“What a wonderous time is spring…when all the trees are budding.”

There is this OLD Christian campfire song called “Pass it on.”  It’s a relic of the kind of “teach the world to sing and buy the world a Coke” mentality that the American 1970s produced so effortlessly and intentionally in its citizens.  I used to love this song when I was a (little) kid.  It was in the tiny “contemporary” hymn-pamphlet we used during chapel, the one that had all the snazzy songs that the kids liked.

“The birds begin to sing, the flowers start their budding.”

By the time I got to college, it was common to express disdain for the earnestness and cheese of this song, and many others in that hymn-pamphlet.  They were just another victim of the pervasive irony that held all of us Gen-Xers in its hypnotic sway.  And, to be honest, the lyrics ARE totally lame and cheesy, and the metaphors…

“That’s how it is with God’s love, once you experience it.”

…feel a bit lazy and forced, unless you happen to be high.

I mention this because I’m up at 5:43am.  There would be a sunrise right now, if not for the clouds that are hovering over Lake Michigan.  There is a giant pink-bud-studded tree outside my window that is pretty even in the dull blue-gray of the not-yet morning.  In the distance, piney trees point to the sky.  Since I’ve walked past just about every square inch of Grafton proper, I know those trees are meant to shield an ugly factory from a road.  But from my window, they could be the entry point to a beautiful forest.  I can’t tell.

“Once you experience it.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the must-be-believed-to-be-experienced nature of God lately, and how leaps of faith are essential to understanding, well, just about anything.

This fact has confused and pissed me off for about five years, and made it difficult to pass on.

But mornings like this, even though they are “cold and gray,” make me understand something important, and this by (what else) faith:

I live in Paradise.  Problematic Paradise.

“Loud boiling test tubes.”

Ok so “Earth and All Stars” is still irredeemable, but “Pass it On” is A-Ok.  Even if it does turn God into a giant mystical doobie.

On the one hand, he’s an articulate and gentle defender of genuine, Jesus-like Christianity. He has an inquisitive mind and tries to figure stuff out, rather than dogmatizing and demonizing everything without thinking about it first. He also has a heart for those in need, especially the fatherless.

On the other hand, he thinks that books about being “successful” are actually good. And this has pushed his current stuff about “living a better story” into the twin territories of smugness and self-help. Or, more accurately, “helping yourself live a better story (and have a better life), then being smug about it around all the people who won’t – or can’t – share your enthusiasm for pointless enthusiasm.” Take this post entitled, “Does God Have a Specific Plan for Your life? Probably Not.”

The post comes from a good place, I think – trying to get people to be less afraid of making mistakes and more afraid of wasting their lives (or, to co-opt and twist his phrase, “living a non-better story”).

“My friends who disagree and think God has a specific plan for everybody are mostly sitting around waiting to hear from God. Meanwhile, God’s plan for them, apparently, is to shop at Bed Bath and Beyond and quote the latest Saturday Night Live skit. Quite the plan.”

But he needs to chill the f**k out and let people rest, be comfortable, and find their calling in the midst of that peace rather than be scared into doing things they hate. Sometimes we need stuff at Bed Bath and Beyond. For example, I don’t have a bed right now. Also, if SNL was funny, it would be perfectly appropriate to quote on of their skits. Apparently, God doesn’t have a specific plan for everybody, but instead just wants you to spend Saturday night from 10:30-midnight CST being extroverted somewhere, provided it’s in a place with no TVs.

And yes, I understand that he’s basically just trying to get people to think about stuff they wouldn’t normally think about.

This is a great big world with amazing stuff in it. Let’s enjoy that stuff in our current context, or change that context to something better if we can. The context doesn’t matter. I swear to you it doesn’t. If it does, we’re all screwed, because ultimately we are not in control of it. Those who think they are have tricked themselves.

If we were going to pare down the Bible into its basic messages, I think we’d get “faith,” “hope,” and “love.” Expanding that a little bit, we’d get “This life doesn’t matter – the next one does” and “we are here to serve others and God” and “you don’t have to worry about anything, God has a specific plan for you, the individual.” Like it or not, that’s what we’d get.

