I'd like to begin today with an extremely random quote: "Do or do not; there is no try" --Yoda. Our favorite green jedi munchkin utters this line while trying to get Luke Skywalker to use the force strongly enough to lift his X-wing out of the swamp that inexplicably exists on (in?) the asteroid where Yoda lives. At least I think that's how it goes; I haven't seen the old Star Wars movies in quite a while.
Anyway, that particular line has always been one I've loved to quote, partially because Yoda is one of the only voice impressions I can do with any level of proficiency whatsoever and partly because it just seems applicable in many situations. You have to watch out for Yoda, though. As the main philosopher of the Star Wars series (along with Obi-wan, I guess), he's always saying things that are obviously meant to be profound costumed in a mystifying array of vague spirituality, ambiguity, and reversed syntax. When you look closer, though, his statements usually fall somewhere on the spectrum between pure nonsense and outright falsehood.
This one is a prime example. Now, I think it's true that people tend to use the phrase, "I'll try" to indicate that no one should expect them to succeed, either because they aren't up to the task or because they don't actually plan to expend that much effort on it. So in that sense, Yoda's instruction could be legitimate. A jedi saying they'd try would be a cop-out of that order, since the force should enable them to do basically whatever they want (an interesting issue never really addressed in the films, by the way-- why can't they fly? why can't they all shoot lightning out of their hands? If Vader can choke people with his mind, why does he even bother with a lightsaber? But I digress.) Here in the real world, though, there is no force. Here, we have God.
The most powerful force in the universe is not a formless power that can be used to good or evil ends. Far from it, He's a person (three of them, actually) with a very specific will for how things are going to go in his world. His sovereign will puts us in the position where we clearly do not have control over our own success or failure.
I'm not trying to get into the whole free will vs. sovereignty argument here. I think it's self evident, though, that our best-laid plans tend to "gang aft a-gley" as Robert Burns said (rough translation: they go straight to crap a lot of the time). A much more intelligible quote from another poet sums it up quite nicely, I think: "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." --T.S. Eliot. Now, Mr. Eliot wrote some really depressing poetry (and some very snobbish literary criticism) early in his career, but then an amazing thing happened: he met Jesus. The quote above is from after that happened, in the midst of his crowning accomplishment, a very long poetic meditation on the value of life (and other things) called The Four Quartets, which I highly recommend.
I think T.S. Eliot was wiser than Yoda. I also think that the preceding is a sentence that has never before been written in the history of literature. I'm ok with that. All I know is that the Bible is filled with verses backing up the idea that we have very little control of the "do or do not" part of life. For us, there is only try!
"Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?" Lamentations 3:37-38
"Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain." Psalm 127:1
"Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished, you have done for us" Isaiah 26:12
Far from being depressing, this is freedom. If our success or failure as men or women-- as Christians, as people-- depends on our own efforts, we are screwed. But God takes the pressure off! He is already doing things; the things that we have accomplished are all things that he did. Instead of worrying about whether we succeed or fail, we get the privilege of discovering and participating in the plans of God.
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" Ephesians 2:10 (ESV).
I quoted from the ESV here because the NIV makes the verse sound unnecessarily Yoda-ish by inexplicably translating the Greek word for walk as "do" in this verse (and in no other place for whatever reason) and adding another "do" before good works, where there isn't even a verb in the original! Their carelessness caused me to misunderstand this verse for years, thinking that I had to somehow make God's plans happen.
What if instead, God is already at work in His world? What if his plans are already in motion, and we can just walk right into them as we pursue relationship with Him? What if all we have to do is try, and He handles the success and gives us failure when we need it? What if we can trust that He is strong and He loves us, and the rest is not our business?
Can we really be led by the hand of God, hear his voice, and work alongside Him in his perfect plan?
It's something I'd like to try.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, August 22, 2011
Saying Yes
Have you ever had something you've said or written come back to get in your way when you want to do or say something else? That happened to me this week, but it was actually a really good thing. I'll explain.
You see, over the years, I have located a lot of amusing, random and even positively worthwhile (although representatives of this last category are much fewer and further between) content on the monstrous website we all know as Youtube. Every now and again, I'll go to make a joke or a reference to one of these videos I like, but then no one has ever seen it and my joke just falls flat. Or even worse, I'm laughing and no one else is--they're just standing there awkwardly, perhaps offering a slight polite chuckle, trying to affirm that my sense of humor is valid while knowing that they never plan to watch the video in question (or if they do plan to, that they'll never remember what it is when they go to look for it).
