Can a blog start a revolution?

My friend Shannon asked this question this morning. He answered the question by saying “probably not” because people don’t pay attention to one thing anymore. I remember when the Passion of Christ came out and everyone was so excited about how it was going to change the world. A few years later and the world appears pretty similar. I went to a church where the pastor gave an entire message about what the Christian response to the Da Vinci Code. I thought a very appropriate response would be to get out of the way and let it die a slow death. Which it did. How many conversations do you still hear about the Da Vinci code? If you do, it is obvious you surround yourself with uninteresting people. Take that.

I have many more examples of us thinking a coming event would change our lives, and soon afterwards it whimpers a slow, pitiful death. Do you remember Y2K. I do. People, even educated people, thought that we might enter a new “dark age”. I remember Christians talking about how we could be a blessing to the community by providing generators and clean water and canned foods and bibles. I imagine these Christians feeling disappointed that the world didn’t fall apart and they didn’t have the opportunity to help rebuild a fallen world. I was happy because we were out of DiGiorno’s. I love DiGiorno’s.

I also remember all the diseases just since the year 2000 that were supposed to wipe out large parts of the population. Do you remember Asian Flu? Some scientists lost some of their Asian Flu vials and it was supposed to cause an outbreak similar to the great Asian Flu outbreak of 1959 that killed 69,800 people in the U.S. alone. It was in the news every day and people were flipping out. But what happened? Nothing. More people died of boredom during the outbreak (2) than from the disease (0). You probably don’t even remember it. But were freaking out at the time, just like you were freaking out about Y2K. I know cause I was there, and I was laughing at you. Take that.

Then one year they told everyone that the same Flu Virus that caused the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 was back, and it was in a bad mood and was going to kick some ass and take names. Between 1918 and 1919 50 to 100 million people died throughout the world. Very scary. Our new version? So uninteresting it doesn’t even have a wikipedia page. Remember how you were going all hogshit about the West Nile Virus? Or Bird Flu? Or Sars? I do. You were obnoxious. Very few things actually change out lives, and so far, the News hasn’t predicted any of them. And yet the next time the News mentions a scary disease or Jesus sometimes gets extra attention in the secular world, you will go all apeshit again.

Anyway, now that I am done thoroughly mocking your small-mindedness and logically kicking your ass, I will get back to Shannon’s question. Could a blog cause a revolution? It could never be my blog, because the few readers I have won’t lift their index finger and push the comment button. But I do think a blog could be a huge place for change. It would be impossible to explain, and would have to somehow get to the illusive “tipping point” that is required in all social epidemics. But it could happen.

But I don’t believe it could just be one women’s amazing thoughts with a heard of loyal followers listening and carrying out her commands. I believe any social phenomenon of this century will have to be more mutual and social than that. It will have to be something where the sum of the contributions is larger than the parts. Social phenomena grow exponentially, and someone not apart of them can never understand why they become so powerful.

People would come to the blog not to hear great wisdom but to become caught up in a great dialogue that will bring out the greatness inside of them. Not only would it be about people’s ideas, but their ways of thinking, ways of beings and ways of interacting with the world, and all of these would be infused and transformed by the relationality of what happens there. It isn’t just that your ideas would be balanced by other people’s ideas. It is that your entire life is changed because you are in intentional relationship with a community that is devoted to something much larger than themselves. This is what I am waiting for. Not necessarily a blog, but some social movement that could start a revolution. So, if any of you are still reading after the righteous mocking I gave you and you have any ideas on how to start a revolution, give me your blogger address and let’s get started.

Two Themes

When I read the bible, I like to read it in larger chunks and I like to read a lot over a limited amount of time. This helps me get a different perspective and helps me develops a sense of themes. I would say that in this period of my life nothing interests me more about the bible than themes. I want to know the emphasis of the bible much more than the specific truth in a specific passage. I want to know what the bible cares about more, not just what we can take away from a small portion of the bible. This helps me from justifying my beliefs on one text. Because of this I know that God talks much more about money than he does hell. He talks about the poor more often than salvation. And he talks about love much more often than judgment.

But in doing this I found the bible doesn’t always line up with itself. I seemed to be finding two different themes, both of them weaving through the entire text. One of the themes centers in creation, the other in the death of Jesus. Once I made this “discovery” I decided to focus on their differences and see where it goes if I allow myself to work in the incongruity and not the bible into something safer and more harmonious.

