The common parlance of modern tribalism

As the traditional concept of family crumbles and more and more folks find themselves adrift and alone in the world, trying to navigate the complicated waters of modern thoughts on gender, family, and relationships, we as social creatures must belong and have relationships and social support, therefore we have formed little clumps of society based around common interests or lifestyles be it extreme sports, anime, or small dogs.  What once were clubs and social organizations have become a substitute family, but much like the cliques in the public school lunch room, how does the nerd table communicate with the football players without getting their faces smashed?  How does the local tea cup poodle enthusiast speak to the RPG guy in the next apartment over when her life is tied up in her dog and his online life is more full and exciting than his real one?  Is there a language to span these impossible boundaries?  A common tongue that all men understand?

It once might have been music, but music has become as isolating and clique-creating as any other hobby, pursuit, or art in recent decades.  What some people consider music would be considered noise by others and vice versa, we cannot even reasonably agree on the definition of what is and is not music let alone use it as a universal language.  That leaves story.  We all live a story, even if it is a dull or depressing one.  And we all want to have that story understood by and told to others.  We all love a story, in whatever format, though sometimes we disagree on the medium we all agree that we love a well told tale.  The RPG guy hopes to create his own story through the games he plays and the poodle lady tries to create significance and meaning by adding a character to her own tale.  Different mediums, same struggle, hopes, and fears.

Jesus knew this full well, while our society is a mishmash of varying interests and associated 'tribes' and one is free to take up quilting or forego leopard geckos at any moment, in His day, you were pretty much stuck in the class into which you were born and you did not even touch or talk to anyone in a higher situation than your own, let alone aspire to join them while all the higher-ups spent most of their time looking down in derision on those they considered beneath them.  You had the untouchables: lepers, tax collectors, Samaritans...  You had the wretched: the poor and disabled.  You had the Romans.  Then you had the important people: the learned, the rich, the religious authorities.  How could He reach them all when they wouldn't want to be in the same room together?  He told stories.  He broke down the barriers with a common language, enchanted them all, and drew some from every walk of life into His Kingdom where there are no such boundaries, just a vast crowd of unique children sitting enthralled at the feet of their Father listening to yet another vivid tale in His marvelous voice.

It's why we like movies, TV shows, video games, books...whatever our social structure or interests or language or culture, we have never moved beyond our love of stories.  So the next time you find someone's behavior, taste, or lifestyle incomprehensible, maybe take a moment to listen to their story and maybe it will touch your own!

An old tale revisited

I like this article on the famous scene between Martha and Mary, it is an interesting take on a lesson that has become almost trite.  Millennials are infamous for their search for 'work-life balance,' rebelling against the workaholism of their parents' generation, but at least from this brief biblical sketch, that attitude has been around way longer than the American Dream.  Maybe a new look at this old tale will save us from the fruitless search of 'looking for love in all the wrong places'; we won't find fulfillment in our work or our leisure unless we look for it in the right place.

The cure for self-esteem!

I've always hated the 'self-esteem' movement, I'm guessing it started sometime in the late '80's/early '90's and has been a vital part of public education and discourse ever since.  I remember sitting in a ridiculous class called 'Skills for Adolescents' ands staring blankly at a blue spruce out the window, wondering what it all meant and why, what was the point of this class?  Tell people they are good because they feel that way about themselves, really?  Even my juvenile mind could pierce that vapid farce but they dedicated a whole class to it.  Why not teach me to balance a checkbook, run a spreadsheet, or change the oil in a car: those are actual skills that are useful, not this vague fuzzy feeling of groundless happiness they wished to engender in my fertile young mind.  I think what I resented the most was that they treated me like an idiot: just think it and it will be so!  I might be young but I wasn't stupid, even my five year old knows that life isn't happy just because you think it is!  We don't need to deal with the neglect and abuse at home, the broken family, the emotional damage of countless years of heartache and fear and manipulation, we'll just paint the exterior a pretty color and everything will be just peachy...if you like white-washed tombs that's a great idea!  I needed something real, something that would actually fix the root of the problem, not just 'the power of positive thinking.'

Twenty years later I'm still dealing with the fallout (of my life, not that class!).  The hardest thing for me to do is love myself, consider myself worth caring for.  Apparently all those self-esteem courses weren't the answer.  But this article is.  Too bad I couldn't read it through, show it to the guidance counselor, and have a study hall instead of all those wasted hours!

Strange bedfellows indeed!

I thought I knew what I was getting into, truly I did.  I read the reviews and prepared myself for something that just might be a little disturbing.  I purposely left my six year old son at home, thinking it would be a little much for him.  It was a little much, but it wasn't the movie that was the problem!  I knew there were supposed to be some very intense scenes but not in the previews!  Having grown up with abuse, I knew this film might trigger old memories and from what I had read, I thought it might contain things a little too scary for a small son to watch.  The film itself was excellent, very sad and heart wrenching at times, but there were touches of humor, an upbeat pace, and a never fading hope that kept it from getting too dark.  It was realistic, the acting was excellent, and I was very happy, even the purportedly intense scenes were nothing as dark as I had anticipated.  Still not something for a young kid but certainly okay for older ones.  Overall, I was very impressed with 'I Can Only Imagine,' and while the song is not one of my favorites (it's one of those they played until you wanted to chuck the radio out the window, certainly not the song's fault, but you could learn to despise anything played that much; they did the same thing to a Natalie Grant song a decade back, beautiful song but it was ALL they played for about six months).

This had to be the worst pairing of film/preview that I have ever seen.  A serious Christian movie about abuse and redemption and beauty and hope paired with a movie about animated garden gnomes recruiting a famous fictional detective where every other scene was a potty humor joke and the main feature was a grossly obese male gnome clad only in what appeared to be suspenders and a thong dancing the night away.  It was that last scene that was the most disturbing part of the whole ordeal.  Go see 'I Can Only Imagine,' if you haven't yet, a most excellent and moving story, but please, hold the gnomes!

Another Unwitting Guest

I love it when I find someone who unwittingly writes a thesis for this blog!  Enjoy the article here.