Ideas, though often ill-advised, are generally a good thing. Sometimes there are bad ideas that make you want to slap your forehead and say, "What were you thinking?!" And sometimes there are those great ideas that make you want to slap your forehead and say, "What was I thinking?!" The exchange of ideas is one of the most important parts of who we are as human beings. We're hard-wired to approach a situation and begin thinking of things- problems, solutions, methods, or even something completely unrelated to the topic in front of your nose- you know, ideas! Cute little bubbles above your head, light bulbs, question marks, etc. What makes us human is thought, and the essence of thought is ideas.
Humans have figured out that if they can control thought, they can control other humans. They, often unconsciously, establish certain thought patterns. Usually these patterns have a very specific goal in mind and because of that they become rigid and immovable, and any ideas introduced into the fray become enemies that must be silenced, because this whole thing is already thought out to its end. This is where we enter into the realm of the "ideology". Ideologies have the tendency to shut down thought, to discourage ideas and to bring into line anything that is separate from the established thought process. It would seem to me that this act would cheapen the decisions made from this process… it would make everything simple, and it would get results, but it would cheapen everything. This is the epitome of industrial age thought, and the cheapening of things is a necessary and acceptable byproduct. But when it comes to people, I don't think anyone is interested in a cheap and simplified way of treating each other, especially when it comes to faith tradition.
There was a time during my senior year of high school that myself and some other people, mainly from the Pentecostal youth group I was involved in, decided it would be a good idea to start a Tuesday morning Bible study at school with some students from other churches. We asked permission from the principal to have a designated room, and asked one of the math teachers (who also served on the adult leadership team at youth group) to be our faculty representative. So we'd meet, and the idea was to have a topic of discussion pulled from a passage in the Bible and toss around ideas amongst ourselves, hashing out what it meant. We'd invite our friends, and I think at one point we may have put up fliers on the walls around the school or something to "advertise" our little weekly early-morning shindig. I think we mainly existed to make a statement to the folks around us, something to the effect of, yes, you go to school with Christians and yes, we're here and active and yes, we can pray and read our Bibles in this public place because yes, it's our right. We were alive and we were organized, so watch out! God's really gonna get ya now! While I liked the idea of having a group of us meet and talk about God stuff, I think I wanted it to be more about the conversation and the exchange of ideas than about the delivery of some kind of message, or keeping up some kind of appearance. However, I think that's all that most of us knew. Each week, we'd take turns leading the discussion, which was less a discussion and more like delivering a "message", a compilation of passages that we felt strongly about, to those who gathered with us- usually about 8 or 10- and no one would really have anything else to say about it and so off we'd march through the door of our meeting place, knowing that people knew where we met and who we were, and that they were probably watching us and might even ask us what we were doing in there and so we should be ready to speak confidently of our convictions. We'd then walk into our first period class and lose whatever we'd just talked about.
I think where it went wrong was in missing the conversation part. Somewhere in our subconscious effort to make a statement, we lost what we (or at least what I thought we) were going for- a group of people on a similar path exchanging stories along the way. Instead, we became some kind of support group for preaching at each other to keep each other "in line". And I think it happens all the time. We have this disproportionate focus on our message delivery- how we're presenting what we're saying, how we look while doing it, etc. And when it comes to learning about God, we are trained to sit and listen to the message. We don't know how to converse with one another anymore, because we emulate that which we are accustomed to- a monologue designed to convince someone of something. It becomes a sales pitch. There's no room for disagreement, and by the very nature of a message-delivery-focus, there is a specific need to have a unified front, with not even a hint of disagreement, because well, what does that say about the God that we serve? The message delivery becomes the most important part, and don't even bother questioning what the message is in the first place. And so it is no wonder that none of us really knew what to do with a "Bible study", and those who had the most sharply-honed message eventually began to assert their authority. Pretty soon, one person began assigning verses for each person to look up and read to the group, ensuring that everyone had something to say, but what was said was set up to be a unified voice, the voice of the message-bearer. Conversation was limited to a few comments on how to apply said message to one's life; no one even thought about stirring the pot a little bit.
My goose was cooked.
Not only did I not feel comfortable in this sort of environment, I probably spent too much time and goodwill trying to explain how this approach was even less effective than what we had been doing before. But there was to be no change; we must be unified, I was told. God hates division in His church. I was not the lone voice of discontent; there were a few others who felt very cramped by this approach as well. We began to talk about meeting on our own; this talk was swiftly met with vehement scolding from other students in the group, as well as adult leaders from the youth group. So instead of stirring the pot, I simply removed my spoon, as did a handful of others. I think the thing eventually dried up and died after awhile.
Around this same time, I was in a Social Problems class with a few of the same people who were in the Bible study and youth group with me. Our big semester project was to, with a partner, choose a social issue, invite a person from the community on each end of the spectrum to give a presentation of their side of the topic, and then present our own point of view. This was worth half of our grade- the other half was based on attendance and our performance in a stock market game, and though I had no actual stock in Enron, I can say that I incurred a personal loss when the company crashed, as my partner and I invested heavily in their stock, causing us to earn an "F" on that portion of our grade. But I digress. So after a demonstration at our school by a "God Hates Fags" church group with fiery signs and screaming people protesting the genesis of a Gay-Straight Alliance at our school, a group in the class chose the issue of homosexuality as their topic. The first presentation was from some lady from a local GLBT support organization, and was very interesting, to say the least. The next presentation was from the minister of a local ultra-conservative Baptist church. After giving his spiel about homosexuality being a perversion, God's impending wrath, and God desire to "save" people from homosexual sin, an angry discussion broke out amongst two of the Christian people in my class and a few others. Feeling it was not my God-given duty to make people feel bad about how they felt about gays and lesbians, I sat on the sidelines until one of the people from my youth group said "C'mon, Ian? I need some support here. Tell them you believe this stuff, too."
And I couldn't.
I didn't believe it was my place to argue against a lifestyle that, for all I knew, might not be completely in someone's control. I mean, yeah, gay pride parades and naked dudes and rainbows and stuff weren't my thing, but if my first reaction is to be grossed out, or even to hate them, shouldn't I step back and check why I feel that way in the first place, and that maybe I should be feeling how God feels about them? And as far as what the Bible tells me, I think God might actually love fags. And if God hates fags, why does He love me? Am I that different from a homosexual dude that God views him differently than He views me? I'll bet he and I and the next guy have the same problems, and might even love God just as much. I think far too much time is spent divining between sins. I also don't think Jesus was killed for being exclusive of certain people groups- it was because His message was so incredibly IN-clusive that the establishment killed him. And I think He'd probably stand out in front of the "God Hates Fags" people and challenge them to cast the first stone. Call me weak, but I just can't do it. And I heard an earful for it. "If you can't stand up for your sister in Christ, can you even stand for CHRIST?" "I'm supposed to stand for Christ, not against people." "Well, Christ stands for people!" "And fags aren't people?" "I can't believe you!" I guess I can't, either, but I think if Christ actually was with us today in the flesh, after he got done shaming the "God Hates Fags" people, he might want to have a few words with all of us because not any of us is without fault; no, not even one.
I just don't want to be, and I don't think a Christian should be, known best for what they are against. And the majority of the time, that's where we're at.