My solution to this problem? If you're thinking "stop making jokes based on obscure time-wasting internet videos?" I have to commend your logic, but perhaps you don't know me very well. No, I had a much more comprehensive solution in mind: Compile a list of every crazy Youtube video that I might possibly want to reference or joke about, then post it on my blog so thatall my friends at least everyone who reads that will understand and be able to laugh when I want to talk/post about these things. Because all of you would instantly devote your next several hours to watching all of them as soon as I did that, right?
Yeah, it sounds kind of dumb when I write it all out like that--which brings me to my point, really. One of the benefits of writing things down is that it helps you clarify what's important and worthwhile. Another benefit is that if you write down the good things you learn, they can help convict you and get you back on track later when you're about to do or say or post something stupid.
In my case, I had just written at length about how we're going to die and we don't know when, so we might as well use our time for things that actually matter. I was seriously about to directly follow that post (see below) with a giant list of Youtube videos. Just think about that for a second. To use the internet term, *facepalm*.
As some of you may know, I have just a bit of an addictive personality. It's a strange combination of being very easy to amuse, difficult to distract, and able to tune the whole world out and focus on one thing. I tell people I can't have ADD-- no way I have a deficit of attention, I have a surplus. It may be a disorder though... anyway, suffice it to say that almost anything can get my attention and hold it for longer than most people would imagine, sometimes even at the expense of eating, sleeping, conversing or other necessary life functions.
So imagine what Youtube does to me.
I can't even begin to tell you how much of my life has been flushed down that drain. I'm really not sure why I would want anyone else to experience that. Certainly me seeming funnier is not a good enough reason.
And really, mindless waste of time is one of the best sides of Youtube. There's a whole underworld of darkness and inappropriate content on it as well that they don't advertise, but they know it drives a huge portion of their traffic. You just have to look at what kinds of videos have the most views.
Anyway, I didn't really write this to bash a website. I know Youtube can be used for good things too, like learning how to do things. My church's worship team uses it to help teach people new songs because pretty much every song in the world is posted on it somewhere (most illegally of course, but that's a topic for a different blog). As with almost all our greatest human inventions, though, our greatest blessings become our greatest curses too. After all, pretty much any problem or benefit you can point out with Youtube also applies to the Internet at large. Clearly, the issue here is not Youtube.
The issue is me.
More specifically, will I say yes to God's will even when it means laying down my plans or frivolous enjoyments? (both of which are perfectly illustrated by my Youtube list/plan) Underneath that, one level further down, will I trust that God's plan for my life will be the best, most fulfilling one in the end?
By not posting my list, I'm saying I will.
It's interesting too that as I am willing to submit myself in this way, God is giving me new ways to deny my own will and live for his, some little and some larger. For example on this blog, I took down my poem of the day gadget even though I love poems because some of its content was questionable/depressing. I also took down my movie list because... it reminded me way too much of the Youtube list. I'm not going to lie, some of this can get a little frustrating! Sometimes I can get all like, "really? you're not letting me have this? Now my blog sidebar won't be nearly long enough to line up with my posts!" or some other such ridiculous thing. My order and my plans get challenged by his order and his plans (by the way, when I say not letting me, I refer not to a physical prohibition but to the way my peace of mind and spirit start to evaporate when I consider doing said thing). Even if it's a bigger thing (like fasting, for example, which seems huge to me at least) the peace that comes from listening to that still small voice is worth whatever I have to give up.
One step further: I believe it's the only way for me to grow into the things I need to become in this season of my life (and live in the way I suggested in my last blog). I don't have to figure myself or my life out! I'm thankful for that-- I don't know which one of the two would be harder to decipher. What I do have to do is trust enough to slow down, listen to a God who desires to speak, and then say yes.
Not maybe, not later, not yesbut, just yes. After saying yes, then I just have to do the yes. It's no good to be the son who pays lip service but doesn't do anything! Better to be one who says no but then does the yes, actually (see Matthew 21:28-31). I can plan my course, but I want to let God determine my steps (see Proverbs 16:9). It's very simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It actually takes God's strength to say yes to God, which is a whole other level of confusing that I don't have time to go into right now because I've been focused on writing this blog at the expense of eating, as I mentioned that I tend to do. I only bring it up to say that it requires we depend on him, not on ourselves.