In other news, I’m now going to adopt this blogging style where I write in mostly short paragraphs with bolded first sentences. Enough cool bloggers are doing it that I’m sure somebody somewhere has done market research and discovered that it gets the most hits, reaction, effectiveness, whatever, etc.

Btw, I think Don Miller’s greatest crime against humanity is the repeating of this current Christian meme that “community” is more important than “individuality,” whatever than means. In this line of thinking, several things about our accursed USA have infiltrated the church to its detriment – things like “consumerism” and “individualism.” While I agree that loving ourselves is an epidemic (And always has been), I don’t agree that, for example, God deals with us as a group rather than as individuals in that group.

That idea I just wrote begs for lots of explanation, and maybe one day I will explain it more fully. For now, just know that the only community that matters is the body of Christ/kingdom of God/catholic (small “c”) church. Other than that, there are just people in social constructs that nobody really understands. Admittedly, this is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?

One last cynical and unrelated side note: More and more, I think that people talk mostly just to hear themselves speak. This makes them feel cool, and valuable, and smart, and gives them something to do that silences the clamoring fears and other voices in their heads. Also, how are they supposed to manipulate others into helping them live a better story without speaking?

I’m just kidding.  But here’s a bulleted list.  I wish I could make this a mulleted list by giving the dots little mullets, but I just can’t.

• Since we last talked, I shaved all the hairs (more than you might think) from my head.  I’m going with the shaved head look for a while, so you better get used to it.  Thankfully, it doesn’t really affect you, my blog readers.
• The World Cup is here.  I think I wrote the definitive piece on the World Cup and American’s reaction to it four years ago.  Here’s a link to it.  Yesterday, France played to a tie with Ecuador.  I’m a big believer in the Monroe Doctrine as it pertains to soccer, and so I’m very happy that big bad France got tied by the swarthy Ecuadorians.  That’s a good first day.  Also, I always root for the African teams, except of course for South Africa.  We will not forget, South Africa.  We will not forget.
• ESPN has come out with something called “ESPN3.”  We’re moving ever closer to “The Ocho” becoming a reality.
• Man, Milwaukee is Brewer-crazy.  I had forgotten what it’s like to live in a real sports town.  And the Brewers aren’t even good!  I don’t care about the team at all*, and yet I know all about their players and their hopes and dreams and contracts and failures and Steakhouses.  For example, did you know the Brewers have a guy named Corey Hart who’s a total hillbilly?  Also, he’s stick-thin and has an absurd Amish beard.  Also, he totally sucked last year but is currently leading the NL in home runs.  These are some of the things I know, for no dang good reason.
• I’ve developed a lot of theories about God and Life and The Universe and Everything, but I’m not quite willing to share them.  Perhaps if someone were to get me drunk, that would unloose my tongue.  These theories have helped me a lot, actually, in my day-to-day life.  I still hate talking to people, but I’m not as burdened about it now.  And it’s not like my theories are some sort of secret, a la The Secret — they’re right there in the Bible, and other places.  Perhaps I’ll just start a cult and have done with it.  Can you have a cult with no followers?  Isn’t a cult with no followers just a crazy person?
• With regard to camping/hiking, I have purchased:  1) A cool tent, 2) a Wal-Mart brand (technically “Ozark Trail) camping pad, 3) a tarp, 4) a point-and-shoot camera, 5)  a sleeping bag.  Now, if I could only purchase something that stops it from raining.  Any evil geniuses out there with a weather machine I could borrow?
• I like coffee shops.
• The USA plays the England in soccer today in what some people are calling “The Dixie Chicks Revenge Game.”  C’mon USA, think about how much Natalie Maines will hate it if you win!
• What the heck — Nebraska in the Big Ten?  Colorado going to the Pac-10, which might soon be the “Pac-16?”  The Big 12 becoming the “Big Five?”  Nobody wants Rock Chalk Jayhawk anymore?  Things like this are why the NCAA needs a commissioner who manages which teams are in which conference.  They need me to be that commissioner, actually.  I’ll set them straight.  My first edict?  Notre Dame is disbanded for being snooty.
• I’m not delivering pizzas right now, which is weird.  My real job has become a real job, and that means real busy.  You would not believe how busy I am all the time.  That’s ok though, I like it.  It gives me something to do during the day.
• Oh, and LOST ended.  I don’t have time to deal with my feelings on that right now, I got too much to do.