After these episodes, I began to feel as though there was a deeper thing going on than God and gays. I'd see it in youth group worship band practice when someone would introduce a new song or a new way to try a song. Or when someone would challenge the usefulness of those little fill-in-the-blank sermon follow-along sheets. Or when I asked about our attendance at the youth conferences we'd been involved with for the past few years, only to find out that a decision had been made by someone disconnected from all of us to uproot us from that sphere of influence. "God is moving. God is good." I don't know how many times I heard those sorts of words in connection with various odd and shadowed decisions by the "spiritual elders" that I was supposed to honor and have respect for.
"God is moving in a different direction."
Here's a thought: God is constant. It's us who move in different directions. Why is it that we have this need to invoke God when making decisions? I absolutely agree that it's important to discover what He's doing, but what He's doing doesn't involve every decision we make. Rather, it should be flipped: every decision we make should involve what He's doing. What He's doing is good, and you can join in the good things He's doing in any way you are able. Slapping the God label on things which are ultimately human decisions is just plain wrong at best, and evil at worst. I wonder, too, if that is actually a closer application for the Biblical mandate to "not use the Lord's name in vain."
Eventually, things came crashing down at the youth group. Initially, we were given permission to take a group to this youth conference, and we made plans accordingly. Then as it came down to crunch time, we were told that if we went on this trip, we'd be kicked out of the youth group. Long story short, we resigned our various positions in leadership and left. The 6 or 8 of us who left eventually began conducting our own Bible study. We were accused of being divisionists, of hurting the youth group (the numbers began to dwindle even further after we had left), and I was accused by name of being a hand of the devil, "leading people astray".
This is the first time I realized clearly what I was seeing. Because I knew I wasn't "the hand of the devil", because I knew I was following God, I began to see that what I WASN'T following was the man-made system that was the church. Now, before I get all bleary-eyed about my patriotism for this or that, let me make something very clear- there was some pride involved. Of course there was. I felt that I was very right for doing some of these things, and while feeling you're right about something is a good reason to do something, it should never be the ONLY reason. As an eighteen-year-old, that wasn't always the case. But what I will say is that I began to notice that this whole thing called Christianity had a very deeply-seated streak of self-preservation in its system, that it was often less about God and more about just keeping this thing going, and keeping it going on a very ideologically set path.
It's a really funny human tendency, how we can take something that at first is so good, so genuine and turn it into something so synthesized, so robotic that it takes all the life out of it. Nowhere has this been so evident than in Christianity. We've become afraid of talking about what it is we're actually supposed to be about, and we're afraid of new ideas, because we're so worried that our "good and pure" religion is being defiled, so we take control of it and entwine God with all of our theologies, traditions, morals and leadership structures, and then we wonder, "Why is all this bad stuff happening in this world? Where did all the good go? Why don't people care about God anymore?"
I'll wager you that people care much more about God than we give them credit for.
It's our god that people don't care about.
12.29.2007
12.26.2007
Part I: What's Happened?
Certainly, our world is not the same as it was a quarter century ago, when I came into this world. Twenty-five years ago, we were marveling at the power of persuasion held by the family television. Already proven in its ability to give us an "insider's look" at the world- as it had just recently done so by bringing the harrowing images of the Vietnam War into our living rooms- we were learning of its profound ability to shape our public discourse into a superficial made-for-TV scheme of shallow one-liners and endless photo opportunities that only the wealthy could afford. Books like Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves To Death" would document this shift in-depth. Fast-forward ten years, and we're marveling over the Internet and its ability to connect billions of people worldwide and allow us to write to our relatives, manage our own finances like never before, and buy our Christmas presents in our underwear from the comfort of home. A few years later, we were learning of the vast cache of knowledge available to us by way of the internet (no longer spelled with a capital "I", such was its wide acceptance into our culture), its ability to endlessly entertain with the success of such "for fun" websites as homestarrunner.com and ebaumsworld.com, and its ability to connect and begin relationships with people we didn't even know were out there through the use of instant messaging, as well as websites such as lavalife.com, match.com and later, eharmony.com. And just in the past five years, we've seen the rise of MySpace and Facebook, where we can all post our silly party pictures and keep tabs on our friends by watching their every move on their "profile", a webpage which is in essence the "face" of a person on the internet. We've also seen the rise of the blog, in which anyone, anywhere, can talk about anything from dirty political rumors to the hot dish they cooked last night. We are able to find what amounts to a college education's worth of information through entities such as Wikipedia, which also allows us to contribute our own two cents on a topic, creating an ever-changing encyclopedic one-stop-shop for the knowledge of mankind, and also an incredibly easy way to blow an entire afternoon online. We can even get an ACTUAL college education as numerous public and private schools now offer online classes and degrees.
We're discovering how dependant we are upon this connection with each other, and discovering the value of everyone's collective ideas available for all to see. We no longer take a "talking head" at his word, but go delving for the information ourselves and come to our own conclusion. Through this conditioning of discovering the truth for ourselves, we have learned that "truth" is much more subjective than we had once realized, and that more often than not, the truth is found hanging in the balance between many perceived "truths". We have become skeptical of anyone claiming to "know the truth" about this or that, as we now have the ability within our fingertips to verify and often dispute that claim. We've also learned the value that our own personal experience provides us, and sharing our experience with others' experiences shapes a much more personal and compelling "truth" than any one claim to the same effect. Summarily, truth is no longer found in any centralized body or structure, whether political, commercial or religious. It is on the topic of religion that I would like to speak to, and I'll use a timeline of my own life experience to illustrate.
I come from a mainly Baptist background, having a grandfather and an uncle ordained into the American Baptist denomination. I spent the first 10 years of my life in fairly traditional hymn-and-sermon Baptist churches. From my young memory, I remember these churches being places of kind-hearted and charitable people, accentuated by weekly potluck dinners and the implied importance of community, friendship and giving. After an out-of-state move, my family made the switch to a local Pentecostal congregation. These incredibly outgoing people were very focused upon seeing the glory of God physically manifested in every moment of everyday life, fighting militantly against the forces of darkness that threatened to overcome the world soul-by-soul, and a very specific teaching of submission to authority; generally speaking, your "spiritual elders"; more specifically, the pastor of your congregation. It was here that I would receive the bulk of my religious conditioning. After spending five years here, my family moved on to plant a church in a nearby town. This church was affiliated with the Baptist General Conference, a fairly conservative denomination, and was to be built on the Willow Creek/Saddleback model of "seeker-sensitive" churches, basically an approach designed for those who had "given up on church, but not on God", as the church literature would say. Here, I was exposed to many new and different ways of "doing church", from high-gloss Powerpoint presentations and tightly-produced worship bands to entire sermon series built on Hollywood movie themes. The entire flow of a Sunday service, and everything else about the way the church handled its business, was carefully choreographed, timed, and- quite often- scripted. The "growth story" of this church, an important part of a church's credibility, is now considered classic: we went from a living room to an elementary school, from an abandoned post office to an old car dealership and finally produced a large-scale fundraising drive to build our own church building. My father served on the elder board, and was also a lay advisor to the Great Lakes Baptist Conference, the regional governing body. My mom was nursery coordinator. My brother drummed for the worship band. I myself was involved in the youth leadership at this church. Simultaneously, I was involved in a youth group at an Evangelical Free denominational church, as well as continuing to serve as a student-leader and worship leader in the Pentecostal youth group at the church my family had left, also serving with them as an assistant camp counselor for two years. I was also occasionally involved in the local Young Life non-denominational organization.