Trust. Listen. Say Yes. Do Yes. Repeat.
The rest is up to him.
You see, over the years, I have located a lot of amusing, random and even positively worthwhile (although representatives of this last category are much fewer and further between) content on the monstrous website we all know as Youtube. Every now and again, I'll go to make a joke or a reference to one of these videos I like, but then no one has ever seen it and my joke just falls flat. Or even worse, I'm laughing and no one else is--they're just standing there awkwardly, perhaps offering a slight polite chuckle, trying to affirm that my sense of humor is valid while knowing that they never plan to watch the video in question (or if they do plan to, that they'll never remember what it is when they go to look for it).
My solution to this problem? If you're thinking "stop making jokes based on obscure time-wasting internet videos?" I have to commend your logic, but perhaps you don't know me very well. No, I had a much more comprehensive solution in mind: Compile a list of every crazy Youtube video that I might possibly want to reference or joke about, then post it on my blog so that
Yeah, it sounds kind of dumb when I write it all out like that--which brings me to my point, really. One of the benefits of writing things down is that it helps you clarify what's important and worthwhile. Another benefit is that if you write down the good things you learn, they can help convict you and get you back on track later when you're about to do or say or post something stupid.
In my case, I had just written at length about how we're going to die and we don't know when, so we might as well use our time for things that actually matter. I was seriously about to directly follow that post (see below) with a giant list of Youtube videos. Just think about that for a second. To use the internet term, *facepalm*.
As some of you may know, I have just a bit of an addictive personality. It's a strange combination of being very easy to amuse, difficult to distract, and able to tune the whole world out and focus on one thing. I tell people I can't have ADD-- no way I have a deficit of attention, I have a surplus. It may be a disorder though... anyway, suffice it to say that almost anything can get my attention and hold it for longer than most people would imagine, sometimes even at the expense of eating, sleeping, conversing or other necessary life functions.
So imagine what Youtube does to me.
I can't even begin to tell you how much of my life has been flushed down that drain. I'm really not sure why I would want anyone else to experience that. Certainly me seeming funnier is not a good enough reason.
And really, mindless waste of time is one of the best sides of Youtube. There's a whole underworld of darkness and inappropriate content on it as well that they don't advertise, but they know it drives a huge portion of their traffic. You just have to look at what kinds of videos have the most views.
Anyway, I didn't really write this to bash a website. I know Youtube can be used for good things too, like learning how to do things. My church's worship team uses it to help teach people new songs because pretty much every song in the world is posted on it somewhere (most illegally of course, but that's a topic for a different blog). As with almost all our greatest human inventions, though, our greatest blessings become our greatest curses too. After all, pretty much any problem or benefit you can point out with Youtube also applies to the Internet at large. Clearly, the issue here is not Youtube.
The issue is me.
More specifically, will I say yes to God's will even when it means laying down my plans or frivolous enjoyments? (both of which are perfectly illustrated by my Youtube list/plan) Underneath that, one level further down, will I trust that God's plan for my life will be the best, most fulfilling one in the end?
By not posting my list, I'm saying I will.
It's interesting too that as I am willing to submit myself in this way, God is giving me new ways to deny my own will and live for his, some little and some larger. For example on this blog, I took down my poem of the day gadget even though I love poems because some of its content was questionable/depressing. I also took down my movie list because... it reminded me way too much of the Youtube list. I'm not going to lie, some of this can get a little frustrating! Sometimes I can get all like, "really? you're not letting me have this? Now my blog sidebar won't be nearly long enough to line up with my posts!" or some other such ridiculous thing. My order and my plans get challenged by his order and his plans (by the way, when I say not letting me, I refer not to a physical prohibition but to the way my peace of mind and spirit start to evaporate when I consider doing said thing). Even if it's a bigger thing (like fasting, for example, which seems huge to me at least) the peace that comes from listening to that still small voice is worth whatever I have to give up.
One step further: I believe it's the only way for me to grow into the things I need to become in this season of my life (and live in the way I suggested in my last blog). I don't have to figure myself or my life out! I'm thankful for that-- I don't know which one of the two would be harder to decipher. What I do have to do is trust enough to slow down, listen to a God who desires to speak, and then say yes.
