I Used to Be Smart.

Why are we saved? All sorts of answers have been formulated, I’m sure. I, however, am not interested in the formulations. What we believe to be the answer to the question is reflected in less in a grandiose sentence than it is in the words of the everyday.

Here in America, we are saved because it benefits us. Some of us are more willing to admit that than others. Some dive headfirst into the prosperity gospel, believing that God desires to bless them with all the stuff they could ever want. American consumerism puts on a divine mask. Some fall into the trap more subtly. They reword passages from the Bible from the first person plural to the first person singular. They replace references to the world with personal references. John 3:16 becomes how God interacts in Josh Bobbitt’s life, not about the thing that God is doing in the world. We are saved because of some benefit to our own selves. That is what the dominant language tell us.

There are, however, other voices. The other voices are trying to tell us something much different. We are not saved for our own sake, but for the sake of the world. Salvation is not for my benefit, but for theirs. First person singulars disappear. Plurals abound. One of the best articulations of this reimaging of salvation is written by Lesslie Newbigin. What Newbigin articulates is this: election always occurs for service, never for prestige. The “for me” school of thought is dangerous. If we recieve any kind of benefit from salvation that the unsaved do not have, and if we make that our reason for salvation, we have completely misunderstood our election. Countless times I’ve heard, “Jesus died for ME,” and “Jesus died for you (sing.).” What we need is a complete reinvention that says, “Jesus died for us.” However, the “us” has to be a large first person plural. It is not an “us” that is only a certain in-group, or a certain subset of in-groups. It is a transcendant, true “us” that includes every human being on the planet. Josh Bobbitt, Madonna, Paul Rusesabagina, Kim Jong-il, the overweight lady begging for ranch dressing at table 2-7. It is an us that include those who make us the most uncomfortable, and those who make us feel the most at home. It is for the sake of the “kosmos.”

That’s big. Don’t miss it. It may seem completely intuitive, but it’s big. The pouring out of the self it requires is phenomenal, impossible, and frustrating.

I heard Brian McLaren speak on a similar topic a few months ago. He had a diagram that made all the sense in the world. In it, he had the traditional “me” view of faith. It had a large circle for the self, filtering down to a smaller circle for the Church, and ending with the smallest circle for the world. In his realigned “world” vision, he had a large circle for the world, encompassing a smaller circle for the Chruch, which encompassed an even smaller circle for the self. As intuitive as it all sounds, I think McLaren is right, and that the whole thing is terribly upsetting to the way faith happens in America right now, and the way faith happens in my own life.

Maybe one day I’ll get it right. Not for my sake, but for theirs.

This post may not be what we call “sensical” — but I’m gonna try.

There’s this magazine I read, Relevant. It’s a damn good magazine. It’s tagline is “God, Life, Progressive Culture.” That’s a pretty good summary. In the newest issue, there’s an article about Moby. I was completely ignorant about the fact that Moby has, for many years, considerend himself a Christian. (So thissong makes much more sense now.) Frankly, it wasn’t that shocking. I surprised, but not shocked, and not particularly compelled by anything. However, there was a piece of information from the article that stuck out, and that I’ve been thinking about since.

Moby is also a vegan. (Vegans don’t consume any animal by-products at all.) I may well be wrong, but I can’t help but think that Moby must be a vegan because of his faith. There must be some link between the two. So I’ve been thinking, and I decided to think seriously about the vegan lifestyle, and what sort of connection there is between faith in Christ and such a way of living.

The choice to be a vegan, if rooted in Christianity, is surely tied to a deep respect for Creation. Lately, I have increasingly found this to be a vital part of Christianity. If God created the world, then the world must be good, and God must expect us to take care of what God has created. As Christians, we MUST be concious of our environment and we must possess a great to desire to preserve that environment. It seems to be that being a vegan WOULD be taking the environment seriously, and would most definitely be a way to lessen our impact upon the environment.

Rampant consumerism with no eye turned to the future has wreaked havoc upon the environment. This is something that Christians should be concerned about, and a trend that Christians should be working hard to reverse. Too often, the reality that Christians implicitly support, or even explicitly endorse the type of rampant consumerism that slaughters the environment. If Christian (and non-Christian) vegans are seeing this, and wishing to reverse the trend of rampant, irresponsible, over-consumption, then a good thing is occuring! However, I can’t be sure it’s the only solution.