Having such a relatively diverse church background and being immersed in leadership-this and ministry-that developed in me a strong sense that this was just what I was supposed to be doing with my life, and so in high school, I applied for admittance into the strongest ministry-oriented college that I knew of (and because they'd been sending me sweet-looking flyers since I was in 7th grade!): North Central University in Minneapolis. I was excited to gain admittance, and had it all planned out: I was going to start school, meet a girl first or second semester, marry her by junior year, graduate in 4 years and become a successful youth pastor, winning scores of souls for Christ and maybe writing a book or two about it. It'd be great.
I had written, in my admissions essay, of a desire to bring about a "revival"- an oft-used term in Pentecostal circles which typically means a large-scale change or deep shift brought about by the faithful in accordance with God's will. "Revival" usually looked like a whole bunch of people writhing in the aisles or dancing around at the front of the church yelling at God in strange languages. The pressure to "come on down and receive what the Lord had for you" was great; if you didn't get out of your seat or you weren't in the room for whatever reason, you risked "missing out"- the implications of which were never really clear, but you knew it might mean that something in your soul was in jeopardy, so you just didn't even go there. I mostly rolled with it, but I also felt like there was something more to be had, something much more practical, something much less weird, and that's what I wanted to see happen. It seemed to me that the "revival" I read about in the Bible was often at odds with the established order of things, and this revival I kept seeing was like a broken old 33 vinyl record playing on the 45 setting- the same old thing, but much more frenetic, and ultimately annoying. I knew this wasn't "it".
Before I'd leave for North Central, I'd begin to develop some ideas about what this whole thing looked like, or at least, what it SHOULDN'T look like…
We're discovering how dependant we are upon this connection with each other, and discovering the value of everyone's collective ideas available for all to see. We no longer take a "talking head" at his word, but go delving for the information ourselves and come to our own conclusion. Through this conditioning of discovering the truth for ourselves, we have learned that "truth" is much more subjective than we had once realized, and that more often than not, the truth is found hanging in the balance between many perceived "truths". We have become skeptical of anyone claiming to "know the truth" about this or that, as we now have the ability within our fingertips to verify and often dispute that claim. We've also learned the value that our own personal experience provides us, and sharing our experience with others' experiences shapes a much more personal and compelling "truth" than any one claim to the same effect. Summarily, truth is no longer found in any centralized body or structure, whether political, commercial or religious. It is on the topic of religion that I would like to speak to, and I'll use a timeline of my own life experience to illustrate.
I come from a mainly Baptist background, having a grandfather and an uncle ordained into the American Baptist denomination. I spent the first 10 years of my life in fairly traditional hymn-and-sermon Baptist churches. From my young memory, I remember these churches being places of kind-hearted and charitable people, accentuated by weekly potluck dinners and the implied importance of community, friendship and giving. After an out-of-state move, my family made the switch to a local Pentecostal congregation. These incredibly outgoing people were very focused upon seeing the glory of God physically manifested in every moment of everyday life, fighting militantly against the forces of darkness that threatened to overcome the world soul-by-soul, and a very specific teaching of submission to authority; generally speaking, your "spiritual elders"; more specifically, the pastor of your congregation. It was here that I would receive the bulk of my religious conditioning. After spending five years here, my family moved on to plant a church in a nearby town. This church was affiliated with the Baptist General Conference, a fairly conservative denomination, and was to be built on the Willow Creek/Saddleback model of "seeker-sensitive" churches, basically an approach designed for those who had "given up on church, but not on God", as the church literature would say. Here, I was exposed to many new and different ways of "doing church", from high-gloss Powerpoint presentations and tightly-produced worship bands to entire sermon series built on Hollywood movie themes. The entire flow of a Sunday service, and everything else about the way the church handled its business, was carefully choreographed, timed, and- quite often- scripted. The "growth story" of this church, an important part of a church's credibility, is now considered classic: we went from a living room to an elementary school, from an abandoned post office to an old car dealership and finally produced a large-scale fundraising drive to build our own church building. My father served on the elder board, and was also a lay advisor to the Great Lakes Baptist Conference, the regional governing body. My mom was nursery coordinator. My brother drummed for the worship band. I myself was involved in the youth leadership at this church. Simultaneously, I was involved in a youth group at an Evangelical Free denominational church, as well as continuing to serve as a student-leader and worship leader in the Pentecostal youth group at the church my family had left, also serving with them as an assistant camp counselor for two years. I was also occasionally involved in the local Young Life non-denominational organization.
Having such a relatively diverse church background and being immersed in leadership-this and ministry-that developed in me a strong sense that this was just what I was supposed to be doing with my life, and so in high school, I applied for admittance into the strongest ministry-oriented college that I knew of (and because they'd been sending me sweet-looking flyers since I was in 7th grade!): North Central University in Minneapolis. I was excited to gain admittance, and had it all planned out: I was going to start school, meet a girl first or second semester, marry her by junior year, graduate in 4 years and become a successful youth pastor, winning scores of souls for Christ and maybe writing a book or two about it. It'd be great.
I had written, in my admissions essay, of a desire to bring about a "revival"- an oft-used term in Pentecostal circles which typically means a large-scale change or deep shift brought about by the faithful in accordance with God's will. "Revival" usually looked like a whole bunch of people writhing in the aisles or dancing around at the front of the church yelling at God in strange languages. The pressure to "come on down and receive what the Lord had for you" was great; if you didn't get out of your seat or you weren't in the room for whatever reason, you risked "missing out"- the implications of which were never really clear, but you knew it might mean that something in your soul was in jeopardy, so you just didn't even go there. I mostly rolled with it, but I also felt like there was something more to be had, something much more practical, something much less weird, and that's what I wanted to see happen. It seemed to me that the "revival" I read about in the Bible was often at odds with the established order of things, and this revival I kept seeing was like a broken old 33 vinyl record playing on the 45 setting- the same old thing, but much more frenetic, and ultimately annoying. I knew this wasn't "it".
Before I'd leave for North Central, I'd begin to develop some ideas about what this whole thing looked like, or at least, what it SHOULDN'T look like…
12.21.2007
A Prologue
I've really done it this time.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be rolling out a four-part series of blogs that are part autobiographical, part sociological, part historical, part potential, and in large part, whimsical. Among a host of other descriptive words, they will be incredibly introspective and very personal. You may find out some things you never knew, some things you didn't want to know, and some things about which you may not care. But it's my story; it's where I'm coming from, where I'm at right now, and where it all may be going. The purpose is threefold: 1) I've got an incredible writing itch to scratch; 2) I've got some things to sort out in my own head and by writing it all out will serve to help me in that process; 3) I'd like to involve in the process everyone who happens to read my words, allowing them to share their thoughts and create a conversation, and in the classic Ian blog sort of way, challenge people to examine themselves, their own stories, and where they're going. I will purpose in this story, as much as I can, only to name ideas and not names, as that's not the point here. If you feel slighted, as though I'm pointing a finger and just not saying your name, I apologize- there is no anger or resentment meant toward anyone. If you feel as though you're being praised or otherwise shed in a positive light, that's awesome: you know who you are, you should feel wonderful, and I'm still not going to call you by name! I don't purport to be superior to anyone else, or even special for that matter, as I'm sure countless others have followed a similar path in life. But it's me, it's mine, and it can be a part of yours, too.
I must also warn that in accordance with Point 1 of the Threefold Purposes of writing this series- the one about scratching the writing itch- I will be employing what may at times sound like a deliberately grandiose style of prose.
I like to hear myself think; my apologies.