Not maybe, not later, not yesbut, just yes. After saying yes, then I just have to do the yes. It's no good to be the son who pays lip service but doesn't do anything! Better to be one who says no but then does the yes, actually (see Matthew 21:28-31). I can plan my course, but I want to let God determine my steps (see Proverbs 16:9). It's very simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It actually takes God's strength to say yes to God, which is a whole other level of confusing that I don't have time to go into right now because I've been focused on writing this blog at the expense of eating, as I mentioned that I tend to do. I only bring it up to say that it requires we depend on him, not on ourselves.
Trust. Listen. Say Yes. Do Yes. Repeat.
The rest is up to him.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Christmas Traditions
A lot of my holiday traditions got disrupted this year. The simple fact that I live in a different place now was responsible for a lot of it, but there were also some other changes for a variety of reasons. For example, none of my Christmas ornaments got hung on any tree this year, probably for the first time since I was born. Well, actually that isn't quite true; my parents were trying to steal a few of them by hanging them on their tree while I was separating mine out of their boxes. I caught them :)
Anyhow, none of that is as important as what it all got me thinking about. The holidays seem to me to be the time of the year most governed by tradition. I mean, there are various traditional things throughout the year, but especially around Christmas there is this whole extra set of rules and practices that goes into effect. Presents, decorations, music, shopping, cards, and all kinds of other things that no one thinks that much about the rest of the year suddenly become the main focus of life (or at least it seems like that). Not that any of those things are bad (except maybe the music *shudder* that gets piped into stores like the one I work in constantly and makes me a little extra cynical-- not carols mind you, which are about Jesus, but just songs... meaningless, mindless, repetitive, and totally empty. This has been my bah humbug Christmas moment. We now return to the regularly scheduled blog [and sentence] already in progress), it's just that I feel like they all get done without any thought involved. This is what we're supposed to do now, so it has to be done.
I guess I just don't like it when Christmas becomes a to-do list. No wonder people are so stressed out and angry. There's a whole load of extra things they suddenly have to take time out of their busy lives to accomplish! What's worse, the whole process has (in many cases) been so completely divorced from the deeper meaning it was supposed to have that it has to leave many people scratching their heads as to why they run themselves into the ground trying to do it all. I mean, the only possible way you could find out the real meaning of all this stuff from our "Christmas culture" is if you happen to listen to Linus in the Charlie Brown Christmas special-- which by some miracle, seeing as how it contains essentially the gospel message straight out of Luke, is still aired on secular tv every Christmas.
I'm going to stop right there before I start ranting about how secular culture is ruining Christmas by looking for it in all the wrong places. I did that last Christmas (and it can be found in the archives of this very blog). What I want to do instead is just ask the question that has been on my mind.
What if we could just throw the Christmas to-do list away?
Perhaps better stated, what if we should just throw the Christmas to-do list away? Would we be able to do it? Would we want to? What if we really spent Christmas asking Christ how he wanted us to celebrate it? What would he say? Are we afraid of what he might say, so afraid that we won't even dare to ask? How would it feel to be the only one in your family to be stemming the onrushing tide of tradition?
I guess that was more than one question. I didn't realize how much was in that thought until I was writing it, but it's all what I've been thinking about. And really, please do not hear me saying that tradition is somehow evil. I think it often has great value, and Jesus himself instituted some traditions, most notably the sacrament of communion. Speaking of communion, it seems like community and fellowship were things that Jesus cared about a lot more than material possessions. Perhaps his answers to the questions of how we should spend Christmas would be along those lines?
Anyway, tradition isn't bad, but it is made for us, not us for the tradition. All too often, I think, tradition becomes little more than a euphemism for blindly doing what we always have and an excuse for not involving Jesus in our decision-making processes. All I know is, I did Christmas again this year. Very little of it did I ask God about; some parts of it I liked, some I didn't. I know it would be extremely hard for me to give up presents if God asked me to do that. I just want to know that I would do it, and to be honest I can't say for sure. I'd give up the music in a heartbeat, I know that much. But what if I just put the whole process in his control?
Above all, I just want to be close enough to the heart of God to hear how he wants me to spend my time and money. I hate the idea of doing things for no reason. I want God to put on my heart the gifts to bring, just like he did for the wise men so long ago. I don't know what (if anything) he would have me change in my Christmas traditions for next year. I just hope I listen.
