I Used to Be Smart.

I think I can feel it.

I think it’s coming back.

I think that I’m regaining the ability to be weird.

Something, for a long time, drained that part of me.

It takes a lot of energy to be weird. It’s fighting upstream.

And I do struggle with it. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m the one that’s wrong. After all, numbers are on side of “normal” — isn’t that all of the validation that “normal” needs.

However — I know too much. I’ve read too many history books. I’ve listened to too many dead guys. I’ve opened my heart too widely to people who think a little bit differently. Normal is a lie.

The way to the kind of life that I’m supposed to be leading doesn’t come through blending in to a normal crowd and accepting someone else’s version of what life should be. That’s the kind of life that leads to nothing. Ever. It leads to the emptiness, debt, and destruction that have come to be an utter part of our world.

The only people in the world who have done things worth remembering — all of those dead guys — they were constantly fighting upstream — Jesus, Gandhi, Merton, Dr. King (to quickly rattle off some cliches). They’re all fighting upstream. They all become aware that “normal” is a problem, and they were all utterly willing to be as weird as they needed to be in order to live the life they knew was right.

The destruction of the American dream is well documented. It doesn’t exist. It’s been hollowed out and destroyed. It’s this thinly painted facade that will utterly crumble at the smallest touch.

It’s all around us. Americans consistently spend more than they make. Everything we eat is killing us. The way we consume is raping and destroying our planet at a rate that is utterly unbelievable.

We cannot live the dream that has been sold to us, because we have bought (over and over and over again) a lie — an utter lie.

We absolutely must learn to live differently. We must learn to deny ourselves of things that we desperately want. We must learn to re-imagine ourselves and our role in the world. We must re-imagine the way we eat, the way we work. We must re-imagine who we are and we relate to the world in which we live.

in fact, as I think, I come to the conclusion that we don’t have the option of being normal. We must be weird. We must fight upstream. We must do something different than everyone else in our culture. We must not participate in the house of cards that we have built.

Being weird isn’t really being weird at all. No, what I’m labeling weird? It’s merely a rediscovery of what we are really supposed to be. It’s difficult. It’s difficult to find sustain a new paradigm of ourselves in the world. It’s nearly impossible to battle, every day, the voices that tell us that we are meant to be “normal”. It is difficult to battle the voice that tell us our consumption and our excess are what we are entitled to.

We have no choice. There is no option. Something MUST change. We have to be weird people who live close to where they work and shop. We must choose to eat boring, locally produced food instead of well advertised and well packaged good. We must consciously and consistently deny ourselves the things we want in favor of the things we know we need.

That seems to lie at the heart of it all. We must find ways to move from a culture of indulgence to a culture of self-denial. We have no choice.

Swimming upstream is difficult alone. It’s much easier when we do it together.

That may be at the heart of this all. We cannot exist but in community with each other. If we exist in that way, and if we are all committed to living in a new way (which is really a very old way), it becomes much easier. It becomes much easier to support each other, to validate each other, to help each other when we inevitably second guess all of the hard commitments we find necessary.

For this is a war of attrition. We will never lose because someone forces us to lose. We will lose because swimming upstream for so long just became too much to handle — and that would be the saddest loss of all.

Lately, I’ve encountered a theme over and over again.

That theme is this: often, the best thing for me (and I think this applies much more broadly than just to me) is for me to give up something that I want or enjoy very much.

I’ve tried it before, and rarely do I find a negative result. I may catch hell for it from people who don’t understand — but if we base our decisions on whether or not our friends will give us crap, we’ll never get much of anywhere.

I’ve been thinking about that theme for the past several days, and wondering what things in my life I can give up.

So, today, I’ve been putting my own feet to the fire.

Can I give up television?

At first I thought it would be incredibly easy. After all, it’s just television.

Then I remembered that it’s September. It’s football season.

I can’t get very far past that. It’s football season. Football is one of the things I enjoy most in the world. I love watching it. I love thinking about it. I love talking about it. Can I really give up football? Should I really give up football?

So, again, I put my feet to the fire. And, as any good sophist would do, I made the strongest possible argument to myself as to why I should be willing to give up football.

I’m not sure I like what I told myself.

What I started to realize is that sports are a grand distraction. (I may have been down this road before, I’m just too lazy to search my archive and check.) I (and I bet I’m not alone) have a terrible problem with assigning meaning to sports. I derive my self-image for sports. I think by knowing about sports and participating in dialogue about sports that I’m participating in something that matters. I have taken what should be a distraction and made it the focus. I invest most of my energy in something that does matter instead of having energy to invest in things that matter. The subject of my conversations has more to do with what men on a field are doing in a game than things that matter.

Sports is an easy distraction. We can form strong opinions and fierce allegiances. We can argue about those things as if those are the things that define us. We can create artificial divisions based on these arbitrary divisions (which, in America, is rarely that big of a deal). However — the fact remains. Sports don’t matter. Sports are a distraction. Sports are games that are meant to occupy free time and entertain children. However, we (and this goes even much further than America, as any international football fan can tell you) have institutionalized games. We’ve incorporated them. Sports teams have become powerful brands whose goal is to demand our attention and our money.