Stay tuned…
Over the next few weeks, I'll be rolling out a four-part series of blogs that are part autobiographical, part sociological, part historical, part potential, and in large part, whimsical. Among a host of other descriptive words, they will be incredibly introspective and very personal. You may find out some things you never knew, some things you didn't want to know, and some things about which you may not care. But it's my story; it's where I'm coming from, where I'm at right now, and where it all may be going. The purpose is threefold: 1) I've got an incredible writing itch to scratch; 2) I've got some things to sort out in my own head and by writing it all out will serve to help me in that process; 3) I'd like to involve in the process everyone who happens to read my words, allowing them to share their thoughts and create a conversation, and in the classic Ian blog sort of way, challenge people to examine themselves, their own stories, and where they're going. I will purpose in this story, as much as I can, only to name ideas and not names, as that's not the point here. If you feel slighted, as though I'm pointing a finger and just not saying your name, I apologize- there is no anger or resentment meant toward anyone. If you feel as though you're being praised or otherwise shed in a positive light, that's awesome: you know who you are, you should feel wonderful, and I'm still not going to call you by name! I don't purport to be superior to anyone else, or even special for that matter, as I'm sure countless others have followed a similar path in life. But it's me, it's mine, and it can be a part of yours, too.
I must also warn that in accordance with Point 1 of the Threefold Purposes of writing this series- the one about scratching the writing itch- I will be employing what may at times sound like a deliberately grandiose style of prose.
I like to hear myself think; my apologies.
Stay tuned…
11.26.2007
The Cold Dead Fingers Of Winter
What is it about winter that's so disheartening? Why is it that one mention of the year's coldest months sends shivers down one's spine? Okay, I know, cold weather is inherently COLD, how can't you shiver? But rhetorically speaking, the shivers of anger, resentment, bitterness, hopelessness and all-around poor attitudes seem to reverberate through the collective backbone of who we are come October and November, and continue until March or April.
Doug, the pastor of the church community my wife and I have been becoming a part of, said to me quite bitterly one particularly crisp evening that "The cold, dead fingers of winter are upon us." Now, the only thing hopeless about Doug seems to be his hopelessly positive outlook on life- seriously, this guy WRITES BOOKS about hope. What is it about winter that can bring even this hope-filled man to his knees?
Jalyn, my manager at work, has a generally sunny disposition and by all appearances loves life. But these days, she tells me she can hardly get out of bed because she hates the cold so much. She tells me that she is literally scared to death of the next few months, because she dreads the cold THAT much. I will throw in an asterisk here and tell you that she is from the West Coast; we Midwesterners nod in understanding that a West Coaster in Minnesota is about as close to the proverbial "fish out of water" as one can get, but still… fear of winter?
As I talk to the many people that I come into contact with at my job at Starbucks, the consensus seems to be the same: winter sucks. And when I ask people where they're from, the majority of them rather sheepishly admit that they're from here. So shouldn't they be used to this? Beyond being used to it, shouldn't they maybe even embrace it as a part of who they are? Apparently not. The votes have been cast, the chads have fallen like icicles from rooftops , and no recount is necessary; it's unanimous, winter is SO not cool.
Then there's me. I love winter. The colder, the better. A city wrapped in a thick blanket of snow is as comforting to me as a blanket is to a 3-year-old. For me, June through about the beginning of September are the harshest months, the time when my hope sinks and I tend to be bitter and not get out of bed. I usually bottom out about the end of July or beginning of August- just go and read my blog postings from that time of year! But then a funny thing happens: right about the end of September or beginning of October, right about when everyone else seems to go into depression mode, my morale and general outlook on life spikes significantly. That's right: the time of the year when the air becomes crisp, and the trees change color and begin to die, and when the frost kills off everything and you have to start scraping your car off when you're already late for work, and the first snow causes rush-hour traffic to stand still- this is my most wonderful time of the year.
I've tried to understand exactly why this is my favorite time of year, but I can't quite put my cold, dead finger on it. I know someone out there is reading this and thinking "Well, it's because you're a sick and twisted individual; you think the movie 'Fargo' is hilarious, your idea of uplifting music is the typically depressing Midwestern emo scene and rain-soaked Northwest bands with names like 'Death Cab For Cutie', and the hardest you've ever laughed was at a picture of a hearse being obliterated by a city bus." To which I would say "Yes! But…" I am by no means a sad, bitter or pessimistic person. Cynical? Sometimes. Sardonic? Okay. Irreverent? Definitely. But I'd like to think I can be positive and hopeful in even the worst of situations, and that when people are at their lowest, I can be an uplifting influence in their lives.
Now, I don't claim to be entirely consistent on any of these counts. Generally speaking, though, could this be why I enjoy my winters? I mean, when everything is dying, when everyone else seems to be down and out and hating life, I feel like I am at my best. Why is that?
I went for a walk today. I'll admit it wasn't by choice- I had to drop off the Focus at the shop, and had no place to go except for the Dunn Bros two miles down the road. I was a dork and had forgotten my hat and gloves, but off I went, walking down Minnetonka Blvd, heading directly into the 25-degree windchill and lugging my laptop around my shoulder. This sucked at first. It was cold, and the road is tree-lined and mainly shady, so any warmth the sun was offering was being soaked up by the trees. And the thought that it was two miles, or 10,560 feet, or approximately 40 minutes to my destination, did not at all help. But I noticed this funny thing happen after about 10 minutes: I began to adapt. My body got over the initial shock of the cold; my mind, the initial shock of the long haul ahead. I became less concerned with my internal affairs, and more concerned with the external, what was around me. It was quiet, or as quiet as the middle of Minnetonka can get, and there were some animals in the woods, scuttling around. The sun was bright, casting the trees and grass as a red-orange and the sky a frosty blue. It was really pretty outside, and I was lucky I stuck it out long enough to allow myself to adapt- and to enjoy a steaming cup of coffee at the end of it.
Many a study has been done that has chronicled humans' amazing ability to adapt to changing surroundings, proving that as uncomfortable as we may be in any sort of environment- climatic or otherwise- it's in our DNA, our very makeup as humans, to self-tweak and change, if only just a little, to allow ourselves to function properly in a new environment and find the good and the life that is present in these new surroundings. At the same time, we also possess an incredible ability to NOT change, to refuse to adapt, and to hold tight to things that we insist must NOT change, must NOT adapt. And oftentimes, this leads to us becoming so obsessed with NOT adapting that we lose what we were holding tight to in the first place, or find ourselves so averse to our surroundings that we become completely irrelevant and eventually, for all practical purposes, dead. It is our God-given ability as humans to adapt, and- while in some rare cases it may be necessary- going against this part of our nature may be undoing our ability to relate and survive.
I will be the first to admit that I suck at adapting sometimes. Like the summertime, the heat and overbearing sunlight kills me, and I just plain don't want to do much of anything, and so I allow myself not to adapt. This leads to the very depression, bitterness and bad attitude that I profess to lament, the state that everyone around me seems to get into in the wintertime. Eventually, I pull myself out of it, and I do end up adapting to the heat and do plenty of things and go plenty of places during the summertime, but it's not easy. Without excusing myself, though, is it possible that the need for a person to be positive and uplifting is slightly less of a need during the warm weather months, when most people seem to already be at their highest point?