Anyhow, none of that is as important as what it all got me thinking about. The holidays seem to me to be the time of the year most governed by tradition. I mean, there are various traditional things throughout the year, but especially around Christmas there is this whole extra set of rules and practices that goes into effect. Presents, decorations, music, shopping, cards, and all kinds of other things that no one thinks that much about the rest of the year suddenly become the main focus of life (or at least it seems like that). Not that any of those things are bad (except maybe the music *shudder* that gets piped into stores like the one I work in constantly and makes me a little extra cynical-- not carols mind you, which are about Jesus, but just songs... meaningless, mindless, repetitive, and totally empty. This has been my bah humbug Christmas moment. We now return to the regularly scheduled blog [and sentence] already in progress), it's just that I feel like they all get done without any thought involved. This is what we're supposed to do now, so it has to be done.
I guess I just don't like it when Christmas becomes a to-do list. No wonder people are so stressed out and angry. There's a whole load of extra things they suddenly have to take time out of their busy lives to accomplish! What's worse, the whole process has (in many cases) been so completely divorced from the deeper meaning it was supposed to have that it has to leave many people scratching their heads as to why they run themselves into the ground trying to do it all. I mean, the only possible way you could find out the real meaning of all this stuff from our "Christmas culture" is if you happen to listen to Linus in the Charlie Brown Christmas special-- which by some miracle, seeing as how it contains essentially the gospel message straight out of Luke, is still aired on secular tv every Christmas.
I'm going to stop right there before I start ranting about how secular culture is ruining Christmas by looking for it in all the wrong places. I did that last Christmas (and it can be found in the archives of this very blog). What I want to do instead is just ask the question that has been on my mind.
What if we could just throw the Christmas to-do list away?
Perhaps better stated, what if we should just throw the Christmas to-do list away? Would we be able to do it? Would we want to? What if we really spent Christmas asking Christ how he wanted us to celebrate it? What would he say? Are we afraid of what he might say, so afraid that we won't even dare to ask? How would it feel to be the only one in your family to be stemming the onrushing tide of tradition?
I guess that was more than one question. I didn't realize how much was in that thought until I was writing it, but it's all what I've been thinking about. And really, please do not hear me saying that tradition is somehow evil. I think it often has great value, and Jesus himself instituted some traditions, most notably the sacrament of communion. Speaking of communion, it seems like community and fellowship were things that Jesus cared about a lot more than material possessions. Perhaps his answers to the questions of how we should spend Christmas would be along those lines?
Anyway, tradition isn't bad, but it is made for us, not us for the tradition. All too often, I think, tradition becomes little more than a euphemism for blindly doing what we always have and an excuse for not involving Jesus in our decision-making processes. All I know is, I did Christmas again this year. Very little of it did I ask God about; some parts of it I liked, some I didn't. I know it would be extremely hard for me to give up presents if God asked me to do that. I just want to know that I would do it, and to be honest I can't say for sure. I'd give up the music in a heartbeat, I know that much. But what if I just put the whole process in his control?
Above all, I just want to be close enough to the heart of God to hear how he wants me to spend my time and money. I hate the idea of doing things for no reason. I want God to put on my heart the gifts to bring, just like he did for the wise men so long ago. I don't know what (if anything) he would have me change in my Christmas traditions for next year. I just hope I listen.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Finding Christmas
As I've been getting older, I find that I sometimes have trouble getting in the "Christmas spirit" like I did when I was a kid. Maybe it's just because when I was little, all Christmas meant to me really was the excitement of getting new stuff. You know, waking up and realizing you finally made it through the agonizingly long night, going downstairs to find the tree all lit up and a beautiful unknown haul of presents under it... that kind of stuff. I think decorations also seem more fun and festive when you're a little kid, and they certainly aren't just another task that needs to be completed. Anyway, Christmas was definitely joyful to me when I was a child, albeit possibly not for the right reasons.
Somewhere along the way, though, you start to realize that presents aren't always going to be enough. I've always known what Christmas is really all about (Linus in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" anyone?), but I think my young brain had a bad disconnect between that and what actually happened around Christmas. Good tidings of great joy=...presents?? Now, I realize of course that Jesus gave us the best gift and that's why we give gifts on Christmas, and I love giving gifts to people I love! All I know is, I was at the mall yesterday buying said gifts, and I left feeling depressed despite the fact that I got some really cool stuff I'm excited about giving.