Here is what I know about animal products. When used properly, they are healthy. When consumed recklessly, they are horrible. Lean cuts of meat are low in fat and high in protein — like chicken. Chicken, when not dumped into grease and fried mercilessly is incredibly healthy. Fish, is also low in fat, and high in protein, and also cotains Omega-3 fatty acids, which may not SOUND healthy, but very good for the human body. I know that humanity has, since the earliest points in its history has consumed animal products. I know that those early humans consumed much less animal products than we do now. I know that their consumption was often of the utmost responsibility, and often essential. Buffalo carcass became leather to create homes and clothing. Deer sinew became the means by which sharpened stones could be tied to sticks to form arrows and knives and similar tools. The consumption was necessary and responsible. I know that currend consuption is reckless and unecessary. Leather is not a necessicity (especially here in America) — it is a luxury. Signs informing us that over 99 Billion have been served tell us that entirely too much meat is consumed. The bulging waistline of America shows us that something is amiss in the way America consumes its food, and that American consumption is taking its toll on the environment. In light of America’s burgeoning waistline and reatreating farmland, what’s the course of action?

Taking all that into account, I have to think about what it means. The current American way of consumption is an extreme. Similarly, the retreat to the vegan lifestyle is an extreme. That may work well for some folks, but I’ve never been one for extremes. I think that there has to be something in the middle that takes seriously the concerns that a vegan lifestyle raises, and the fact that eating meat has to potential to be extremely healthy.

I cast my vote in favor responsible consumption. Back off beef. Eat less meat. To be healthy, eat leaner cuts of meat — turkey, chicken, fish. To be more responsible, don’t eat as much. Some sacrifices will have to be made. Animal prodcuts that aren’t necessities might need to be reassessed. I may never buy another leather product, since it is unnecessary consumption of an animal product — which seems to be to be something like irresponsible consumption. Similarly, there are other things I need to do to the environment — turn the lights off more, switch to lower energy light bulbs, use less water — all ways to become a more responsible consumer and steward of the resources and the creation with which God has presented us.

That’s all I got. Talk to me.

So there I was.

We just hired several new servers at work. A couple of them are attractive girls.

I worked with one of these attractive girls last night. After the end of the shift, we were both out back, trying to get our stuff done so we could go home. She was struggling to empty a huge trash can, so I helped her out in a stunning display of chivalry. I had been restocking straws, and I had about a half of a box that I needed to put back into the storage shed. She was also in there getting something. Attempting to be cool, I tried to throw the box back onto the shelf. I’ve done it a million times before, completely alone, and it had always worked.

This time, it caught the side of the shelf, tilted back towards me, and sent dozens of straws all over the floor. She definitely saw every bit of it. To make things even better, she stopped what she was doing, and helped me pick all of the straws up.

Look out, ladies. I’m impressive.

I got fired today.

I’m still not exactly sure what happened. Sundays are always bad days. Everything started out slow, but it got extremely busy really quickly. Because it had been slow for so long, nobody was willing to do much of anything, which makes everything MISERABLE, so the shift was especially bad.

I had become increasingly frustrated with everything, and it was starting to show. I had lots of little surface cracks. One good hit would do me in. The kitchen needed a runner, and I grabbed it. It was an order of cheese fries — heaped full of cheese, grease, and bacon. Sitting on the side was something close to a bucket of ranch dressing. On my way to the table, I passed my tables, every cup was empty. I had a lot of work to do. I walked the cheese fries to their table. The ladies were huge. They were Southern, American, and huge. I kept the impulse to roll my eyes in check. I sat the fries down, and asked a question that started a chain of events I still don’t quite understand. “Can I get you ladies anything else right now?”

“Ranch.”

That was all. Truncated, devoid of eye contact, not even a complete setence. “Ranch.” The surface cracks turned into a pile of shards on the floor. I’m not quite sure where the words came from.

“Ma’am.” I said. “I don’t think you need any ranch dressing. In fact, ” I went on, “Neither of you need those cheese fries. I can tell by your t-shirts that you guys are at least marginally Christian, and I appreciate that. However, I’m pretty sure that God made human bodies to operate a certain way, and that God likes it when those bodies are healthy. Your bodies aren’t healthy. The link between obesiety and early, traumatic deaths is undeniable. The link between your cheese fries, your ranch dressing, and obesiety is obvious if you take five seconds to stop and think about the things you’re putting in your body.”

They were too shocked to reply.

“This is a low estimate,” I couldn’t stop. “But you’re probably putting somewhere between 50 and 70 grams of fat into your body by eating those cheese fries and drowning them in ranch dressing. That’s enough fat for an entire day — probably 2 days. Whatever you’re gonna order to eat, if it’s in this place, is going to have plenty of fat in it too. So, you’re basically killing yourself, one cheese fry after the next. And frankly, it’s pretty disgusting. So if you want some ranch dressing, you’ll have to get another server to assisst you in killing yourself. I won’t be a party to it.” And with that, I walked off.

Needless to say, they weren’t happy with my release of all the agression that had been building up over a 45 hour week, and they immediately stormed off to find a manager. The guys with the ties and earpieces are easy to find. I was let go on the spot, and informed that there was no chance of a re-hire, and that my actions were extremely disappointing and offensive. I refused to apologize, and I took my unemployed self home, as happy as I’ve ever been.