I guess all I'm trying to say here in a very roundabout way (and thank you for bearing with me through this extremely long blog post!) is that everybody at one point or another re-evaluates who they are and what they should be doing with themselves, and as I sit and try to put two-and-two together about my own life, maybe my love of winter in the face of all the resentment toward this season is a sign that in some way I'm supposed to be the proverbial spark in the dark place, or blossom on the cow pie, if you will. I feel like I can make a difference in this world by showing how good it can be to adapt oneself to the cold and otherwise crappy seasons in life. Everything comes in cycles, in seasons, so let's stop dreading the inevitable- and oftentimes necessary- and try to adapt, to embrace the good in where we're at in life; whether we're wrapped up in the warm, comforting arms of summer, or the cold dead fingers of winter are beginning to brush our cheeks, we can live well, enjoy our lives and be useful to those around us no matter where we're at.
Doug, the pastor of the church community my wife and I have been becoming a part of, said to me quite bitterly one particularly crisp evening that "The cold, dead fingers of winter are upon us." Now, the only thing hopeless about Doug seems to be his hopelessly positive outlook on life- seriously, this guy WRITES BOOKS about hope. What is it about winter that can bring even this hope-filled man to his knees?
Jalyn, my manager at work, has a generally sunny disposition and by all appearances loves life. But these days, she tells me she can hardly get out of bed because she hates the cold so much. She tells me that she is literally scared to death of the next few months, because she dreads the cold THAT much. I will throw in an asterisk here and tell you that she is from the West Coast; we Midwesterners nod in understanding that a West Coaster in Minnesota is about as close to the proverbial "fish out of water" as one can get, but still… fear of winter?
As I talk to the many people that I come into contact with at my job at Starbucks, the consensus seems to be the same: winter sucks. And when I ask people where they're from, the majority of them rather sheepishly admit that they're from here. So shouldn't they be used to this? Beyond being used to it, shouldn't they maybe even embrace it as a part of who they are? Apparently not. The votes have been cast, the chads have fallen like icicles from rooftops , and no recount is necessary; it's unanimous, winter is SO not cool.
Then there's me. I love winter. The colder, the better. A city wrapped in a thick blanket of snow is as comforting to me as a blanket is to a 3-year-old. For me, June through about the beginning of September are the harshest months, the time when my hope sinks and I tend to be bitter and not get out of bed. I usually bottom out about the end of July or beginning of August- just go and read my blog postings from that time of year! But then a funny thing happens: right about the end of September or beginning of October, right about when everyone else seems to go into depression mode, my morale and general outlook on life spikes significantly. That's right: the time of the year when the air becomes crisp, and the trees change color and begin to die, and when the frost kills off everything and you have to start scraping your car off when you're already late for work, and the first snow causes rush-hour traffic to stand still- this is my most wonderful time of the year.
I've tried to understand exactly why this is my favorite time of year, but I can't quite put my cold, dead finger on it. I know someone out there is reading this and thinking "Well, it's because you're a sick and twisted individual; you think the movie 'Fargo' is hilarious, your idea of uplifting music is the typically depressing Midwestern emo scene and rain-soaked Northwest bands with names like 'Death Cab For Cutie', and the hardest you've ever laughed was at a picture of a hearse being obliterated by a city bus." To which I would say "Yes! But…" I am by no means a sad, bitter or pessimistic person. Cynical? Sometimes. Sardonic? Okay. Irreverent? Definitely. But I'd like to think I can be positive and hopeful in even the worst of situations, and that when people are at their lowest, I can be an uplifting influence in their lives.
Now, I don't claim to be entirely consistent on any of these counts. Generally speaking, though, could this be why I enjoy my winters? I mean, when everything is dying, when everyone else seems to be down and out and hating life, I feel like I am at my best. Why is that?
I went for a walk today. I'll admit it wasn't by choice- I had to drop off the Focus at the shop, and had no place to go except for the Dunn Bros two miles down the road. I was a dork and had forgotten my hat and gloves, but off I went, walking down Minnetonka Blvd, heading directly into the 25-degree windchill and lugging my laptop around my shoulder. This sucked at first. It was cold, and the road is tree-lined and mainly shady, so any warmth the sun was offering was being soaked up by the trees. And the thought that it was two miles, or 10,560 feet, or approximately 40 minutes to my destination, did not at all help. But I noticed this funny thing happen after about 10 minutes: I began to adapt. My body got over the initial shock of the cold; my mind, the initial shock of the long haul ahead. I became less concerned with my internal affairs, and more concerned with the external, what was around me. It was quiet, or as quiet as the middle of Minnetonka can get, and there were some animals in the woods, scuttling around. The sun was bright, casting the trees and grass as a red-orange and the sky a frosty blue. It was really pretty outside, and I was lucky I stuck it out long enough to allow myself to adapt- and to enjoy a steaming cup of coffee at the end of it.
Many a study has been done that has chronicled humans' amazing ability to adapt to changing surroundings, proving that as uncomfortable as we may be in any sort of environment- climatic or otherwise- it's in our DNA, our very makeup as humans, to self-tweak and change, if only just a little, to allow ourselves to function properly in a new environment and find the good and the life that is present in these new surroundings. At the same time, we also possess an incredible ability to NOT change, to refuse to adapt, and to hold tight to things that we insist must NOT change, must NOT adapt. And oftentimes, this leads to us becoming so obsessed with NOT adapting that we lose what we were holding tight to in the first place, or find ourselves so averse to our surroundings that we become completely irrelevant and eventually, for all practical purposes, dead. It is our God-given ability as humans to adapt, and- while in some rare cases it may be necessary- going against this part of our nature may be undoing our ability to relate and survive.
I will be the first to admit that I suck at adapting sometimes. Like the summertime, the heat and overbearing sunlight kills me, and I just plain don't want to do much of anything, and so I allow myself not to adapt. This leads to the very depression, bitterness and bad attitude that I profess to lament, the state that everyone around me seems to get into in the wintertime. Eventually, I pull myself out of it, and I do end up adapting to the heat and do plenty of things and go plenty of places during the summertime, but it's not easy. Without excusing myself, though, is it possible that the need for a person to be positive and uplifting is slightly less of a need during the warm weather months, when most people seem to already be at their highest point?
I guess all I'm trying to say here in a very roundabout way (and thank you for bearing with me through this extremely long blog post!) is that everybody at one point or another re-evaluates who they are and what they should be doing with themselves, and as I sit and try to put two-and-two together about my own life, maybe my love of winter in the face of all the resentment toward this season is a sign that in some way I'm supposed to be the proverbial spark in the dark place, or blossom on the cow pie, if you will. I feel like I can make a difference in this world by showing how good it can be to adapt oneself to the cold and otherwise crappy seasons in life. Everything comes in cycles, in seasons, so let's stop dreading the inevitable- and oftentimes necessary- and try to adapt, to embrace the good in where we're at in life; whether we're wrapped up in the warm, comforting arms of summer, or the cold dead fingers of winter are beginning to brush our cheeks, we can live well, enjoy our lives and be useful to those around us no matter where we're at.
8.17.2007
Fingerpointing
** The following is an edited version of my original post. It was brought to my attention that my choice of language was not the best, and because I feel like I have a point to get across, I'll refrain from using angry expletives. **
It's been 17 days since The Bridge, and the fingerpointing has begun.
This talking head said this. And this person in charge did that. Well, this other guy whose job it was didn't do it well enough. This whole system lacks the income it needs to sufficiently run itself. Well, those elected officials signed a no-new-taxes pledge, so they didn't raise the gas tax 5c, so they took millions out of the road-and-bridge fund, so it's THEIR fault, those small-government, penny-pinching, near-sighted buttholes.