That’s all I got.  Sorry.

*obvs, that’s not completely true.  But it’s baseball, and baseball doesn’t care about me, so why should I care about it?  I’ve been less and less passionate about sports lately, because it all seems so silly.  Also, the Yankees, the Lakers, and the Blue Devils keep winning championships, we might have to disband the whole sport world and start over.  Thank God for the Saints, right?  Literally.

Maybe it was all those Meyers-Briggs personality evaluations that said the exact same thing.  Maybe it was my overwhelming sadness when I’m around lots of people.  Maybe it was my new favorite blog, Introverted Church.  Whatever it was, I have come to realize a very important fact:  There is a word for what I am, and it’s not a disorder.  It’s just introversion.  Lots of people are this way.  Who knew?

Seriously, our culture seems to place a much higher value on extroversion right now.  If there is a problem people have in their life, the answer we’re given is almost always something extroverted.  Don’t like your job?  Go out and find a new one — it’s up to you!  That job not making enough money for you?  Get a second one!  Need more attention?  Sell yourself!  Don’t like your marriage?  Communicate more!  Life is boring?  Find something you’re passionate about and do it!  Follow your heart and don’t care about what other people say!  Need something?  Don’t take no for an answer!  In a funk?  Do something and think about it later!  Live a better story, for Pete’s sake!

See what I mean?  I’m oversimplifying here, as always, but that’s totally what we hear every day, right?  Is there any other way to make it in this world besides constantly “putting yourself out there”?  Is it even a worthwhile question?  Isn’t introversion just another word for not taking responsibility for things?

No.  I wrote a while back, I think as a Facebook status message, that I’m learning the valuable lesson that not everything in life is my responsibility.  In fact, as I go through life, I’m quite surprised at what my actual responsibilities are, in comparison to what I’ve been led to believe.  It doesn’t help that people are fighting to hold me responsible for things every day — at my job, in my interactions with people, and in ads for some worthwhile cause.  It’s easy to make a case that something is important, and nearly impossible (not to mention socially suicidal) to prove that case wrong.  Take, for example, the current BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.  If we didn’t drive cars, none of this would have happened.  It’s our responsibility, therefore, to clean it up.  Just because we drove cars.  I cant think of a way to defeat this argument without taking some sort of political stand against government involvement in private business, something that seems beside the point right now.  So…

Wait.  I’m not really responsible for that, and me contemplating doing something about it is wasted thought.  You know what isn’t wasted thought?  Thinking about the implications of drilling in the ocean, and whether or not the risks are worth it.  Is it time to all get electric cars?  How about mopeds?  Introverts can solve these problems if allowed enough time to themselves, but we’re making them Do Something rather than Do What They Do Best.

I’m just discovering what it means to be introverted, and others have waxed far more eloquently on the subject.  But I would remind you that it’s not a disorder or even a way of looking at the world — it’s a personality type.    Let me chill out in my own way, ok?  Jesus went away by himself all the time.  Look it up.

I’ve also figured out an important truth from the Bible that really does sound insane, but is nonetheless true.  But that’s for another post.  How’s that for a tease?

-Nelson Mandella

This quote is fine, up to a point.  The idea that we shouldn’t let other people’s insecurities decide the way we act SOUNDS like a good idea, until you get to the question of applying it to real life.  And then you realize that Nelson Mandella just put his Very Respected Name underneath the personal philosophy of every ignorant loudmouth in the world.  It’s one thing to not shrink when you’re fighting apartheid; it’s quite another to bully some poor kid into giving you his lunch money.

Maybe sometimes it’s ok to love other people enough to become lesser so that they can become greater.  Unless your point is that people can only grow if they confront those insecurities, another point that SOUNDS good until you find yourself Dwight Schruted in the middle of nowhere and told to find your way back to camp so you can pass some insane initiation.  Again, this cannot be universally applied to any insecurity.  This is why it’s a bad quote.

