Same Blog, New URL
Do We Care?
My heart stopped as I read the words “Gunman on UT Campus.”
My dear friend/old college roommate began Law School this semester at UT. I immediately picked up my phone and sent a text his way. Then I just sat, watching the news coverage on my laptop, glancing at my phone every few seconds. It was a long 20 minutes, but he responded that he was fine. I breathed a sigh of relief. I have an active imagination, and although the news kept saying that no one was injured, they also kept saying that there was a chance of a second suspect, and my mind was reeling.
But this post is not about my friend (he is fine, and most likely enjoying his day off from classes in this wonderful weather we are having). It isn’t about my over active imagination either (although I am sure I will enlist it sometime again in this post). It is about this:
Police said Tuesday that the gunman was Colton Tooley. College records indicate Tooley was a sophomore math major. His parents did not immediately respond to a message left by The Associated Press.
KELLEY SHANNON, Associated Press Writer
Again, my heart stopped. A lump grew in my throat. What must they be feeling? How does a parent deal with what has just happened to them? I am filled with compassion for them.
I am even filled with compassion for their son. What kind of darkness must someone who does what he did be wrestling with? What kind of hopeless dispair drives someone to that extreme?
After the Fort Hood shooting, I wrote a blog post about not covering people in their crimes. Today, Colton Tooley took his own life in a library after intimidating many others with his weapons. But he also lived 19 years before today. He loved and laughed, he had great memories and I am sure his parents are going to miss him a lot.
So while outrage is a common reaction to these type of events, instead of getting heated, lets take the time to focus the issue. What I mean is lets ask some deep questions about our culture and society. Why do these things keep happening? And what can we be doing about it? (I don’t only mean politically, although at this point I am having a hard time justifying anyone owning an AK-47)
These are my initial reactions to this event. I hope I haven’t offended anyone. I just want us to not put this down as another in a long line of violent shooting incidences. I want us to care about the people involved, and care about helping others in similar situations.
I recently saw this trailer for a movie that is focused on the parents of a campus shooter called Beautiful Boy.
Behavior vs. Character
One thing I have noticed lately is the dichotomy between behavioral change and character building. Let me define what each means. Behavior–the way we act, Character–who we are. Good behavior stems from good character (almost always), and the same is true of bad behavior and bad character. That is the natural progression.
I have been observing lately, however, that most people seem to think (or if they don’t think, they act like they do) that it’s the other way around, that character somehow stems from behavior. It can be said that working on ones behavior can help them see the character issues at the root of that behavior, but if one is wanting a lasting change in their behavior, those roots will have to be addressed. If you cut weeds in your yard, and don’t pull them up, they will just grow back. Its the same with character and behavior.
Why am I talking about this? Because I see the Church approach this issue backwards all the time, especially with teens or new believers. The church tells people that acting a certain way is important without necessarily addressing the heart issues that are involved. So what happens is, we look like a bunch of hypocrites who can get our acts together, but are still rotten human beings. That isn’t exactly a good representation of the gospel.
The Church, believers, should be more about shaping and growing in good character, not good behavior. This is something I am constantly wrestling with in my own life. I grew up learning the what-to and what-not-to-dos of being a Christian. But now that I am in the real world, outside of the safe bubble I have been wrapped in my whole life, I find myself in need of some real character building. I know how to appear humble, without that being an actual character quality I possess. I know how to behave like someone who loves people well, without actually feeling love for everyone that I encounter. I know how to act wise and mature, but may be foolish and immature at heart.
Good behavior is a great thing, but it’s only pleasing to God when it stems from our heart, from knowledge of His character and His work in our own. So let’s stop behaving and start being. I guess that starts with me.
The Cemetery
Death never made much sense to me. The fact that one minute someone is there, full of life, and then the next minute they are gone. It just seems odd that a person can just stop existing, stop being present. And then people go and visit graves as if the departed is actually there, still present, when in reality its only the shell that contained them. The person left when the life within them gave way to death
I have never been to visit my grandmother’s grave. I now pass the cemetery several times a day and am reminded that her body is resting there. She was the first person close to me (well the only person really close to me) to die. It was hard enough for me to visit her in the hospital when she was alive. I loved my grandmother, but I couldn’t face her death, and in many ways I still pretend she is on some really long vacation.
But, I find myself thinking about visiting my grandmother. Maybe it is because I never really accepted that she isn’t on a trip but is somewhere else with a head start on eternity. Or maybe it is because I need a physical reminder of what she meant to my life. Maybe I need to remember how she shaped who I am. I won’t know unless I go.