WHO PUT THESE PEOPLE IN POWER OVER US, ANYWAY?!
Oh, wait. That was us.
Remember when that dapper dude with the perfect teeth got up and invoked the name of Jesus and lowering taxes in the same breath? Dang, did he sound good! The Lord doesn't want money in the pockets of no money-grubbin' government. The Lord wants money in OUR pockets, for we're Americans, and the Lord has BLESSED us with a good income with which we're to be good stewards. He's got my vote.
Or, remember when that other person told us that as Americans, we're to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and make it happen ourselves? We don't need a big bureaucracy to tell us what to do or help us live our lives- God meant for us to be a FREE people, FREE to make our own life decisions and FREE of Big Brother looking over our shoulder. That's just like what daddy used to tell me. They've got my vote.
Well, folks. It's not that all these power figures and decision-makers that we've voted into office are bad people, have bad ideas or are even bad policymakers. Maybe they didn't think things through entirely, but then again, neither do we. Why should we expect anything more out of our government than we expect out of ourselves? It's not their fault. It's ours. They're all great at one thing:
SPEAKING OUR LANGUAGE.
We hate taxes. We hate spending money that's not on a movie or a latte. We hate spending money that's not on ourselves. In fact, we love ourselves. And we loathe anything that gets between us and our ability to love ourselves more. And the only thing we loathe more than that is a person with a face telling us or making us do something that gets between us and our ability to love ourselves more. So we latch on to the people with faces who make us feel good about ourselves, who tell us we can keep our money and keep spending it on our lattes and our Cosmopolitan magazines and our new baseball stadiums. Oops, scratch that last one. We didn't have a say in that one, but the feel-good faces said it was okay to tax us for that.
Well, those 100-plus people on the Interstate 35W bridge had a face. The kind of face you see everyday. So does everyone else who drove that highway that day. I drove that highway that day. I have a face. I also have a name. It's Ian, nice to meet you. They had names, too. They had lives. I know, because I saw them with my own eyes. I watched as the ones who were lucky enough to make it off that bridge, and well enough to be out of their hospital beds, limped down the aisle at a memorial service with Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, all of whom were praying for and remembering those who were not lucky enough or well enough to be with us.
But we forget that they're there. In fact, I'll be so bold as to say we don't care that they're there.
If you're going to point fingers, point them at me. I'm lazy, and I don't care about other people. I especially hate spending money on people other than myself, especially if it involves giving money to a gas pump. But after you're done pointing it at me, do yourself a favor- be honest and turn that finger around, point it at yourself. You'd complain about an extra 5c on a gallon of gas, too. Maybe not you specifically, but if I had 5c for every person who I've heard complain about the cost of loving themselves with a cup of coffee I'm serving them, I'd probably have enough money to chip in a few bucks to keep a bridge in decent running shape and keep myself, or you, or maybe even that whiny witch from finding themselves at the bottom of the Mississippi.
"Well, I would NEVER wish for someone to end up at the bottom of the Mississippi!"
Yes you do. You wish it every single day. I know I do. For my complete willingness to love myself and not give you a second thought, I wish for you to end up on the bottom of the Mississippi.
There's a quite simple term for this type of behavior. It's called masturbation. Us Christians are taught that it's bad for us, that it takes the focus off of others and puts it squarely on ourselves, for our own sake, to love ourselves. It's selfish. It's evil. It's sinful. It's also called, in more derogatory terms, "screwing yourself". And we do it everyday, with our money and our time and our resources that we spend on ourselves and not others. We do it over and over, and it feels great. You become so involved with it that basic everyday life stuff goes un-maintained. And then when an everyday something that you took for granted crashes to the bottom of a river, you start to think "I've really screwed myself now."
To myself, and to anyone and everyone who's reading this: we are severely near-sighted. Please start seeing other people and realizing how each of us is dependent upon the other for life itself, because it's time to wake up and realize:
We have really screwed ourselves now. The finger points at you and me.
It's been 17 days since The Bridge, and the fingerpointing has begun.
This talking head said this. And this person in charge did that. Well, this other guy whose job it was didn't do it well enough. This whole system lacks the income it needs to sufficiently run itself. Well, those elected officials signed a no-new-taxes pledge, so they didn't raise the gas tax 5c, so they took millions out of the road-and-bridge fund, so it's THEIR fault, those small-government, penny-pinching, near-sighted buttholes.
WHO PUT THESE PEOPLE IN POWER OVER US, ANYWAY?!
Oh, wait. That was us.
Remember when that dapper dude with the perfect teeth got up and invoked the name of Jesus and lowering taxes in the same breath? Dang, did he sound good! The Lord doesn't want money in the pockets of no money-grubbin' government. The Lord wants money in OUR pockets, for we're Americans, and the Lord has BLESSED us with a good income with which we're to be good stewards. He's got my vote.
Or, remember when that other person told us that as Americans, we're to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and make it happen ourselves? We don't need a big bureaucracy to tell us what to do or help us live our lives- God meant for us to be a FREE people, FREE to make our own life decisions and FREE of Big Brother looking over our shoulder. That's just like what daddy used to tell me. They've got my vote.
Well, folks. It's not that all these power figures and decision-makers that we've voted into office are bad people, have bad ideas or are even bad policymakers. Maybe they didn't think things through entirely, but then again, neither do we. Why should we expect anything more out of our government than we expect out of ourselves? It's not their fault. It's ours. They're all great at one thing:
SPEAKING OUR LANGUAGE.
We hate taxes. We hate spending money that's not on a movie or a latte. We hate spending money that's not on ourselves. In fact, we love ourselves. And we loathe anything that gets between us and our ability to love ourselves more. And the only thing we loathe more than that is a person with a face telling us or making us do something that gets between us and our ability to love ourselves more. So we latch on to the people with faces who make us feel good about ourselves, who tell us we can keep our money and keep spending it on our lattes and our Cosmopolitan magazines and our new baseball stadiums. Oops, scratch that last one. We didn't have a say in that one, but the feel-good faces said it was okay to tax us for that.
Well, those 100-plus people on the Interstate 35W bridge had a face. The kind of face you see everyday. So does everyone else who drove that highway that day. I drove that highway that day. I have a face. I also have a name. It's Ian, nice to meet you. They had names, too. They had lives. I know, because I saw them with my own eyes. I watched as the ones who were lucky enough to make it off that bridge, and well enough to be out of their hospital beds, limped down the aisle at a memorial service with Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, all of whom were praying for and remembering those who were not lucky enough or well enough to be with us.
But we forget that they're there. In fact, I'll be so bold as to say we don't care that they're there.
If you're going to point fingers, point them at me. I'm lazy, and I don't care about other people. I especially hate spending money on people other than myself, especially if it involves giving money to a gas pump. But after you're done pointing it at me, do yourself a favor- be honest and turn that finger around, point it at yourself. You'd complain about an extra 5c on a gallon of gas, too. Maybe not you specifically, but if I had 5c for every person who I've heard complain about the cost of loving themselves with a cup of coffee I'm serving them, I'd probably have enough money to chip in a few bucks to keep a bridge in decent running shape and keep myself, or you, or maybe even that whiny witch from finding themselves at the bottom of the Mississippi.
"Well, I would NEVER wish for someone to end up at the bottom of the Mississippi!"
Yes you do. You wish it every single day. I know I do. For my complete willingness to love myself and not give you a second thought, I wish for you to end up on the bottom of the Mississippi.