Here's a poem I wrote most of a long time ago (and without thinking about Christmas) that describes some of my thoughts today:
Search Engine
A search for entertainment, from desire to forget
the pains already suffered and prevent the ones not yet,
a fight to disengage the mind and not to know, just feel:
we can only live when happy; deeper feelings we conceal.
So the cycle will increase just as it always has before,
an insatiable desire reaching out for more and more.
A search for education, to remember we aspire,
to learn why things aren’t working out through knowledge we acquire,
and so the mind is stretched while the emotions just congeal:
we trust only what we understand and nothing else is real.
But as we learn, the more we know at some things we must guess:
disillusionment reversed, reaching into less and less.
A search for something different, but what difference does it make
in a Nutri-sweet and plastic world where everything is fake?
Still the imitations indicate that real things do exist,
and they might be there for finding if we only can resist
the current that pulls down around and kills beneath the fall
to go through instead of under, to where truth is all in all.
I guess maybe I'm just tired of all the fakeness. I'm with Charlie Brown: Christmas is way too commercial. And man, if he was worried about that in the '60's, what would he say now? See, I'm all in favor of gifts, but I'm worried that we're skipping the part about honoring and remembering Jesus' gift and just using it as an excuse to go whole-hog into the materialism that is probably the #1 besetting vice of American culture. I know he would want us to celebrate his birth, but I can't help asking: is this how he would want us to do it?
It's this materialistic tendency, I think, that can make all the best things about Christmas the things that we end up hating. Maybe that's why I like How the Grinch Stole Christmas (both versions) more than almost any of my friends do. I identify with the Grinch! I also think the modern version is really on to something with this idea of Christmas as a search for something. Unfortunately, they chose to express that insight through the song, "Where are you, Christmas?", a song that is almost tolerable when that cute little who sings it, but completely insufferable when sung by Faith Hill or whoever it was in the credits. In any case, that song (like so many other secular songs) is inches away from being a Jesus song. It has an excellent grasp of a real problem... but then it offers a worthless solution.
The solution offered by the song is, however, close: it suggests saving Christmas by having love and joy in our hearts. Great, now how do I do that, especially when I have to go to the mall filled with shoppers that generally tend to seem much more angry than loving and workers that seem far more depressed than joyful? That could just be because I'm such a last minute shopper... but still. The key thing is, there's no way I can just generate these good feelings. In the terms of my poem above, I can't entertain myself into forgetting my pain, and I can't intellectualize it away. I desperately need a third option, but I find it obscured by a lot of fakeness and annoying decorations.
I'm not trying to be a downer here. I think the state of Christmas in America is pretty sad, but there is one thing I like about it: it gets people searching. It's also the one time every year when the gospel message gets on national tv (thank God for Linus!). Hopefully, when people get tired of the cheap imitations, they'll realize that the mere proliferation of imitations means there must be something real somewhere. There is real love to be had, and real joy comes with it. That's why all I really want to do this Christmas is worship God and spend time with people I love. What if we focused on that instead of making a part-time job out of managing/purchasing/looking for Christmas? As I'm trying to shift my focus, I'm noticing that the real joy and peace that are supposed to be associated with Christmas spirit have come to me from the Father and his love! Have we ever thought that maybe the "Christmas Spirit" should be the Holy Spirit? I ask because the Spirit is the one who reveals the Father's love and the joy of being saved by Jesus to us, and we'll never find Christmas until we find Christ.
Somewhere along the way, though, you start to realize that presents aren't always going to be enough. I've always known what Christmas is really all about (Linus in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" anyone?), but I think my young brain had a bad disconnect between that and what actually happened around Christmas. Good tidings of great joy=...presents?? Now, I realize of course that Jesus gave us the best gift and that's why we give gifts on Christmas, and I love giving gifts to people I love! All I know is, I was at the mall yesterday buying said gifts, and I left feeling depressed despite the fact that I got some really cool stuff I'm excited about giving.
Here's a poem I wrote most of a long time ago (and without thinking about Christmas) that describes some of my thoughts today:
Search Engine
A search for entertainment, from desire to forget
the pains already suffered and prevent the ones not yet,
a fight to disengage the mind and not to know, just feel:
we can only live when happy; deeper feelings we conceal.
So the cycle will increase just as it always has before,
an insatiable desire reaching out for more and more.
A search for education, to remember we aspire,
to learn why things aren’t working out through knowledge we acquire,
and so the mind is stretched while the emotions just congeal:
we trust only what we understand and nothing else is real.