The God of the first theme is the God that rewards us on earth. He is the God of Abraham, who is rewarded financially for his faith, and Job, who is similarly rewarded for “speaking of God what is right”. This is the God of Proverbs, which gives guidelines for success, and of John 15, who wants us to “bear much fruit”. In Psalms 104 we see the celebration of creation and the rejection of anxiety. In Psalms 150 we see the need for radical and unreasonable abandon, the giving up of control. This God wants us to succeed in His will here on earth. This is the God of abundance and extravagance and awe. Nature, birth, life, anything that has beauty speaks to this theme.

Walter Brueggemann writes “The Bible starts out with a liturgy of abundance. Genesis I is a song of praise for God's generosity. It tells how well the world is ordered. It keeps saying, "It is good, it is good, it is good, it is very good." It declares that God blesses -- that is, endows with vitality -- the plants and the animals and the fish and the birds and humankind. And it pictures the creator as saying, "Be fruitful and multiply." In an orgy of fruitfulness, everything in its kind is to multiply the overflowing goodness that pours from God's creator spirit.”

But there is another theme, just as necessary. Not only is nature reflecting God’s glory, but the “earth is groaning as in the pains of childbirth”. All of history demanded the death of Jesus.

This theme is different and countercultural. It breaks all the rules. It says that the last will be first. It says that thing about the rich man and the camel. It calls leaders to be servants and blesses the poor, the oppressed and the needy. This theme is especially prevalent in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus is consistently seen shaming the proud and confident while not just comforting but praising the weak and hurting.

This theme is very popular in the circles I run with. It makes fools of the establishment, including the church, and calls leaders to abandon their power and give it to others. This is the theme that supports woman and minorities, giving voice to anyone that has had their voice taken from them.

As you read this I want you to not jump to the conclusion that I am describing two sides of the same coin. I truly believe that if you investigate further you will see that these themes are seemingly contradictory and really appear to be messages from two different sources. Unless you admit the differences, you will miss the beauty.

Which theme are you more comfortable with? You might also see someone else’s worldview here. Most of us, if we were honest, like to downplay one side of this issue and see the world through our view. This, obviously, is not the answer either. So, if there are two distinct themes, and we shouldn’t just choose one, what should we do?

Damn Microwaves

My friend Mark told me a story to illustrate what life was like for him growing up. At his house, in the early 90’s, his parents had a microwave. Somehow his parents got the idea that it would hurt their valuable microwave if they let it run without anything inside of it. This is untrue, but many people believed it at the time. But Mark’s parents went further. To solve the problem of the microwave possibly running without any food inside of it, they left a bowl of water in the microwave every time it wasn’t running. They did this just in case the microwave either started spontaneously or someone decided to set the microwave and hit the start button but forgot to put the food in. The strangest and most illogical part of this huge mess of illogical though is that my friend Mark would get in trouble not for starting the microwave with nothing in it, but rather for forgetting to put the bowl with water back in the microwave.

This is a perfect example of true legalism. People protect themselves from problems and sin by adding new rules. Then they punish people for breaking their rules, even if they never cause the original problem. It is if they forgot what rule was added and what was there for a reason.

I would have thought Mark’s experience with microwaves was a singular one, but when he told his story, another friend told a story of microwave abuse. The friend’s parents weren’t as concerned about running the microwave with nothing in it, they were concerned with the buttons on the face of the microwave. Somehow they got it in their minds that by pushing the buttons too often the microwave would quit working. So, to solve this problem, they set the microwave to 99 minutes and 99 seconds, which was the most they could put on their microwave. Then when someone wanted to cook something, say for 45 seconds, they wouldn’t have to push the buttons, all they had to do was push the start button and stop the microwave at 99 minutes and 54 seconds. This continued, minute by minute, so that no one would have to push the number buttons that may or may not go out with repeated use. The kids said it was so confusing to try to subtract two and a half minutes from 47:13 that their family constantly burned their food all the time.

Why is it so easy for us to do this? Parents focus so strongly on the extra rules that their children never remember what they should originally avoid. If we asked these two sets of parents what they were trying to do, they would say they were trying to be good stewards, or something similarly spiritual. Do you think Mark or my other friend learned to be good stewards, to not be careless and wasteful from their experiences from their microwaves? Of course not. They learned of disapproval and judgment. They learned to be confused about the true value of possessions, and the need to repress. Luckily Wal-Mart has driven down the price of microwaves so much that they have become a dispensable item. Otherwise, another generation of children might be raised with such graceless microwave logic.

realizations

1. The greatest assault on my persistent selfishness is an active prayer life and the new perspective that comes with it.