There's a quite simple term for this type of behavior. It's called masturbation. Us Christians are taught that it's bad for us, that it takes the focus off of others and puts it squarely on ourselves, for our own sake, to love ourselves. It's selfish. It's evil. It's sinful. It's also called, in more derogatory terms, "screwing yourself". And we do it everyday, with our money and our time and our resources that we spend on ourselves and not others. We do it over and over, and it feels great. You become so involved with it that basic everyday life stuff goes un-maintained. And then when an everyday something that you took for granted crashes to the bottom of a river, you start to think "I've really screwed myself now."
To myself, and to anyone and everyone who's reading this: we are severely near-sighted. Please start seeing other people and realizing how each of us is dependent upon the other for life itself, because it's time to wake up and realize:
We have really screwed ourselves now. The finger points at you and me.
8.01.2007
Minnehaha Recreation
It's summer in Minnesota. It's nasty hot outside, we haven't hardly seen a drop of rain (at least on this side of town) in who knows how long, and we all know how I feel about hot and sunny weather.
Recently my Fossil watch died, so I had to bring it in to a Fossil Store to get the battery replaced. The only Fossil Store we have around here is at the Mall of America. Malls are my least favorite places to be, and so I think I can safely draw the conclusion that the Mall of America is my least favorite place to be in America. To me, they represent everything that's wrong with our system, and the MOA is a stadium-sized altar on which we sacrifice our time, money and sanity to the material gods of our culture. And the most frustrating part is that I am still maddeningly and willingly dependent upon this system. So needless to say a mall on a hot summer day, while the A/C is nice, is not my favorite place to be.
Fortunately, the Twin Cities is a place of balance.
For those of you who don't know Minneapolis, there's about a dozen or so lakes with parkways around them, as well as a six mile stretch through the heart of the city called Minnehaha Parkway, a road that parallels the winding Minnehaha Creek. There's bike trails, arching bridges and enough trees and birds to make you forget that you're in the midst of 3.1 million people and only a few miles from the largest megamall in the U.S. I made my way across Lake Nokomis and turned west onto the parkway, put down the windows, opened the sunroof, and immediately noticed that there was easily a 15 degree temperature difference between the streets and the parkway. The speed limit is 25, and it's single-lane, one-way. Under normal circumstances, this is a driving nightmare for me, because I can't stand 25mph speed limits and want to blow past anyone who actually uses them. But driving on Minnehaha Parkway is the antithesis to my, and probably most of America's, way of life. Soaking in the rural in the midst of the urban, creation in the midst of destruction, the natural and the real in the midst of our synthetically satisfying lives, is a little bit closer to how we were meant to live, and it's a good place to be.
But it shouldn't just be confined to one little narrow strip of green space in a field concrete and pollution. That place where we go should not be separate from the lives we lead. Ask yourself what's real; the daily going to work and the shopping and the gas pumps and the "reality" TV? Or is it the making people smile or the time spent in your garden or at the park or having a beer with friends or simply sitting alone with a cup of coffee staring out the window that makes you feel more alive, more attuned to who you really might be beyond your job title and net worth?
I believe this is the definition of "recreation", to do as the word says, to "re-create", or re-realize what's real and how you were meant to be. We live in an immensely complex world of money, politics, anger, me-first and gimme-gimme, and if we were all constantly engaging in recreation, the world might be in a bit better shape.
Recently my Fossil watch died, so I had to bring it in to a Fossil Store to get the battery replaced. The only Fossil Store we have around here is at the Mall of America. Malls are my least favorite places to be, and so I think I can safely draw the conclusion that the Mall of America is my least favorite place to be in America. To me, they represent everything that's wrong with our system, and the MOA is a stadium-sized altar on which we sacrifice our time, money and sanity to the material gods of our culture. And the most frustrating part is that I am still maddeningly and willingly dependent upon this system. So needless to say a mall on a hot summer day, while the A/C is nice, is not my favorite place to be.
Fortunately, the Twin Cities is a place of balance.
For those of you who don't know Minneapolis, there's about a dozen or so lakes with parkways around them, as well as a six mile stretch through the heart of the city called Minnehaha Parkway, a road that parallels the winding Minnehaha Creek. There's bike trails, arching bridges and enough trees and birds to make you forget that you're in the midst of 3.1 million people and only a few miles from the largest megamall in the U.S. I made my way across Lake Nokomis and turned west onto the parkway, put down the windows, opened the sunroof, and immediately noticed that there was easily a 15 degree temperature difference between the streets and the parkway. The speed limit is 25, and it's single-lane, one-way. Under normal circumstances, this is a driving nightmare for me, because I can't stand 25mph speed limits and want to blow past anyone who actually uses them. But driving on Minnehaha Parkway is the antithesis to my, and probably most of America's, way of life. Soaking in the rural in the midst of the urban, creation in the midst of destruction, the natural and the real in the midst of our synthetically satisfying lives, is a little bit closer to how we were meant to live, and it's a good place to be.
But it shouldn't just be confined to one little narrow strip of green space in a field concrete and pollution. That place where we go should not be separate from the lives we lead. Ask yourself what's real; the daily going to work and the shopping and the gas pumps and the "reality" TV? Or is it the making people smile or the time spent in your garden or at the park or having a beer with friends or simply sitting alone with a cup of coffee staring out the window that makes you feel more alive, more attuned to who you really might be beyond your job title and net worth?
I believe this is the definition of "recreation", to do as the word says, to "re-create", or re-realize what's real and how you were meant to be. We live in an immensely complex world of money, politics, anger, me-first and gimme-gimme, and if we were all constantly engaging in recreation, the world might be in a bit better shape.
5.05.2007
National Day of Reason
Okay, so I'm flipping through my StarTribune, and apparently Thursday was the National Day of Prayer. So a bunch of Christians got together and had a worship service on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol, and that's what the top photo is a picture of. Okay, so... cheesy, probably a little obnoxious, I sure wouldn't be there. But whatever- it looks like they're having a good time. Now, I was not aware of this, but apparently a bunch of Atheists got together and created the National Day of Reason to stave off the influence of the holy rollers in our midst. So the Minnesota Atheists were having a shindig at the Capitol, too, to celebrate their day, where they must sit around for an entire day and, um, reason. That's the bottom picture. Here's the newspaper clipping:
Soo... the National Day of Reason shindig looks less like a shindig and more like a Pissed-Off Convention. Wow. I mean, you don't have to be a person of faith to see that the Minnesota Atheists are NOT having a good time.Though I think the concept of a National Day of Prayer is a little silly, I'll take a Day of Prayer over a Day of Pissed-Off.
Soo... the National Day of Reason shindig looks less like a shindig and more like a Pissed-Off Convention. Wow. I mean, you don't have to be a person of faith to see that the Minnesota Atheists are NOT having a good time.Though I think the concept of a National Day of Prayer is a little silly, I'll take a Day of Prayer over a Day of Pissed-Off.
4.25.2007
Starbucks Coffee and Supporting Our Troops: An Open Letter
RE: Starbucks Denies Coffee To American Troops
Recently the rumor that Starbucks Coffee Company does not "support our troops" has resurfaced in my little corner of the internet world. This rumor- one that's almost as old as the Iraq war itself, therefore is really nothing new- was laid to rest a long time ago, but I feel as though I should say something about it, as I'm a Starbucks partner. My opinion does not reflect the "official" stance of the company, and that's the beauty of it, really- we can all have our own opinions and still be allowed to work someplace or live someplace or call ourselves "American".