It has been eight years since she passed. I feel like in my head visiting her grave has been building to this big dramatic moment, when in actuality, it will be a quiet and anticlimactic. I will walk to her grave, maybe with some flowers, and trace my hand on her name on the headstone. The texture will be burnt into my memory as I think about her cooking, and her laugh, and the way she was the sweetest lady in the world unless you were playing cards with her. My memories of her will come alive, I will acknowledge them, and then stand up and walk away.
I have moments like that without the cemetery visits. When I eat marshmallows or those orange slice candies (which she always had for me), when I see mandarine oranges, when I watch Mrs. Doubtfire, or any of a hundred other things. Those are little memorials in my mind to my grandmother. Memories of her alive and vibrant. I don’t need a headstone to remind me of what she meant to me.
Maybe one day the curiosity will drive me to see where her remains lay, or maybe I never will. But, I do know that I will always remember my grandmother and always hold on to the hope that we both shared, that we will be redeemed and together with Jesus someday. I bet she is laughing and enjoying Him already.
Why Mad Men is Preaching The Gospel (well sort of)
Mad Men Season 4 Poster
I am not going to lie to you, I am one of the millions of Americans who tunes in to Mad Men every week. It is an intriguing show, the nostalgia, the 60′s pop culture references, the style, etc. Also, with Mad Men midway through its fourth season, the character’s story arcs are starting to really take shape. Things are starting to come into perspective, and I think the show is a walking example of how totally depraved we humans really are.
In most drama’s nowadays, writers have gotten clever, and really develop the characters overtime, to keep things from getting too soapy or unrealistic (they still do from time to time, I mean it is TV). One of my chief complaints about Mad Men in the beginning was that it was slow, and that I could not see that they were taking the story anywhere but to the destruction of each character. Each character acted so selfishly, and I couldn’t see any redeeming qualities in any of them.
Now, four seasons in, and this trend is still going on. Sure, characters have moments of selflessness, but overall, every character on the show is pleasure seeking, completely disregarding who they hurt in the pursuit. And I watch with fascination, why these characters continue to dig themselves into wholes that are not satisfying them. Don and Betty Draper, each pursuing their own pleasures, completely tore their marriage and family apart, now trying to pick up the pieces or their respective lives, unsuccessfully. Peggy keeps climbing the corporate ladder at the expense of anything personal, and still has no confidence, Joan finally has her man and a respectable position in the office but still not the affection, attention, and respect she desires.
It is interesting to watch these people push so hard for something, that in the end leaves them lacking. And the writers keep them from finding their happy ending. I thought for a time that the happy ending was just waiting for the end of the series, but the characters (accept for Betty) are becoming more self aware. They are realizing that their selfish pursuits are what is leaving them lonely and empty. But its like they can’t stop.
I am reading Timothy Keller’s book The Reason for God. In it he tackles skeptics questions about the Christian faith. One of them is how can a loving God send people to hell. Keller basically says that afterlife is eternal consequences of our life on earth. So if one chooses to ignore God in life, God gives that person what they want in the afterlife, by removing his presence from that person forever. One basically choses hell by choosing to live life without God. He says drug addicts are a mini-picture of that process. They alienate themselves from everyone because they love the high so much and keep seeking after it. Hell will be full of sin addicts looking for their next high, and probably wouldn’t want heaven even if they suddenly were convinced of its existence, according to Keller. That all makes sense to me. I am probably not doing the explanation justice, I recommend reading the book just for that chapter, honestly.
Mad Men Cast
How does this apply to Mad Men you ask? These people are stuck, they cannot get away from their own selfishness. It is sad, but we are glued to our TVs, and cannot stop watching these people run their lives into the ground. They are all in their own personal hells, and I don’t think they could chose heaven even if they believed it existed. They just keep trucking through.
I may not have my fingers on the pulse of Mad Men fans, but I know that I wouldn’t want to trade places with any of these characters. But I am destined to follow a similar path, but for the grace of God. Only by crowing King Jesus as Lord of our lives can we even begin to let go of our own hell and truly enjoy this life and eternity afterward. As I watch a well-made TV show, I think about how those characters are broken, and its obvious to everyone. But does everyone see how broken they are too, and how much they need Jesus? I hope so, maybe thats the happy ending our Mad Men will have.
“Say Hello to My Angry Eyes” –Mr. Potato Head
This blog post was going to be me ranting my annoyance with the media coverage of the inflamed sides of the mosque debate and the preacher from Florida, both of which are getting way too much attention from “journalists” and “leaders”.
