as freedom is a breakfastfood

I never thought of myself as one of those lock-yourself-away-in-a-closet-awaiting-the-end-times, conspiracy freak, fear-mongering, technology haters until I read the following passage from an essay entitled "FAIL" by Chuck Klosterman.

When it's warm out I like to sit inside air-conditioned rooms. ...

Yet what am I giving up in order to have a 70 degree living room in July?

Nothing that's particularly important to me.

For the air conditioner to work, I need to live in a building that has electricity, so I have to connected to the rest of society.  That's fine.  That's no problem.  Of course, to be accepted by society, I have to accept the rules and laws of community living.  That's fine, too.  Now, to thrive and flourish and afford my electric bill, I will also have to earn money.  But that's okay--most jobs are social and many are enriching and unnecessary.  However, the only way to earn money is to do something (or provide something) that is valued by other people.  And since I don't get to decide what other people value, what I do to make a living is not really my decision.  So--in order to have air-conditioning--I will agree to live in a specific place with other people, following whatever rules happen to exist there, all while working at a job that was constructed by someone else for their benefit.

In order to have a 70-degree living room, I give up almost everything.

Yet nothing that's particularly important to me.

The point is: "Technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom."

We don't value freedom.  We constantly make decisions that we know will result in the forfeiting of our freedoms and we do so for the worst of all reasons: comfort.

We don't value freedom and we will trade it for almost anything.

Our freedoms are daily, constantly under assault and almost never in the ways we would expect.

For a minor example, just take a look at the sports world.  This week all eyes are focused on Miami, the site of Super Bowl XLIV.  The Colts' quarterback, Peyton Manning, is the center of attention as he is the most talented player in Sunday's game if not in the game of football today.  Yet he has only won one Super Bowl in a career marked by statistical accolades and accomplishments.  If the Colts emerge victorious on Sunday night, almost every commentator on every sports station in the world will be anointing him as the greatest quarterback in the history of the National Football League.

This will happen for two reasons.  One, sports commentators need something to talk about and they always want to claim that we are watching the greatest player to ever play the game.  Historically great players sell out stadiums and lead to huge television contracts for the networks.  They sell commercials, they move merchandise, and they inspire us to greatness ourselves.

That is precisely why we should never proclaim someone the greatest to play their particular position until we are really sure about it.  There's more than just money on the line.

The second reason is because Peyton Manning fits a quarterback archetype that has been in place since long before he ever stepped on a football field.  Nevermind that he lacks the golden arm of Johnny Unitas or the charisma of Joe Namath or the grit and toughness of Terry Bradshaw or the cool demeanor of the ultimate winner Joe Montana.

After all, he comes to the line on each play screaming like a cracked-out paranoid schizophrenic with Tourette's syndrome.  That's got to count for something, right?

Color me unimpressed.  That's why I will never think Peyton Manning is the greatest quarterback of all time.  Because I don't buy into the hype.  Manning didn't invent the audible.  He's just a smart quarterback who has played on above average teams and won Super Bowl(s) in years in which there were no great teams out there to knock him out of the playoffs.

But commentators will anoint him nonetheless.  Because it is easier to join the chorus of the crowd than to risk singing off key.

We don't want freedom because we fear the burden that freedom carries.

In an example wholly foreign to discussions of football, consider the movement within young evangelical churches to rekindle the theology of John Calvin.

In short, the newly reformed evangelical movement takes the position that freedom is an illusion and that God in his sovereignty controls "even our smallest decisions."

This, of course, leads to a host of theological problems for people who are considering the existence of evil in the world and trying to reconcile that with the idea of a good and omnipotent God.  Why does God allow evil people to prosper while the virtuous continue to suffer?  Why did God even bother to create human beings at all if they were merely going to be automatons and pawns in a grander struggle ever frustrated by their inability to exercise free will?  How can a creation without the ability to make its own choices be held to the consequences because of sin?  Why create a world where Jesus Christ would have to suffer a horrific, undignified death on a cross if sin and evil could have been prevented if God was just more careful in His stewardship of creation?

As you might be able to tell, I'm no Calvinist.

But the question is: Why is anyone?  It is a completely unsatisfying theology ending only in fatalism and despair when put in the context of a world of suffering and in light of the inability of human beings to effect any real change in the world.

