.

Welcome to Pleasantville (formerly Dysfunction Junction).

I'm sure you're picking up the sarcasm, as was once quoted in the masterpiece Tommy Boy, because I'm laying it on pretty thick. Home owners' agreements (HOAs), neighbourhood covenants, and the like are a not-so-subtle method of control - community feudalism. And it's unnecessary.

Not that home ownership is never a good idea. For many of my friends, married with families, home ownership makes quite a bit of sense. I grew up out in the countryside of Ohio with farms bordering 3 sides of the house, and I can't imagine spending that childhood trapped in a Dayton apartment or condo with no room to explore outdoors. Though of course, owning a house means lots of work - you're committed to those studs and drywall, and you may even find yourself hosting a DIY party!

Nothing spells "fun" like alcohol, power tools, twelve friends, and a guest bathroom that needs redone.

The whole reason for this post is that I am in the process of discovering just how fun being in an apartment can be. As a birthday gift last year, I got my first issue of ReadyMade magazine and have fallen in love with their little DIY projects. I find myself looking around my little apartment saying, "what can I do with THIS corner? what can I build that would do this??" And with a little help from my favourite store of all time, 10,000 Villages, it's working pretty well, I must say.

Plus, in the words of the late, great Mitch Hedberg: "I wanna go to the Apartment Depot. Just a bunch of guys standing around saying 'I have an apartment, I don't gotta fix s***'."

Now, after all that, I will definitely admit to looking at a house for sale on Oak Street this week, and wistfully thinking about how great it would look with a new deck...

Connection and Disconnect

Okay so this probably won't make a whole lot of sense....but it is therapeutic for me to put some thoughts down for the world to see. So let's try to keep up, shall we?

I had an experience this morning. It's one of those times where you're sitting across from someone and you're sharing really deep, intimate, personal stuff, but it's really a goodbye moment where you realize that this is the last time you will ever share yourself with that person. Someone I've been connected to, but when the conversation was over and I walked away, I became disconnected from.

If it's God's plan that we all enter into relationship, then why do relationships end?

I used to think this was tragic, but I don't think that anymore. Actually, I think it is beautiful. Because two imperfect people tried to make a connection and it didn't stick. Things like personality, pride, lies, insecurity, and all kinds of other gunk got in the way, but here were two imperfect people who gave it a go anyways.

And if God promises that all the gunk will one day be burned away, then what are we left with? Perfect relationships. Nothing can stand in the way of this eventually happening, and all the pain and injustice will be forgotten.

Human relationships are beautiful because two imperfect people attempt to participate in the work of God. And I believe He smiles on our feeble attempts to instinctively make things right again.

The definition of "Disposable Income"

Especially the intro screen - talk about effective marketing! This was forwarded to me by an old college friend.

http://www.cleanishappy.com/

I found myself bored and played "which butt belongs to which person?" Stellar use of my life.

Review of Velvet Elvis

I have been trying to put together occasional book reviews, since I'm kind of addicted to reading. Below is a review of The Velvet Elvis which I penned some time ago. Enjoy.

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Rob Bell

Zondervan, 2005

$14.99 (paperback)

I have the tendency to immediately reject membership in any movement, Christian or otherwise, which has a name. Terms such as Emergent or Post-Modern already threaten to be the latest and greatest catch-phrases through which to define a generation. Maybe I, like most of “my generation”, just don’t like to be pigeon-holed or placed in a paradigm that would serve to define (read: limit) me. Though the Velvet Elvis has been considered by some to be a work belonging to the Emergent movement, one quickly gathers from Rob Bell that such a movement is not actually a new idea at all.

This book is divided into ideas, simple divisions of thought. It reads much the way a conversation might read between two similarly minded people. Perhaps those having the insight/foresight to recognize a “Christian” paradigm when they spot it. Through the scope of the biggest gun they can find. Then having the courage to pull the trigger and see what happens.

But Bell would argue that this is not new. According to him, this is the way it was always intended to be. Bell compares living the Christian faith to art, to an epic work-in-progress, and as such he argues that we need our space, our room to work. That we must be allowed to wrestle with big questions and, perhaps, even disagree with the answers that someone else, no matter how distinguished, has wrought from his or her journey. As he puts it,

“For thousands of years followers of Jesus, like artists, have understood that we

have to keep going, exploring what it means to live in harmony with God and

each other…Jesus took part in this process by calling people to rethink faith and

the Bible and hope and love and everything else, and by inviting them into the

endless process of working out how to live as God created us to live.” (pg. 11)

I suspect one reason for Velvet Elvis’ growing popularity is simply that Bell is able to succinctly pen the sentiment of frustration and rising indignancy which many now associate with established Christian “culture”. It strikes Bell as offensive that so many have been told not to think, “or if you must, at least think the way WE think”.

Some of the statements within the book can come across as too simplistic, such as when Bell seems to boast of his ministry’s lack of planning and absence of vision statement. It is clear from reading the book that Bell’s ministry does, in fact, have a vision, and a very powerful one. The vision statement could be the book itself.

As mentioned, Bell’s volume is fairly brief, and at $14.99 I would recommend first attempting to borrow a copy from a friend or library. The ideas are not new, but rather reminders of what faith is supposed to be: a work in progress. We must be allowed to paint our own picture. I especially like that Bell emphasizes good hermeneutics and Biblical scholarship as essential pieces of the journey, as otherwise his philosophy could be mistaken for touchy-feely, make-your-own-faith, New Age rubbish. But it is not. It is, it seems to me, founded upon truth, and the desire to search out that truth. To dig Truth out from its lair.