Then I realized my ranting would be feeding into it, so I just want to say this:
Can we please stop being angry about every little thing. It isn’t solving anything, in fact its making things worse and a lot more complicated. Maybe if we all calm down, and got over our “religious superiority” or our “american exceptionalism” and just realized that people are people, everywhere, we could actually start to make some progress in not hating each other.
I know its a lot to ask of people in general, but I especially ask this of people who claim to be Christians. If you are going to claim Christ, can you please stop hating in his name. We especially need to remember that the only difference between us (Christians) and the rest of the world is that we received God’s grace and forgiveness. We are not better people, we are still people, we just have hope that Jesus is going to bring about His Kingdom, and we are apart of it. I don’t think that hate will be involved in that, and I don’t think a mosque anywhere is going to stop it from happening.
I Am Not Cool Enough For Your City
Hipsters
So I spent the greater part of this week in Austin, TX. If you have never been there, well first of all you are missing out on some quality eateries. Secondly, Austin is like the hipster capitol of Texas. I have nothing against hipster, let me start there, I just could never pull off the kind of clothes that a hipster must wear. The skinny jeans, the deep V-Neck t-shirts (I prefer modest V’s), the messy hair with copious amounts of facial hair (mustaches are in right now apparently). Walking around, I felt my coolness level was nowhere near what it needed to be for me to call Austin my home.
Then, I spent last night in Fort Worth with some friends. I was wearing my usual attire (jean shorts and a modest V-Neck). I grew up in Fort Worth, a town I affectionately call Funkytown (If you urban dictionary Funkytown, Fort Worth is the first definition, just FYI). I was not a very stylish youth, and I have carried that into my adult age. I was walking down Main Street and saw yuppies (a term for young professionals that I recently learned) everywhere. This was new for me. Dallas had always been yuppieville, but it has bled over into the streets of Funkytown. There are trendy wine bars with outdoor couches, the restaurants have definitely upped in scale and price. I felt underdressed in my own home town.
Then I began to wonder. I have recently decided to move back to Fort Worth, and have felt good about that decision, but this
Yuppies
threw me off. I know I have always wanted to live in a city, and blogged about it endlessly here, but I asked myself, “Jacob, are you cool enough for this town?” Now, yuppies, for the most part, can’t help it that they have to dress nice and trendy for work, but I wonder if I will ever have a job that requires me to have a similar look. Will I be tempted to spend my money on keeping up with the trends of yuppies everywhere, or will I be able to resist it, live simply and be ‘gulp’ uncool.
Let’s be honest here. Everyone wants to be cool, unique yet something that people admire, mysteriously put together and yet neatly messy. Or whatever the trend is at the time, whether we are onboard with it or the anti-it, we all get some confidence in our cool factor. Thus I have identified my first battle of city living, trying to find Jesus in all this trendiness.
How much should I care about the clothes that I have, the way my facial hair is, the style of my hair, the shoes that I have, the bike that I ride, the laptop that I type away on (its a Mac incase you were wondering…*trend points*)? How much of it is me keeping up with the Jones’ or just purchasing a good product? How much of it is me trying to find my identity in the things that our culture has said defines us, or me just buying the things necessary for life, or freely buying things that add to its enjoyment?
If you have any answers to these questions, I would love to hear them. I know I should spend less time thinking about what is cool and more time thinking about what is following Jesus. I hope someday that I can walk down the street and be completely oblivious to the fact that I am not cool enough to be where I am.
Anne Rice WAS Second…
If you have not heard, Anne Rice, author of Interview With a Vampire, has renounced Christianity.
“I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”
“It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”
-Anne Rice on her Facebook page
Today I read this L.A. Times interview with her. From it, I gathered a bit more information about her frustrations. She seems to be exhausted by the Church’s stance on homosexuality. She may or may not agree with the life style, but she seems to think the Church is persecuting homosexuals. I would have to agree that it seems that the Church, whether or not it is true of the Church as a whole or just a very vocal minority, has an aggressiv agenda against homosexuals. She also seems to be irritated by the way things are either black or white, there is not much room for grey. This issue deals more with birth control and abortion. These areas are places I think the Church should have specific positions, but I think her concern falls more into the category of how graceless the Church’s stances tend to be.
Basically, I believe that Anne Rice feels about how Paul felt in Romans 2.
You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
Romans 2:23-24 (ESV)
This comes in Romans where Paul is trying to unify the Church in Rome, which is made up of self righteous Jews and recently pagan Gentile converts. So there is a lot of judgment going on. He basically says to the Jews, “Look. They had no idea about this Law that you guys have had for a while. And you are teaching it to them from a position of superiority, as if you don’t still struggle to do the things the Law says. Stoppit. Worry about your heart and come along side these guys and help them learn how to walk, and while your at it, learn to walk yourself.”