(There is, perhaps, a distinct way that our sports fascination and our celebrity fascination are part of the same animal.)

So — could it be that something I love so much as football is a problem? Could it be that I would be better off, not only giving up television, but also giving up sports? By giving up a distraction that is often my focus, could I have a good bit of my energy freed up to pursue things that matter?

I think so.

To be completely practical about it — that makes me weird as hell. What kind of person willingly gives up football? Some kind of freak who sits in his room and reads books and can’t have a conversation with anyone normal? Some snob who is unapproachable because he only wants to talk about obscure politics? I certainly hope not. Doing something as simple as giving up watching TV would put me in a vast minority. It would preclude me from having a great number of conversations that I would genuinely like to have. It would mean that I would have to give up things that I genuinely like and things that genuinely entertain me.

I think that may be what is best for people. I don’t want to sound like some unreasonable medieval ascetic who wishes for people to deprive themselves of everything that gives them enjoyment. That’s unreasonable. However, I think there has to be this process in life where, if we wish to grow, we must give things up — even if we really enjoy those things.

Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective. Some things are so worth having that they’re worth giving something up for. Perhaps this is one of things. Being the person I want to be, after all, should be more important to me than football. (Even Kentucky football.)

Is that true? Or am I crazy?

I almost wrecked on the way home.

Why?

Because I saw a campaign sign for our governor’s race.

What’s the issue?

Take a look for yourself.

That’s right. In a state with a stagnant economy, terrible education, and a well documented poverty problem, THIS is the central campaign issue.

Sadly, there’s not even someone seeking to move the dialogue elsewhere.

Wow.

I’d like to add something to what I posted about health care yesterday.

I thought of it today, and I thought it would clarify what I mean in the whole discussion.

I believe that health care is one of those things that, if we can do it, then we ought to do it. I think that’s at the heart of all of this. I think it’s pretty care that health care for every individual is a good thing. Additionally, I am sure that we do have the ability to provide health care for every individual. Thus, I believe that we ought to provide health care for every individual, and that we must be willing to give up what we have in order to be a part of that.

Lately I’ve been examining a lot of things in my life — fundamental things that I have said and written. I’ve been starting to wonder if I actually believe these things, and if I believe these things, what do they look like?

One of these things that I’ve been thinking about is the desire for justice. What does it mean to want justice? What does justice look like? I do not doubt for a second that I should place a priority on justice. It litters the consciousness of the people who wrote the Bible, and there is no doubt that it is deeply burned in our brains. What does it mean that all people, everywhere, should get what they deserve?

My mind turned to the battle that’s been going on American politics the last few days, particularly between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giulliani. Particularly, they have been arguing about the principle of “universal health care” provided by the government. Clinton is outlining a plan for that, Giulliani disagrees that it is necessary.

So — I began to think — what is justice in regard to health care?

I came to my answer pretty quickly. Justice is that every person has access to health care. Period. The mechanism that provides that health care is irrelevant (however, I don’t see anything in this country besides the government capable of providing it), but everyone should have access to health care. That is justice.

Justice is a difficult word. It doesn’t just mean that we get what we deserve. If we believe anything the Bible says about us — we know that we deserve nothing. Even the richest and most powerful among us deserve absolutely nothing. Justice has to be something richer. A better way to think of justice would be that each person gets an equal chance at life. Each person, regardless of ANYTHING, gets to have the same shot at living, at being healthy, of being well employed. If that is our concept of justice, then I think we have be in favor of some sort of universal health care.

In my head there is a talk radio host who rebuts all of my points, and he gets all red-faced and he screams at me, “But who is going to pay for it!?!?!”

I answer him, “We are.” We are all going to pay for it, and we should do so gladly.

If we believe anything that Jesus says, our money was never ours to begin with. This arbitrary system of currency in which we trade matters not. Having it is a nice thing, but it is not everything. If our money is more important to us than ensuring that justice is wrought in the world, then we have a serious, serious problem. Our paycheck is never more important than our fellow man. If we’re arguing against universal health care simply because of the impact on our paycheck, then we have a serious, serious problem. Whether they have done anything to earn it or not, whether the government can be responsible or not — those are not excuses. We must be doing everything possible to ensure that every person gets a fair chance at life — even if it means giving up our own comfort.

As upset as that makes the man in my head, I like to smile a little bit and make him even more upset. I like to tell him this, “Illegal immigrants should also be cared for.” I don’t even soften the blow by calling them “undocumented aliens.” Rather, I just tell him that, “You should want to give up your money so that people who are in this country against its own laws receive health care.” (If you’re wondering? He apoplectic at this point.)

See, Jesus didn’t exactly care about borders. National identity and an arbitrarily created country weren’t really things that he cared about. Jesus was about caring for people regardless of national identity and citizenship status. In fact, it goes back further than Jesus. The law of Moses is rife with passages on how to treat aliens — and it clear that they are treated no differently than everyone else. Justice is wide enough for all people.

So bring on universal health care. Tax the hell out of my tiny paycheck. It’s not about me, and it’s not about my money. It’s about insisting that justice is done in the world, whatever it may cost us.

If you’re truly and deeply a Christian, don’t you HAVE to be willing to go there?