We're scared to be free.  We fear what the realization of our own freedom might be.  So we would rather have our theology dictated to us by John Piper than take the time to read the Bible for ourselves and draw our own conclusions.  Certainly, God never intended for Christians to bother with an original thought or a new theology after his greatest and final prophet John Calvin left the earth.

We don't want to think for ourselves.  It's easier this way.  For one, if we rely on our own thoughts, we could end up making mistakes.  We could end up being wrong.

Well, you can count me in the same camp as Galileo who said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

I would rather take the risky, adventurous path of freedom and end up being wrong than be right but in chains.  I would rather worship a God who loves me than one who controls me.

Great theologians, quarterbacks, and commentators took risks and felt freedom.  We cannot abandon that freedom for a comfortable existence now.

And if we do, then there's no greatness left in us.

Happy Holidays

I have an idea for a short story. The main conceit involves a faceless, unnamed Christmas shopper who gets into an argument with Jesus about what is more proper to say during the yuletide season, "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas." I can just imagine so many generic, sincere, and earnest Christians getting into an argument about their level of support for Christmas with the guy whose birth we are celebrating. I'm not saying that Jesus isn't interested in protecting the "true meaning" of his birthday and all. It just seems that Christ is a lot more tolerant of those who refuse to acknowledge him than those who claim to want to be like him. I know this mostly because of the influx of my Facebook friends who became a fan of "I say Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays" within the last three weeks. I am utterly convinced that joining that group is like unringing a bell. Every time you do, an angel loses his wings.

I didn't write that short story, though. Mostly because I wrote this essay instead and kind of stole my own thunder if that is something you can possibly do. (Maybe I will write it later and this essay will become a really cool prequel-type commentary on what I was trying to express.) Really, I decided to write an essay because I am better at that and the last time I wrote a short story I'm pretty sure I was in fifth grade and the main characters were a dog and a cat who talked and spoke English but couldn't spell all that well.

Chuck Klosterman concludes his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs with a discussion of the born-again worldview, a subject he feels educated enough to discuss based mostly on a recent reading of the Left Behind series.

There is no sophisticated reason for believing in anything supernatural, so it really comes down to believing you're right.  This is another example of how born agains are cool--you'd think they'd be humble, but they've got to be amazingly cocksure.  And once you've crossed over, you don't even have to try to be nice; according to the born again exemplar, your goodness will be a natural extension of your salvation.

This is ultimately what causes Klosterman to reject Christianity out of hand.  He can't believe that such a thing is possible.  That doing good would just be a natural outpouring of conversion.  Of course, no one believes this.  Not even Christians.  Otherwise, we wouldn't be constantly consciously trying to do so many "good" things.

I'm a sucker for a good cause.  Like. Honestly. Can't. Say. No.

Salvation Army guy at the front door of Walmart.  Hit you up on the way in and on the way out.  Dig wells in the bush?  Sure, I'll text SAVE to 56789 and give you $5.  I mean, how can I not?  I just spent $15 on iTunes because I was bored.  Am I really going to deny AIDS medication to destitute children in sub-Saharan Africa so I can download obscure EPs from Never Shout Never?  Buy books for kids who need to learn to read at the checkout at Barnes & Noble?  How could I live with myself if these kids didn't get to hear the same stories about big red dogs that I did (or their 2009 equivalents)?

Why am I this way?  Well, guilt mostly.  I still haven't figured out if this makes me a really good Christian or a really bad one.  Probably both ,but the point is that I am infected with the same virus as everyone else that causes a crying out from deep within my soul saying, "DO SOMETHING!"

While I am sure it is oversimplification, most of the infirmities of the human condition originate from two core diseases most economically labeled as rebellion and religion.  A quick definition of rebellion would be trying to do the wrong thing and a quick definition of religion would be trying to the right thing.  If the rebellion that has forever separated us from God is solved at the foot of the cross, then our problems with religion are solved in a manger.