(Okay. So I made all of that up. I didn’t get fired. I didn’t say anything remotely like that. I only think it in my head every single day, and I can only hope that when I go out, I can go out in such a blaze of glory.)

I hate ranch dressing. Ranch dressing is the problem with America.

You can chuckle, but I’m serious. Here’s why:

1) It’s a coverup. Whatever you put ranch dressing on tastes like one thing. Ranch dressing. There’s no way around it. It covers up the flavor of whatever it is one may be eating. Sure, some of the texture remains, so you get ranch dressing that’s the same texture as a carrot, but you’re not tasting carrot. Condiments were intended to compliment foods, not to cover them up. Ranch dressing ensures that we don’t have to deal with what the food ACTUALLY is, but we can control the food into what we wish to make it.

2) It transforms the healthy to the horrible. Story time. So there I was, on my way home from work. I stopped at Arby’s for a salad, wishing to eat a healthy meal. I got a salad, and a healthy salad that was supposed to come with a fat-free Raspberry Vinigiarette. Instead, I open my bag to find a pouch of white, parsley flecked goo staring back up at me. Ranch. Downtrodden, but still hopeful, I flipped the dressing over, seeking out the nutritional contents. I was shocked. The dressing contained almost 30 grams of fat. THIRTY. That’s a whole day’s worth, in a pouch of dressing. I was so appalled I had to run to the next room to tell someone else (they were slightly less apalled). The point is this: ranch dressing can take the healthy — a salad, and transform it into the horrible. Most people, being unaware and lacking any desire to learn, would believe themselves to be eating healthily, all the while ingesting amounts of fat at calories that are bordering on ludicrous. Something that was healthy and productive has been transformed into something that will clog artery walls foster the cause of obesiety. Lovely.

3) It’s a staple, not a classic. Here’s the difference. A staple is something that is widespread. Things can be staples without being classics. A classic is something different. A classic has staying power. Throughout all of the trends, a classic remains true. It may never be at the top of heap, but it’s there. Vanilla ice cream, for example, is a classic. It’s subtle. It’s not overpowering. There’s a concensus about vanilla. It’s not polarizing. Ranch can’t say the same. It’s sharp. It overpowers. It polarizes. It’s everywhere, but it doesn’t appeal to everyone.

That’s the problem. Ranch dressing. Fix it, fix America.

(It’s a metaphor…)

(I’m going to use “inappropriate” words. Get over it.)

It’s summer, dammit.

I want to wear my Chacos, and stomp around in the woods, and bust my ass trying to climb on slippery rocks to get a better view. I want to climb hills that are WAY too big and be so winded that I think I’m gonna fall over. I want to find weird bugs and take pictures of random flowers. I want to get up early on Saturday morning and drive an hour to find a mountain. I want to sleep outside when it’s so hot that I can’t sleep. I want to go somewhere I’ve never been before, just to experience what it feels like to be somewhere I’ve never been before. I want to eat sheep brains and get hit with stinging nettles and bitten in the head by a dumbass dog while I’m trying to sleep. I want to drive with the windows doing, at 80 mph, knowing that I’m going somewhere where I don’t have any responsibility. I want to waste all day sitting on the beach, just because I can.

But I can’t. Because fat people need their ranch dressing, dammit.

I think if people see this footage, they’ll say Oh, my God, that’s horrible. And then they’ll go on eating their dinners.
–Hotel Rwanda.

Still eating our dinner.

Click the link. Do something.

Despite repeated promises, the Sudanese authorities have repeatedly failed to curb ongoing attacks on civilians by the government-backed militias known as Janjaweed. According to the African Union, an estimated two million civilians have been displaced, twice as many as a year ago.

According to recent United Nations estimates, up to 180,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in the conflict, in which Sudanese forces and government-backed militias have engaged in a scorched-earth campaign against civilians of the same ethnicity as two main rebel groups in Darfur. In the past two years, an estimated 2,000 villages have been totally or partially burned to the ground in these attacks. Displaced persons fear losing their land, but are unwilling to return home because of continued Janjaweed attacks, ongoing burning of villages and widespread destruction of crops.

www.humanrightswatch.org

Damn.

I watched Hotel Rwanda today.

If I have ever gone from ready to cry to pissed off in such a short amount of time, I can’t remember when it was. The desire to cry was for obvious reasons. Genocides and macheted children don’t make many people smile. The reason to be pissed off is much more complex, and much harder to direct. The movie is quick to show how badly the United Nations bungled everything they were involved in, and how little attention the West paid to the plight of Rwanda. That is what engrages me so deeply. Here are nations, with the resources and the power to prevent a genocide that claimed half a million lives, and they remained inactive. Unable to gain anything tangible, they were willing to stand idly by (while 10 years later incursions of an oil producing country continues…). At the same time, Serbian forces encircled Sarajevo and genocide occured in the former Yugoslavia (maybe there will be a movie about the tunnel under the airport in Sarajevo or the nursing home without power where the residents froze to death). The West never became involved in that conflict until the damage had already been done. In both cases, countries with power who have shown themselves to have to qualms with armed incursions sat idly by while people were slaughtered over arbitrary divided lines. Hatred based on race and religion fueled mass slaughters that should make every human stomach turn.