But as we learn, the more we know at some things we must guess:
disillusionment reversed, reaching into less and less.
A search for something different, but what difference does it make
in a Nutri-sweet and plastic world where everything is fake?
Still the imitations indicate that real things do exist,
and they might be there for finding if we only can resist
the current that pulls down around and kills beneath the fall
to go through instead of under, to where truth is all in all.
I guess maybe I'm just tired of all the fakeness. I'm with Charlie Brown: Christmas is way too commercial. And man, if he was worried about that in the '60's, what would he say now? See, I'm all in favor of gifts, but I'm worried that we're skipping the part about honoring and remembering Jesus' gift and just using it as an excuse to go whole-hog into the materialism that is probably the #1 besetting vice of American culture. I know he would want us to celebrate his birth, but I can't help asking: is this how he would want us to do it?
It's this materialistic tendency, I think, that can make all the best things about Christmas the things that we end up hating. Maybe that's why I like How the Grinch Stole Christmas (both versions) more than almost any of my friends do. I identify with the Grinch! I also think the modern version is really on to something with this idea of Christmas as a search for something. Unfortunately, they chose to express that insight through the song, "Where are you, Christmas?", a song that is almost tolerable when that cute little who sings it, but completely insufferable when sung by Faith Hill or whoever it was in the credits. In any case, that song (like so many other secular songs) is inches away from being a Jesus song. It has an excellent grasp of a real problem... but then it offers a worthless solution.
The solution offered by the song is, however, close: it suggests saving Christmas by having love and joy in our hearts. Great, now how do I do that, especially when I have to go to the mall filled with shoppers that generally tend to seem much more angry than loving and workers that seem far more depressed than joyful? That could just be because I'm such a last minute shopper... but still. The key thing is, there's no way I can just generate these good feelings. In the terms of my poem above, I can't entertain myself into forgetting my pain, and I can't intellectualize it away. I desperately need a third option, but I find it obscured by a lot of fakeness and annoying decorations.
I'm not trying to be a downer here. I think the state of Christmas in America is pretty sad, but there is one thing I like about it: it gets people searching. It's also the one time every year when the gospel message gets on national tv (thank God for Linus!). Hopefully, when people get tired of the cheap imitations, they'll realize that the mere proliferation of imitations means there must be something real somewhere. There is real love to be had, and real joy comes with it. That's why all I really want to do this Christmas is worship God and spend time with people I love. What if we focused on that instead of making a part-time job out of managing/purchasing/looking for Christmas? As I'm trying to shift my focus, I'm noticing that the real joy and peace that are supposed to be associated with Christmas spirit have come to me from the Father and his love! Have we ever thought that maybe the "Christmas Spirit" should be the Holy Spirit? I ask because the Spirit is the one who reveals the Father's love and the joy of being saved by Jesus to us, and we'll never find Christmas until we find Christ.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Lists and Randomness
As I predicted in my first entry, it turns out that sometimes I don't have much going on in the way of serious or meaningful thoughts. But, this is my blog and I'm free to post whatever random stuff I come up with, so in that spirit I've added some lists to the right-hand sidebar of the blog. I noticed that due to my general long-windedness when talking about serious subjects, there was starting to be a huge chunk of boring white space underneath the information over there on the right, so this is the beginning of my efforts to fix that.
So, the first list is of my favorite (read: most used) websites, sites that I think are exceptionally useful, fun, or well-made. Basically, anything I link to in any of my posts will show up there, so that if you like one of the links in the posts you won't have to go searching through all the entries to find it again. Believe me, this will be much more important someday when there are more than five posts here. (As a side note, I bet that a pretty fair percentage of blogs started on free sites like this never end up with more than, say, 3 posts on them before people quit/lose interest. However, I'm not one to do things like that, and I'm in this for the long haul. Someday there's going to be a heck of a lot of text on this blog, and at that point you really won't want to search through all my rantings to find one stupid link. I'm just planning ahead.)
Second, we have a running update on the bands (in order) that currently find themselves in the honored position of having all their cd's in my main case. This is subject to change based on my whims and tastes, and based on whether I ever have enough money again to buy cd's. All of these artists are very anti-bubble (see previous post) in my mind... a lot of them are Christian bands, but ones that are more outside the Christian system and on the indie side of things. A lot of people will not have heard of a lot of the stuff there, but that's fine by me. Check it out if you want, as it's all quality music first and foremost (and by music, I mean music and lyrics. I find that the music that I really like over a long period of time always has interesting/meaningful words, not just creative instrumentation).