2. Anything that doesn’t let me settle and stay inside myself is part of my calling.

3. My wounds and scars are from the same direction as my calling

4. Compassion and intimacy is my most effective weapon against consistent and suffocating depression

5. Preparation is a more rewarding hope than any perceived evaluation of me by others

6. Anything that drives me to Jesus should be remembered and cherished

7. I should take my anxieties to Jesus as an experiment to see how faithful he really is

8. Peace and Joy come from a trust that what I am currently doing is somehow close to what God wants for me

9. God’s will is rarely ever a destination, almost always a journey and a state of mind

10. What I do today and even more important what I think today really does decide what my future will look like.

Shunning the Light

I just finished my first year of grad school in counseling psychology. Half-way through the year I was given my first patient. This is because my school only wants to screw up people with amateurish counseling who have no choice but to go along.

So anyway, working with him was very hard. We would dwell on the bad parts of his life, and all his problems, and mostly why everyone else in his life had failed him. But whenever I tried to give him a complement, or tell him how courageous he was being for facing his problems, or show him how he was improving, he would brush me off. He couldn’t take the good stuff, only the bad.

I am sure you know someone just like that. Most likely you see a lot of yourself in this person. It is very hard for almost everyone to take complements. We are afraid they are insincere, that the person complementing us is just humoring us and telling us what we want to hear. We are uncomfortable with any attention on us, and get especially flustered when we are surprised, and we are almost always surprised by good words. We don’t expect it and don’t like it. It is like suddenly someone put a spotlight on us and says “You are a good person. Now talk while everyone stares at you.”

We are afraid that if we accept a compliment it means that we are committing to make this compliment true. If someone told you that you are a very good piano player, but you didn’t think you were, you would somehow try to let them know that this wasn’t true. You would be afraid of the expectations of having to be a good piano player when you are afraid that you aren’t up to that standard. You would be afraid that people would know you aren’t that good and hate you for pretending you were.

Most of all, we are ambivalent with success. We love it and hate it. We move toward it, but then hide from it. We feel can approach it but never possess it. Why don’t we become great? We are afraid of our own greatness and what it would do to us. Greatness will change us, and we don’t really like change. So we say we want to become more like God, or become a better husband, or a better student, but we also do things that sabotage our efforts. George Weinberg, in his book The Heart of Psychotherapy calls this “shunning the light”. We avoid the light because we fear what it will do to us. We are more comfortable in our own sinfulness and problems, and are much more comfortable in the mundane and trivial. Is change possible? Only if we allow ourselves to see and love the goodness and potential inside of us and to allow others to see the goodness in us, as well.

Old thoughts

I found this journal entry I wrote during the worst of my depression, and it made me happy.

Jan 7, 2007

My thoughts want me to believe that my life is too much, that my struggles are too hard. That I will always be overwhelmed. God, don’t let me believe them. They want me to believe that I can’t change the patterns in my life. They want be to believe that I have tried and failed too many times and that I am foolish to try again. They want me to give up. But God, I want to believe that the next times will be the one that takes. Always the next time.

Centering

This is something I wrote early this year

When I was in high school, I had a friend who told me that every time she was in the car and her family drove by an accident, her mom would turn down the music, and they would give a quick prayer. I thought this was a great idea. But since I lived in a small town and didn’t drive often, it really didn’t change my life.

Soon, everything changed. I moved to Downtown Chicago, one block from the notorious Cabrini Green housing project. My first night I heard gunshots outside my window. I was amazed at how often I heard ambulances. Almost every single time I heard an ambulance I said a quick prayer. I still do this, whenever I hear an ambulance, no matter what I am doing or whom I am with, I stop and pray, usually just for a second. This process has changed me, and not necessarily how I thought it would. Yes, it made me more sensitive to hurting people and made me more aware of what was going on around me. But most of all, it changed my perspective. I have called this “centering”, bringing my priorities back to the most basic categories, death and life. When someone is being rushed to the hospital, all that matters is life or death. When you have a heart attack, your job doesn’t matter, your marriage doesn’t matter, your past doesn’t matter, even your health doesn’t matter. All that is important is that your life led you to this point, and you will either live or die. We forget our mortal-ness, we think as little as possible about everyone’s impending death.