After the end of the conflict, we lamented, we said that it would never happened again, we bemoaned our mistakes. Less than a decade later, it is happening again, in the Sudan (I’ll write about it 1000 times until it’s over). The situation is being handled exactly the same, and people are dying because their skin is wrong color.

When I rant about this, I realize that I have an activity that I must do. I must hold up a (metaphorical) mirror, turn back onto myself, and ask what I am doing — ask how I am helping the problem — ask if I am becoming part of a solution. Most of the time, I am not. I can clamor, I can be enraged, but in three days, I will have forgotten. Life will have returned to normal, and nothing in the world will have changed.

So my question to myself is this. Last time I posted, I posted a quote from a Bruce Sprinsteen song (which NOBODY has commented on, losers!). I’ll repeat those lyrics, and ask, in light of Rwanda, and Bosnia, and the Sudan, how I can make this quote my life.

Now Tom said “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beatin’ a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight ‘gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I’ll be there
Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin’ hand
Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.”
–The Ghost of Tom Joad, Bruce Springsteen

Now Tom said “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beatin’ a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight ‘gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I’ll be there
Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin’ hand
Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.”
–The Ghost of Tom Joad, Bruce Springsteen

Is there any better articulation of what the Christian life should be?

Got my finger on the trigger
But I don’t know who to trust
I look into your eyes
There’s just devils and dust

We’re a long, long way from home Bob
Home’s a long, long way from us
Feel the dirty winds blowin’
Devils and dust

I got God on my side
I’m just trying to survive
But if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love

Fear is a powerful thing
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It’ll take your God-filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust

Well I dreamed of you last night
In a field of blood and stone
Blood began to dry
And a smell began to rise

Well I dreamed of you last night Mom
In a field of mud and bone
And your blood began to dry
The smell began to rise

Got God on our side
We’re just trying to survive
But if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love

Fear is a powerful thing
It’ll turn your heart black you can trust
It’ll take your God-filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust
It’ll take your God-filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust

Now every woman and every man
They wanna take your right to stand
Find the love with God wills
The faith that He commands

I’ve got my finger on the trigger
Tonight faith just ain’t enough
And I look inside my heart
There’s just devils and dust

But I’ve got God on my side
And I’m just trying to survive
But if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love

Fear is a dangerous thing
It’ll turn your heart black you can trust
It’ll take your God-filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust
It’ll take your God-filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust
–Bruce Springsteen, “Devils and Dust”

Songs are great when they say something true — when they can testify to the reality of the world with a high level of fidelity. Most songs aren’t very true. They play to catchy melodies and half thought lyrics, or they rely on the weak tactic of sentimentality so that the right heart buttons are pushed. Either way, the songs pander so that they can sell. Great songs do not pander (and often do not sell).
The ability of Bruce Springsteen to say something true is uncanny. The first track from his new cd, “Devils and Dust,” shows off that uncanny truth telling ability. Exercising in truth-telling are rarely easy, and this song is no exception. It’s starts as if it will be something easy. It sounds like a finger has been pointed at our enemies, and we can accuse them. Their hearts are filled with devils and dust — evil and emptiness. Their hearts are hard, they are killing the ones they love and violating their principles for the sake of self-preservation. It is the type of song we like to hear. They are culpable, we are the accusers.
However, if the song remained on that level, then the song would not be truth. What is great about the song is when it finds its way into a truth-telling experience. When Springsteen turns on the song on its head, and remarks that his sould is filled with devils and dust, we see the truth. The devils and the dust reside not only in the hearts of our enemies — but in our hearts as well. We are all culpable, and we are all unworthy to accuse.
It’s easy to find enemies. George Bush, Osama bin-Laden, Saddam Hussein, “terrorists,” “liberals.” We love to hate, and to have a name on which to pin that hate. However, that is not truth in the truest sense. Springsteen utters the truth, and it is hard to hear. We are all filled with devils and dust, and we are ALL guilty. That takes our world and truns it upside down.
I know that I am as guilty in living in a false reality as anyone, and that I am in need of Springsteen’s truth telling voice. I demonize without regard for my own sin. I point fingers at George Bush, at Republicans, at conservatives, and evangelicals, and fundamentalists, and restaraunt managers, all without the ability to see where the devils and dust that make me so angry about those people reside in my own soul.
It’s amazing what truth can do.