Finally, and probably most controversially, I included a list of my favorite movies ever. Not what I think are necessarily the BEST movies ever, just my favorites (which is an important distinction: otherwise I'd have no justification for having Citizen Kane lower than Mystery Men). And yes, these are generally in order, so you can see my rankings. However, the ranking process was far less than scientific, and it may be prone to gross miscalculations and glaring omissions. Those situations are where you should post a comment and remind me of important movies I may have forgotten and/or campaign for movies you like to be moved up or movies you hate to be moved down the list. I welcome all manner of comments about this.
By the way, this list was created with a great deal of help from IMDb, another amazing website now appearing in the links list. (http://www.imdb.com/) This site is definitely the most comprehensive website on the net for information about movies. Ever see someone in a movie and be like, "I know I've seen him before, who is that??" This website can tell you, in painstaking and beautiful detail. It's fantastic. It also has information on objectionable material, so you can avoid a movie with stuff you don't want to see. In fact, by way of disclaimer, that may come in handy with my list, since even though these movies are very clean for the most part, there's a few movies on there with some stuff that you might want to skip. I know I skip certain parts of some of these movies when I watch them, so don't take my recommendation as proof that there's nothing bad in there. Be wise and skip it. Also, feel free to let me know if there's something you think I should remove from the list.
And with all the lists, feel free to suggest sites/bands/movies that I might like that aren't currently on there. It's always fun to see what other people think is the greatest and why. That's all for now... stay tuned for more poetry coming up soon.
So, the first list is of my favorite (read: most used) websites, sites that I think are exceptionally useful, fun, or well-made. Basically, anything I link to in any of my posts will show up there, so that if you like one of the links in the posts you won't have to go searching through all the entries to find it again. Believe me, this will be much more important someday when there are more than five posts here. (As a side note, I bet that a pretty fair percentage of blogs started on free sites like this never end up with more than, say, 3 posts on them before people quit/lose interest. However, I'm not one to do things like that, and I'm in this for the long haul. Someday there's going to be a heck of a lot of text on this blog, and at that point you really won't want to search through all my rantings to find one stupid link. I'm just planning ahead.)
Second, we have a running update on the bands (in order) that currently find themselves in the honored position of having all their cd's in my main case. This is subject to change based on my whims and tastes, and based on whether I ever have enough money again to buy cd's. All of these artists are very anti-bubble (see previous post) in my mind... a lot of them are Christian bands, but ones that are more outside the Christian system and on the indie side of things. A lot of people will not have heard of a lot of the stuff there, but that's fine by me. Check it out if you want, as it's all quality music first and foremost (and by music, I mean music and lyrics. I find that the music that I really like over a long period of time always has interesting/meaningful words, not just creative instrumentation).
Finally, and probably most controversially, I included a list of my favorite movies ever. Not what I think are necessarily the BEST movies ever, just my favorites (which is an important distinction: otherwise I'd have no justification for having Citizen Kane lower than Mystery Men). And yes, these are generally in order, so you can see my rankings. However, the ranking process was far less than scientific, and it may be prone to gross miscalculations and glaring omissions. Those situations are where you should post a comment and remind me of important movies I may have forgotten and/or campaign for movies you like to be moved up or movies you hate to be moved down the list. I welcome all manner of comments about this.
By the way, this list was created with a great deal of help from IMDb, another amazing website now appearing in the links list. (http://www.imdb.com/) This site is definitely the most comprehensive website on the net for information about movies. Ever see someone in a movie and be like, "I know I've seen him before, who is that??" This website can tell you, in painstaking and beautiful detail. It's fantastic. It also has information on objectionable material, so you can avoid a movie with stuff you don't want to see. In fact, by way of disclaimer, that may come in handy with my list, since even though these movies are very clean for the most part, there's a few movies on there with some stuff that you might want to skip. I know I skip certain parts of some of these movies when I watch them, so don't take my recommendation as proof that there's nothing bad in there. Be wise and skip it. Also, feel free to let me know if there's something you think I should remove from the list.
And with all the lists, feel free to suggest sites/bands/movies that I might like that aren't currently on there. It's always fun to see what other people think is the greatest and why. That's all for now... stay tuned for more poetry coming up soon.
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