Almost none of the Christians I know understand the "true meaning" of Christmas.  The reason for this is because instead of doing our job and just waiting on Jesus to be born, we are constantly trying to do stuff.  It is amazing how easy it is to be tempted to do the wrong thing when doing the right thing isn't leading to our preferred results.  H.L. Mencken put it this way, "Every normal man is tempted at some point to spit on his hands, raise the black flag, and begin slitting throats."  That is no way to live a life of patience, humility, and serenity.  Nor do I expect to soon read that quote scribbled into the bottom of a Christmas card under a colorful picture of a crèche.  Yet instead of pausing to reflect on the promised birth of Christ, we spend Christmas trying to get all militant and enforcing our spiritual beliefs on others.  We make our family and friends endure our awkward, is-everyone-down-with-this prayers and represent our piety by boycotting stores who would dare to say "Happy Holidays!" no matter how jovially.  We capitalize the "Christ" in "CHRISTmas" because that's what you do if you are truly holy and near to the promised infant. 

It's going to be pretty hard to get the Christ out of Christmas as long as we maintain the name and keep celebrating it on the date widely associated with his birth.  We make the commercialization of Christmas a tale of blasphemy and while surely a shameful development, commercialism is a poor adversary for the King of Kings.  Commercialism is a pretty powerful force in the modern world but it is still pretty hard to compete with virgin births and supernatural celestial events.  We've anointed Jared commercials as an enemy not because they are endlessly annoying (seriously, how is it possible to make even the expression of love so repugnant?) but because religion requires an enemy.

Wakey! Wakey! demonstrates religion's need to justify itself in the song "War Sweater."

Battle lines drawn if you wonder which side speaks the truth
then look closely to which speaks from pride
I love you. I swear it. I would never lie...
But I fear for our lives and I fear your closed eyes...

You wear your religion like a War Sweater.
You ask for the truth, but you know you could do so much better,
and you sat on your fences, you've screamed no retreat...
So now what will your legacy be?

Here we are at the dawn of advent awaiting the promised Prince of Peace and somehow we have made Christmas about declaring a petty American culture war.  We know the Christ child as the Lamb of God, comparatively docile among the types of farm animals, so what makes us so eager to take up arms?  If anyone is guilty of taking Christ out of Christmas, it is American Christians who would rather insert an angrier version of Jesus ready to win the culture on behalf of reformed theologians and then run for President.  It is staggering how much our version of what Jesus would do if he were here today differs from the life he actually lived while on the earth.  How did we get here to this place?

In the whole story of the birth of Christ, the only person who seems to truly understand the significance of the event is the mother, Mary.  Upon being visited by an angel, which had to be a pretty mystifying experience in itself, and then being told all manners of craziness mostly surrounding the fact that she would give birth though a virgin she simply responds, "I am the Lord's servant.  May it be to me as you have said."  Mary, of course, is also the one who will be jeopardizing her relationship, be mocked by society, and shunned by her family when she tries to repeat this ridiculous virgin birth nonsense to others.  Yet, she is the picture of serenity and patience.  That kind of faith helps you understand why some people venerate Mary to such a degree. 

The difference between waiting and acting is the difference between love and romance.  Love is quiet, patient, almost passive.  There might not be a greater beauty on earth than a still silence shared between lovers who desire nothing more than to be together.  Romance may have all the bells and whistles but the most hopeless of romantics only dreams to ultimately share those quiet moments.  If we could only learn to wait on the birth of Jesus, we might also learn to value the waiting moments as the sweetest time we would ever spend with God.

Half of my problems I blame on Taylor Swift, the other half on Twilight

(An excerpt from my upcoming book to be entitled: How to Date an Unattainable Woman and other things I don't know)

I once had a girlfriend who told me to stop trying so hard in my pursuit of her. No matter how original or creative my date ideas, no matter how scripted my witty banter, no matter how earnestly delivered my compliments it wasn't what she was really looking for. "This isn't a movie," she would say. About the time I was spreading rose petals all over my dining room table in my apartment to prepare a candlelight dinner for two on Valentine's Day, I thought she was a fool.

Now I think she might be the only normal person I know.

See, we have a common affliction in our culture and I am relatively certain that every person in my generation suffers from the same fundamental problem. We don't want to be in love. We want to be in love in a movie.

Chuck Klosterman addresses this problem in his book, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.