Sometimes when I am in the mood for righteous justice, I would watch “World’s Wildest Police Videos” with my brother Trevie. At least once every episode the host will say something offensive and insensitive, which makes for great television. But one day they were showing a video of a cop chasing a desperate woman. The woman’s family had called the police saying she was going to commit suicide. She was driving down the highway at over 90 miles an hour and the cop was doing his best to keep up. Finally the woman slowed down as she got to a bridge. She pulled her car over and climbed over the guard rail. The cop got out of his car and ran toward her just as she was getting ready to jump off what must have been a very tall bridge. She jumped..

and he immediately reached down with one arm and grabbed her. Then he, with all his manly protective muscles of justice, pulled her up. And it was all caught on his cop camera! But what was so amazing was that she went almost instantly from death to life. The moment she jumped she was as good as dead. And someone came and ripped her right out of the air and through her back onto the pavement and life again. Death to life.

My pastor was speaking on Acts 2, which talks about the practices of the early church immediately after Christ’s death. At one point the passage talks about when peter preached right after Pentecost and 3000 people got baptized and were saved. My pastor said over and over again 3000 people came from death to life. They were dead, now they are alive.

The silly school/cult that Annie and I belong to has a huge global emphasis. Students will sometimes give presentations before class about what is happening in Darfur or Sri Lanka and what agencies are able to help. Last class period one student shared in prayer request time (yes we pray at this school) that he was friends with missionaries that needed about 400 dollars almost immediately, and students were challenged to give. I loved it. When I think about what is happening, I go through so many emotions, feeling like I can’t focus too much or I will forget commitments here, consoling myself for not giving enough, convincing myself that God has given to me my local community that I can focus on. And then I remember my God, and I see how all of this I just thought is unacceptable, and I have no choice but to be overwhelmed and grieving for the things that grieve God. People are starving, and the God of fulfillment is filled with anger. People are lonely and rejected and the God of encounter hates it. People bring violence and hate against other people, and the God of peace weeps. I have learned that God gives us no excuse for not having compassion for this world. No matter if we are overwhelmed, or discouraged, or feeling removed or distracted, God wants us to help, wants us to give, wants us to sacrifice, wants us to pray, wants us to hurt, wants us to think. These matters are not trivial; they are about life and death

But there is something to being too centered. My niece Emma turned 5 a little while back. Emma constantly is hurling herself in every direction at once. Everything she feels she feels with all of her, with her very presence. What she loves she must squeeze. So it was very interesting to see what would happen when someone got the great idea to buy her a hamster for her birthday. It is a constant battle for Emma to not want to wake her hamster up and hold her every minute of every day. Since hamsters are nocturnal, Alana is consistently awoken in the middle of the night because Emma wanted to see if she wants to play. Emma’s older sister Anna recently asked why “Alana” is always so nervous. Poor Alana is not choosing to stay in perspective. Her perspective is forced on her everyday, and it can be very debilitating. Emma’s mother has wondered out loud about the strain on Alana’s microscopic heart. (Yes, I know that hamster’s hearts are not actually microscopic. No, I have never seen a hamster’s heart, and I couldn’t really say that is a life goal I have)

We consistently forget how vulnerable we are. Not just in physical terms, but in spiritual and emotional realms as well. We do more and more things to move us further and further away from the things that could potentially harm us. We make the goals of our lives security when God keeps screaming at us to not loose perspective. Our lives are consistently driving our perspectives out of focus. Because perspective is something that is so subjective and immeasurable, we think we can neglect it. It is not enough to wait for perspective to remind us what really matters. We need rituals, practices in our life that ground us, which bring us closer to the mind of God. We need to find a way to stand in the enormity of our fragility and still be able to function with the rest of our lives. This is not something that can be reached and then forgotten about. Centering must happen over and over.

I often think back to how I felt after September 11^th and I miss feeling that way. Life didn’t feel worthless. I felt the politics and niceties fell away as everyone was struck by their own mortality. People were able to hurt together, to stand in the midst of pain and agony and not flee. I remember such a strong feeling of wanting to connect with my friends, wanting something beyond what we were giving each other in our day-to-day. What was so amazing was that when I looked in my friend’s eyes I saw they wanted the same thing. Please take perspective seriously.