I would further submit that you’re more here on this earth for others than you are for yourself, but that’s admittedly a crazy idea and easily dismissable on the grounds that it requires faith, which as we all know is not scientific and therefore just nutty.  Carry on enlightenedly browbeating weaker people with your hideous strength.

I’ve been listening to the new Waterdeep record, “In the Middle of It.”  I don’t know if it’s really an exciting new leap for them or a disappointing new leap for them, both, or neither.  Here’s the deal: Waterdeep is partially responsible for the greatest worship CD of all time (Enter the Worship Circle) and wholly responsible for the greatest Christian song of all time (18 Bullet Holes), so my expectations for them are extremely high.  I’m really not a person who gets all bent out of shape when Christian artists of any sort make things that are not specifically for the Christian subculture — in fact, I generally hate stuff that’s marketed at Christians, and the concept of Christian marketing in general — but it’s a little weird to hear Waterdeep play a hyper-produced record filled solely with songs about people who are dealing with life.  It’s a little weirder to hear them play songs that aren’t necessarily redemptive in nature.  It’s like a switch was flipped and they got all cynical and angry.  That’s not a bad thing, but like I said, it’s just weird.

I figure it’s a by-product of their move to Nashville to become record producers.  The music on In the Middle of It sounds like a production demo reel, which actually makes it a lot more fun to listen to than it would be if they had gone for the same sound as their past records.  Lori’s voice, which has always seemed like an acquired taste, is awesome here, mostly due to production.  They cover so many music genres that it’s obviously meant to say, “See?  We can produce any kind of record you want to make!”  Well, mission accomplished.  The music is fantastic across the board.

The lyrics, like I said, are another matter.  Gone is the redemption and the God who cares and searches; In their place are songs about people who are making bad choices and aren’t able to deal with their emotions.  There are some good lines, but the aversion to redemption makes most of the album kind of disposable.  I just expect to have my block knocked off by Waterdeep, and In the Middle of It didn’t even attempt to slap me in the face.  It’s like they wanted to dig deeper into people’s hearts, and ended up stopping right before the good part.  Not that it’s a bad album.   It’s just weird.  Here’s a lala sample:

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I’ve got another column up on thechristianmanifesto.com.  It’s about American Idol.  Please view it here:

http://www.thechristianmanifesto.com/index.php/2010/02/05/culture-blog-4-gokey/

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If these moderately attractive people are so discouraged with the current economy that they’re giving up the job hunt, what hope do I, an ugly duckling, have?  We are at the worst possible economic situation right now: Employers have all the power, and employees either have to put up with terrible conditions or be let go.  Nobody wants to be jobless in this market right now.  It’s not fun.

In related news, I got a job at Dominos two weeks ago.  I didn’t tell you because I…was busy doing other things.  But suffice to say I enjoy the job very much, and it’s way more profitable than it should be.  For now, I am being blessed at a quantum rate — decent enough job that I don’t hate, living in a great area with great people who haven’t decided to kick me out yet, getting the opportunity to write every day, my car still works, my clothes still fit, and soon I’ll be training for a marathon.

In also related news, Don Miller says I should be positive so I can manipulate somebody into loving me.  He’s seriously morphing into Joel Osteen.  And yes, my sarcastic tone in this paragraph does mean I’m a big fat jerk.  A big fat idealistic jerk.  Sorry.

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Back to jobs.  Obama was right when he said that Americans have a crisis of faith in their government right now.  I mean, I totally do.  It’s not going to get any better if they set out to prove (once again) that they have no idea how to create jobs in our current economy.  I’m convinced that small businesses, long-term thinking, encouraging innovation, and regulating the crap out of banks are the keys.  I don’t know what this makes me politically, so please stop trying to put me in your political box, man.

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I’m done.

I’m just going to leave that where it is, without any editorial comments.  Sounds super.  (Ok, one.)