I once loved a girl who almost loved me, but not as much as she loved John Cusack. Under certain circumstances, this would have been fine; Cusack is relatively good-looking, he seems like a pretty cool guy (he likes the Clash and the Who, at least), and he undoubtedly has millions of bones in the bank. If Cusack and I were competing for the same woman, I could easily accept losing. However, I don't really feel like John and I were "competing" for the girl I'm referring to, inasmuch as her relationship to Cusack was confined to watching him as a two-dimensional projection, pretending to be characters who don't actually exist. Now, there was a time when I would have thought that detachment would have given me a huge advantage over Johnny C., inasmuch as my relationship with this woman included things like "talking on the phone" and "nuzzling under umbrellas" and "eating pancakes." However, I have come to realize that I perceived this competition completely backward; it was definitely an unfair battle, but not in my favor. It was unfair in Cusack's favor. I never had a chance.

I'm not going to blame John Cusack. Not because John Cusack isn't still cool or as formidable a foe for me as he was for Kolsterman but I just feel like his cultural relevancy has somewhat dwindled. So who then shall be my greatest nemesis the person I will forever be locked in a clash of the ages with yet all the while be only further delaying my inevitable demise?

Personally, I am no match for Edward Cullen.

I know this because I am 27 years old and single. I spend much of my free time trying to get girls to think I am smart or funny or charming or whatever it is that I think that women find desirable that day. But I will always fail. Because what women really want me to be is Edward Cullen. Yet I am not immortal, I do not have perfect hair and bone structure, I do not sparkle in the sunlight, I do not often allow my shirt to be blown open effortlessly by a gentle breeze, and I shower far too often to resemble the fantastical vampire anti-hero in the center of the adoration of millions of "Twihards." I will never be Edward Cullen because Edward Cullen does not exist.

People do not write scripts for me to attempt to deliver unironically the cheese-dripping melodrama of angst-ridden proclamation of teen love. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever accused me of "smoldering."

People don't expect those kinds of things out of real life. In the real world, things are never as epic as the movies and so they are never as satisfying. In the movies, people fall in love while risking certain death or saving the world from nuclear holocaust or while fighting evil clans of rogue werewolves. In real life, people can fall in love while eating pancakes. Don't get me wrong. I love I.H.O.P as much as anyone but I'm not setting my screenplay there. Still, shouldn't true love still be as satisfying in real life as it is in the movies?

Which brings me to Taylor Swift. She has become a cultural icon for her purity, innocence and dissatisfaction with boys in general. Despite her tender age, she has become an incredibly powerful symbol for postmodern angst. (Not only has she become this larger than life force of celebrity but she is also keenly self-aware enough to unironically croon the lyrics of "White Horse" simultaneously embodying the unfilled promises of an entire generation's longing for love while also diagnosing herself as part of the problem. This is no small feat to accomplish before being able to play a club without wearing a special wristband.)

Her biggest single to date, "Love Story," is a comptemporary reworking of Romeo and Juliet imagery in the form of an uptempo, radio-prepackaged power pop ballad.

Romeo save me I've been feeling so alone
I keep waiting for you but you never come
Is this in my head? I don't know what to think
He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring

And said, marry me Juliet
You'll never have to be alone
I love you and that's all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It's a love story baby just say yes

As Swift croons out the lyrics, she exposes her own double-mindedness about the essential nature of love. Romeo has been chasing her the entire time yet she can't help but feel alone. Togetherness is not enough for our modern Juliet. Melodramatic, scene-stealing kisses and grand gestures worthy of John Cusak are her aim instead of the less glossy images of the realities of love. She doesn't want a man; she wants a script. She wants a love story and she wants it to be in high definition.

I am choosing to interpret the most interesting lyric as existential mediation on the current state of love as a function of the human condition. "Is this in my head? I don't know what to think." Who does?

In a culture inundated with images of love burned into celluloid, is it possible that we have culturally anesthetized ourselves to the point that we can no longer recognize the gritty realities of love when we see them?

What I am saying is that it is at least arguably possible that real love is better than movie love.

That happily ever after is the most overrated concept in all of human existence. True love stories never end. They play themselves out in perpetuity in the scenes that find the cutting room floor, in late morning pancake breakfasts and comfortable silences. The sappy, heartstrings-tugging musical number may fade out when the credits roll but the dance survives even without music.

What we must do is reject a culture that sets us up for failure by forcing us to compare ourselves against impossibly beautiful stars and idyllic settings, against flawless writing and effortless dénouements. Appreciate the reality of longer, more enduring stories. The ones we don't watch but instead live.

We should learn to appreciate the kind of love that happens over pancakes.