This frustration, the one that Paul and Anne seem to share, is shared by a lot of Christians in the Church. I share it, I have talked to a hundred other people who feel the same way, and I suppose that it is not just a Texas, Colorada, and California thing. In a lot of ways the Church in the U.S. is like Judaism in the Roman times. Most believers, at least in the Bible Belt, have grown up with Church as apart of their culture. We know all the rules of being a Christian, so its easy to fly on Christian autopilot instead of checking if our hearts are actually following Christ. So we get caught up in the rules and miss the point. Nothing is more frustrating then a group of people who are passionate about rules, but who have forgotten the purpose behind them.
I digress. All this to say, I believe Anne Rice has many valid frustration with “organized Christianity” or the Church. Now as to her actions, I will have to strongly disagree with her. I know she feels noble in her stand against the way things seem to be done, but her actions are self-righteous at best, and I think also very selfish. Instead of trying to change things from the inside out, she just gives up and leaves, and worse saying she is doing it in the name of Christ.
All we have to do is look to Christ for an example of how we should act out of these frustrations. He spoke out against the Jewish leaders, while being a practicing Jew. He didn’t renounce the Law that the Jewish leaders were misusing, but He said he came to fulfill it. He also said things like, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35 ESV) Jesus was a radical voice, but he was an insider, He didn’t get frustrated and one day say, “You know what Jews, save yourself.”
In effect, that is what Ms. Rice is doing. She is saying, “This thing is broken and I am tired of trying to fix it, so I give up, good riddance.” Well, Ms. Rice, of course it is broken first of all. You get a group of sinners together, and there is going to be mayhem. Now obviously the Church has a lot of work to do, but the only way we will actually be the representation of God’s Kingdom in the world is if people like you take their frustrations and seek positive change, not give up. Giving up is the selfish thing to do. It says, “I am tired, and I don’t care what God’s purpose for this group of people is, because they are never going to get there.”
It makes me sad that this is the only course of action you felt like you could take. I pray that one day you will be able to move from bitterness to resolve. The Church won’t get any better if we all quit because its so messed up. I mean the purpose of the Church is for messed up people to grow together into the Bride of Christ. We will get there someday, and hopefully you will be standing there with us Ms. Rice.
Derek Webb has a great song about loving the Church. Here are the lyrics.
to capture for myself a bride
by my life she is lovely
by my death she’s justified
i have always been her husband
though many lovers she has known
so with water i will wash her
and by my word alone
so when you hear the sound of the water
you will know you’re not alone
cause i haven’t come for only you
but for my people to pursue
you cannot care for me with no regard for her
if you love me you will love the church
i have long pursued her
as a harlot and a whore
but she will feast upon me
she will drink and thirst no more
so when you taste my flesh and my blood
you will know you’re not alone
but for my people to pursue
you cannot care for me with no regard for her
if you love me you will love the church
there is none that can replace her
though there are many who will try
and though some may be her bridesmaids
they can never be my bride
but for my people to pursue
you cannot care for me with no regard for her
if you love me you will love the church
Romanticizing
I am a dreamer. Now, those of you that know me my find that hard (or rather easy) to believe without the context. I love to picture myself living in these ideal situations, or in ideal places, doing exactly what it is I think that I want to be doing. I like to picture myself in an old Brown Stone in New York, pecking away on my computer, writing some sort of brilliant novel. I can see myself in L.A., at the premier of my mind blowing thriller that I wrote and directed to much critical acclaim, yet somehow I was still able to remain grounded and humble even amidst the awards buzz (quite an imagination). I imagine myself owning a small bookstore in Fort Collins, CO. I ride my bike to work everyday, drink a lot of coffee, have good relationships with all the regulars, and enjoy to the fullist the Colorado landscape, weather, and the small town atmosphere. I close my eyes, and I am in San Francisco, working two jobs just to get by, but loving the city, the people I meet, everything, all of it.
Even as I write this, I imagine myself doing a billion other things. None of them are what I am currently doing, which is living in Dallas, looking for work. Apparently the world hasn’t caught on to the things I want to do.
After I wrote my last blog post, my mind was filled with ideas. If I want to do something bad enough, why don’t I just do it? Again I find people I talk with to be of two opinions about this. One groups tells me to reach for the stars, to go after the ideal, the dream, and who is to say that I won’t attain it. The others listen to me, smile, and try to talk me down from the clouds to a more realistic vision. They are both right, and both wrong.