(Please notice that for this post’s title I’m using the words Prince intended to sing, rather than the words he actually ended up singing, which is “body over us” instead of “party over oops.” I don’t know why he sings this, but I think it’s weird that “misheard lyrics” aren’t called what they are, which is “mis-sung lyrics.”)

What if we had the tradition to bury everyone who died in a given year on New Year’s Eve? I don’t know where we’d keep them in the meantime, but what if we found a way to preserve their corpses until the end of the year, when National Graveyard Day would happen and the streets would be filled with grief? Would this make us better or worse as a people? In thinking about it for five more minutes, I’ve determined that it’s probably a terrible idea, because I don’t think our culture could handle something that poignant without spontaneously combusting.

You may have noticed that positive week is over. It was fun while it lasted, eh? You should have seen my brain straining to come up with positive things for you. The mental effort I exerted was astounding. I could have thrown the mountains into the see with the amount of brain-joules I produced. ANYWAY…

In a related question, how exactly does one bury a year? And how does one salt the earth so that the year in question can never produce anything again? Will singing Auld Lang Syne do it, or does it take more? Does anyone even know the words to Auld Lang Syne? We had a booklet of famous songs in our basement when I was growing up, and the words and music to Auld Lang Syne were included. Aside from “acquaintences be forgot and never bro’t to mind,” it written completely in some old (er, “auld”) English dialect that makes no sense. And why do we want to forget our acquaintences anyway? In most cases, acquaintences are the least of our problems.

I don’t know where I’m going with these questions. I guess what I’m trying to ensure is that 2010 is better than 2009. Because I can’t take another 2009. Please Jesus, help me out with this.

I realized last week that there are four main qualities I appreciate in people. I love everybody, of course — but for me to like somebody, they have to have at least one of these four things going for them in significant enough quantities for me to notice: Creativity, intelligence, a general chilled-outness, and humility. Since this is positive week, we’re going to focus on what I like about these particular traits and the people who exhibit them.

We’re going to tackle creativity first, which is admittedly a very broad category. I just love creativity in all its forms — from movies to music to novels to touchdown passes to witty one-liners to anything else that involves the use of one’s brain and available resources to make something out of nothing. Some people are more adept than others at looking at a blank page or a developing problem and turning it into a piece of art, or a solution, or both. I like those people. Being around them makes me happy, because you never can tell what they’re going to say or do next. It makes life fun.

(I’m resisting the urge right now to overanalyze myself or my preferences w/r/t the kind of people I like, solely because I’m being completely positive here. Even this parenthetical caveat seems like cheating, but I would put the caveat on this caveat that it could have been a lot less positive than it ended up being. For example, I could have used the phrase “creativity snob.”)

I also appreciate the creative side of myself so much it’s fascinating to see it at work in other people. In my case, the blank piece of paper (or, more accurately, blank screen) is both the scariest and most exciting thing in the world, because of the infinite possibilities it represents. It could literally become anything, and I am in charge of molding it into shape as best I can. I guess scary isn’t the right word — it’s a combination of daunting and sacred that makes me a little scared. I know I’m not the only one who has felt this while staring at a blank computer screen. That’s why I’m always amazed and a little grateful when anyone creates anything of value. They have climbed a sort of mountain, and shared the end result with me. I don’t do any of the work, but I get to reap the rewards of experiencing it anyway.

What’s fascinates me is everything about the creative process, from start to finish. I love hearing the ambitions and visions people have, for everything from writing novels to starting their own businesses.

These visions are what make life worth living. When you really think about it, creating things is the only thing we do that outlives us. I’m talking creation in the broadest sense — including the literal (children, prose) and figurative (love, glad tidings, memories). We’re creating without even trying, and our creations largely define us in the eyes of others.

Need I even mention that God created us, and is obviously the source of all this creation? I’ll just say that it’s obvious, and leave it at that.