Starbucks is a multi-national corporation, operating over 13,000 stores in 40 countries. They also employ close to 150,000 people in all of these countries, in addition to the millions that they serve every day. That's a lot of Americans and Canadians and Chinese and Arabian and British and German and French and Mexican (the list goes on) people and Starbucks firmly believes that it is these people that make their company, not their CEOs or operational headquarters that happen to be based on American soil. So when a certain group of people- the American military- representing just one of the 40 countries that the people of Starbucks represent, approaches the company asking for a very public donation, the company would be sending a message to the other 39 countries it represents saying "Hey, we're cool with this." Through the eyes of most Americans, it may have looked like a simple act of generously supporting American troops. To the people in the other 39 countries where Starbucks employs and serves, this may have been taken as a slap in the face. While this could be portrayed simply as a "business move" to protect Starbucks' international reputation and make the "evil corporation" more money, no one, including Starbucks, wants to slap millions of people in the face.
What Starbucks has done in the absence of a company-mandated donation strategy is much broader and, in my opinion, much more effective. The company encouraged individual stores to connect with their community- another thing that Starbucks firmly believes in- by teaming with local and national organizations to collect coffee donations from customers and employees. For the past year, my particular store has worked with a non-profit group based out of Florida, in which we set out a basket in our café and encouraged people to buy a pound of coffee to donate to our troops. Our employees also donated their weekly free pound of coffee to the cause, and a few even bought the coffee to donate as well. When the basket fills up, we send the coffee to Florida, where they ship it to Iraq and Afghanistan to be distributed to our troops on the ground.
This may not seem like much compared to a large corporate donation that Starbucks could've chosen to give. But I know that we are not the only store that does this, and if every one of the 9,400 stores in the United States took the initiative with a program like this and collected just 25 pounds in their basket, we'd be able to get all of our troops 2 or 3 pounds EACH in just the first shipment!
I think most of all, though, this encourages us to take action on our own, to stand up and take responsibility for doing something good beyond waving flags and buying magnetic ribbons for our cars, and sending out chain letters telling our friends where and where not to shop. Don't wait for corporations like Starbucks or government agencies to take the first step- it should be you and me who are taking the first steps.
I strongly support our troops, as I have many friends in the military, and wish them the best in their missions overseas and a safe return home. I also wish them good, strong cups of coffee, and I can say that I'm doing my part in my little corner of the world to get it to them.
Best Regards,
Ian Campbell
Starbucks Shift Supervisor
Hopkins, MN
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
Body: STARBUCKS DENIES COFFEE TO MARINES
Recently Marines in Iraq wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffees and to request that they send some of it to the troops there.
Starbucks replied, telling the Marines thank you for their support of their business, but that Starbucks does not support the war, nor anyone in it, and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.
So as not to offend Starbucks, maybe we should not support them by buying any of their products! As a war vet writing to fellow patriots, I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this war might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn't mean we don't support the boys on the ground fighting street-to-street and house-to-house for what they and I believe is right.
If you feel the same as I do then pass this along, or you can discard it and no one will ever know. Thanks very much for your support. I know you'll all be there again when I deploy once more.
"Semper Fidelis."
Sgt Howard C. Wright
1st Force Recon Co
1st Plt PLT
PLEASE DON'T DELETE THIS .. ALLOW IT TO BE PASSED TO ALL IN MEMORY OFALL THE TROOPS WHO HAVE DIED SO THAT WE MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE TOSUPPORT THEM OR NOT!!!
Recently the rumor that Starbucks Coffee Company does not "support our troops" has resurfaced in my little corner of the internet world. This rumor- one that's almost as old as the Iraq war itself, therefore is really nothing new- was laid to rest a long time ago, but I feel as though I should say something about it, as I'm a Starbucks partner. My opinion does not reflect the "official" stance of the company, and that's the beauty of it, really- we can all have our own opinions and still be allowed to work someplace or live someplace or call ourselves "American".
Starbucks is a multi-national corporation, operating over 13,000 stores in 40 countries. They also employ close to 150,000 people in all of these countries, in addition to the millions that they serve every day. That's a lot of Americans and Canadians and Chinese and Arabian and British and German and French and Mexican (the list goes on) people and Starbucks firmly believes that it is these people that make their company, not their CEOs or operational headquarters that happen to be based on American soil. So when a certain group of people- the American military- representing just one of the 40 countries that the people of Starbucks represent, approaches the company asking for a very public donation, the company would be sending a message to the other 39 countries it represents saying "Hey, we're cool with this." Through the eyes of most Americans, it may have looked like a simple act of generously supporting American troops. To the people in the other 39 countries where Starbucks employs and serves, this may have been taken as a slap in the face. While this could be portrayed simply as a "business move" to protect Starbucks' international reputation and make the "evil corporation" more money, no one, including Starbucks, wants to slap millions of people in the face.
What Starbucks has done in the absence of a company-mandated donation strategy is much broader and, in my opinion, much more effective. The company encouraged individual stores to connect with their community- another thing that Starbucks firmly believes in- by teaming with local and national organizations to collect coffee donations from customers and employees. For the past year, my particular store has worked with a non-profit group based out of Florida, in which we set out a basket in our café and encouraged people to buy a pound of coffee to donate to our troops. Our employees also donated their weekly free pound of coffee to the cause, and a few even bought the coffee to donate as well. When the basket fills up, we send the coffee to Florida, where they ship it to Iraq and Afghanistan to be distributed to our troops on the ground.
This may not seem like much compared to a large corporate donation that Starbucks could've chosen to give. But I know that we are not the only store that does this, and if every one of the 9,400 stores in the United States took the initiative with a program like this and collected just 25 pounds in their basket, we'd be able to get all of our troops 2 or 3 pounds EACH in just the first shipment!
I think most of all, though, this encourages us to take action on our own, to stand up and take responsibility for doing something good beyond waving flags and buying magnetic ribbons for our cars, and sending out chain letters telling our friends where and where not to shop. Don't wait for corporations like Starbucks or government agencies to take the first step- it should be you and me who are taking the first steps.
I strongly support our troops, as I have many friends in the military, and wish them the best in their missions overseas and a safe return home. I also wish them good, strong cups of coffee, and I can say that I'm doing my part in my little corner of the world to get it to them.
Best Regards,
Ian Campbell
Starbucks Shift Supervisor
Hopkins, MN
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
Body: STARBUCKS DENIES COFFEE TO MARINES
Recently Marines in Iraq wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffees and to request that they send some of it to the troops there.
Starbucks replied, telling the Marines thank you for their support of their business, but that Starbucks does not support the war, nor anyone in it, and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.
So as not to offend Starbucks, maybe we should not support them by buying any of their products! As a war vet writing to fellow patriots, I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this war might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn't mean we don't support the boys on the ground fighting street-to-street and house-to-house for what they and I believe is right.
If you feel the same as I do then pass this along, or you can discard it and no one will ever know. Thanks very much for your support. I know you'll all be there again when I deploy once more.
"Semper Fidelis."
Sgt Howard C. Wright
1st Force Recon Co
1st Plt PLT
PLEASE DON'T DELETE THIS .. ALLOW IT TO BE PASSED TO ALL IN MEMORY OFALL THE TROOPS WHO HAVE DIED SO THAT WE MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE TOSUPPORT THEM OR NOT!!!
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