After much thought and self analyzation I have come to a conclusion about myself. My dreams are romantic. Not romantic in the love sense, but in the way I view reality. I have come to a point where I am placing my hope in location and occupation. My joy in life has become contingent on those two things. And as people who have lived much longer than me in differing occupations or locations will tell me, I am setting myself up for disappointment. I have a romantic view of these things, as if they can fulfill me.
Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of something I learned once. Life is not supposed to be about where I am, or what I do, but who I am. In these visions and imaginings I have about my future, I rarely give myself character traits (besides being humble and grounded in my famous future…but lets be honest, who likes a celebrity that comes off as arrogant?). I never give myself daily struggles or conflict, that is most definitely not ideal. Yet here I sit today, in conflict, unemployed, searching, and longing for a place and time when everything will be “perfect” in my eyes, as if I can possibly know what that would be. Regardless of where I want to be, this is where I am. And these are the times when the who I am gets forged.
So maybe I won’t live in New York, will I be kind? I may not be an author, honest and gentle? I will most likely not be famous, will I be a servant to others? I may never own that bookstore in Fort Collins, but will I still build strong relationships with the people I come in contact with everyday and still enjoy to the fullest my surroundings? I might not be in San Francisco, but am I still willing to work hard so that I can love the city I am in and the people I meet everyday? See what I mean? Life seems so easy in my mind if just certain things will fall into place. Maybe the thing that needs to fall into place is me, my attitude, my desires. I can go on to do a billion things, but if I am not a man of character, what does it matter?
So how do I focus on character now, when so many things are up in the air? Walk through open doors. Not any open door, but doors that makes sense in helping me to be the man God designed me to be. If I am striving after any ideal, I want it be that. I want to be dreaming of a day when I can be like Jesus, with Jesus, and truly conflict free. I don’t think that will be in a New York Brown Stone, but I can start that journey right here where I am at.
Why I Love the City
Preface: When I use the word city, I mean a pedestrian city, filled with people walking, riding bikes, or using mass transit, not the spread out cities where people use their cars to commute, much like places that many of us call home.
There are few times in my life when I find myself marveling at things. Sunsets on nights when the sun paints the clouds with hues of orange, pink, and purple, shooting stars, a man galloping on a horse, and the oddest, but not least, cities. The skyscrapers stand tall, so tall in fact that I am often confused of how they stay up (physics was a subject I did not fair well in, hence the reason I changed from engineering to the liberal arts…). The fact that each building houses people, either for work or sleep, that the whole city is a giant center for commerce, entertainment, life. All the people concentrated in small area still find food to eat, and have meaningful connections with other people. Life moves so fast. People hurry to work, to meet other people, to have a night on the town, or just to finally get some shut eye. Don’t even get me started on mass transit. Cities give me so much to marvel at.
So, here I am, in San Francisco, sitting in my hotel with my window open listening to the endless sounds of a living city. Earlier today I was wondering through a crowd, looking at trinkets in China Town, and before that watching Sea Lions sunbath on floating wooden pallets, and even before that I was walking through a farmers market watching people buy the items they needed for their dinners or picnics or snacks (we bought organic bananas). How amazingly random life can be here.
Now if you know me, I am not one who embraces the unpredictable. I am a very orderly person, and have been as long as I can remember. However, in my old age (I am approaching 24, that is old) I have found myself attracted to the spontaneous. I have started to find the unpredictable more enjoyable. Maybe it is because I have learned over time, that no matter how orderly you are, life still throws curve balls at you and you just have to go with it. I mean, I did everything I was supposed to do. I made good grades in High School, did well in College and graduated. Now I am supposed to find a job and be a productive member of society. That is the plan right? How is that going you ask? Nearing 3 months of serious job hunting and I still got nothing to show for it but a few bad interviews and a habit of sleeping until noon.
But in the city, there are so many different stories happening all around. Every waiter or barista I see, I wonder what their story is, how they came to be where they are, and if they are having any fun. Maybe not fun in the way that people think. I wonder if they are enjoying life, having meaningful relationships, I wonder if they feel that they have a purpose, or if they are just barely getting by. The people I walk by in the street, are they a tourist, are they a business woman, a homeless person? Where are they going, where have they been, who are they?
I sat people watching at a table outside of a restaurant tonight. I was in awe of how many people I saw walking by. A city is where people are, it is a mass of people opening their lives to clashing with others unpredictably. The thought of living in a place like that excites me. Now, to figure out how to do that…