You know how I know I intentionally hang around creative people? Because in high school, we made up our own role-playing games. Seriously. We were that nerdy. It was amazing amounts of fun, though, which was why we did it. Someone would come up with a game concept and plan out what would happen when, and we all played our characters and literally did whatever we wanted in the context of the game. If you’re wondering how I can manage to tell a (semi-)coherent story off the top of my head, these games were a large part of my training. We were creating an interactive narrative together, before anyone had heard of such a thing (outside of “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, I mean). I still want to write a novel that tells one of those interactive stories, because I remember them as being awesome. And I’m getting out of here on a high.

]]> http://epthnation.com/a-blurb-on-creativity/feed/ 0 http://epthnation.com/we-breathlessly-await-the-arrival-of-santas-bag/ http://epthnation.com/we-breathlessly-await-the-arrival-of-santas-bag/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:11:26 +0000 epthnation http://epthnation.com/?p=1559 Continue reading →]]>

Lately, Christmas for me has been a season of great ambivalence and emotional confusion, due to America’s changing virtually overnight into America II: The Squeakwal.  Sorry, couldn’t resist.  The point is, things have changed.  Nobody can say anything about Christmas without everyone else rolling their eyes (myself included), and this has caused Christmas Reductionism, where only the worst parts of USA Christmas survive.  Peace and good will towards men are potentially offensive.  Hot cocoa, generic bells, and shopping are not.  This is where we are.  Even the music has been ruined by overexposure, with every station pumping out Holiday Cheer for the last month-and-a-half of the year, and every public place following suit.  This is why we shouldn’t let America II: The Squeakwal have nice things.

Sufjan Stevens describes in the cute little Christmas story booklet that accompanied his 5-disk 2006 Christmas music box set (which is the gold standard in Christmas Music, as far as I’m concerned) something he calls That Christmas Feeling.  He set out to recapture That Christmas Feeling every year by getting friends together and recording Christmas tunes, and he succeeded, at least for himself.  His Christmases growing up were horrible, and in his adult years he was able to see everything good about Christmas that his younger self couldn’t.  It’s really quite the story; you should buy the 5-cd set and read it, if you get the chance.

I bring up the Sufjan story because I’m the exact opposite of him.  I had GREAT Christmas experiences every year from birth until adulthood.  My parents always gave me great gifts, but in the right amounts and in the right spirit.  They also made a point to explain Jesus and who he was and why we celebrate this American Christmas in the first place.  I understand that most children didn’t have it so good, and now it seems we’re paying the price for that parental failure.   I don’t know if that’s true, but I think it is.  Anyway, at some point they decided that America needed to be ended and reborn as a place where, among other things, the Incarnation should be neither seen nor heard.  I understand why they did it (being as they’re non-Incarnation-believers), but I don’t understand why they still celebrate Christmas, or anything else for that matter.

And this whole Santa Claus thing.  Perhaps the worst thing the America II: The Squeakwal has done is fulfilled the doom-filled prophecies of the radical Anti-Santa movement (which was around during my childhood.  Really.  In fact, I did a satirical speech in high school speech class on why Santa is the Anti-Christ, just to mock them.  Yeah, the other kids didn’t get it).  It turns out Santa really was bad for America.  Who knew?  Without the Santa and the gifts and the doorbusters and the holiday specials featuring puppets, Christmas would have been abandoned as too religious.  Christians would still celebrate it with their families, but That Christmas Feeling would be a vague wistful yearning for childhood and not an overfilled desire for sparkly mammon.

And yes, I’ve had a bad year.  Why do you ask?

If there ever was a time for a Christmas reassessment, it’s 2009.  We have an economic system that’s practically begging us to bring peace and good will towards men back into vogue, to say nothing of the Jesus.  How about being nice to each other for a change?  How about being actually, actively tolerant of other people’s beliefs, looking them in the eye and saying, “I respect you, but here’s why I think you’re wrong”?    How about not being offended by the slightest thing all the time?  How about we gather with family and friends and decide to love them this Christmas season and beyond?  How about we admit that “Happy Holidays,” while functional, reflects poorly on our ability to deal with other people?  How about we give up on those modernism and postmodernism thingys and come up with something that actually works?

I hadn’t planned on this being a treatise on stuff.  But I’m glad it turned out that way.  Merry Christmas, everyone.  I hope you find That Christmas Feeling somewhere.