* title of the blog from The Big Lebowski re: breaking the rules
I live in the city and commute about 45-50 minutes to work every day. I spend a lot of time on the interstate, most of it in the right lane doing the speed limit and minding my own business.
Every now and then someone will come up behind me and drive on my bumper for no reason whatsoever other than they apparently don't have the situational awareness to go around someone driving slower than them. It's really annoying.
What I also find annoying is people who cut over in front of me when it's not necessary. Like, stay in your lane, bro! (Ladies to this too, I'm sure.)
I found myself thinking that it's unfortunate that being rude, being an a--h---, is not against the law. I would much prefer for everyone to treat each other with civility. When I'm at my best self, I'm very gracious and am able to live this out pretty well (I'm not perfect by any means).
I came across 2 identical situations in the last week that also exemplify rudeness:
Many of my eighth graders are reading a novel in English class. As one of them was leaving class the other day, he turned to his classmates and said, "____ and _____ die." (He hasn't been reading the novel with them in class, he looked up a summary on the internet.)
My friend's ex-husband -- whom she has to interact with because of visitation rights & child support for their kids -- texted her Thursday after the premier of Avengers: Infinity War and spoiled the ending.
"There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this treachery."
Like, there is no punishment for the level of jerk one has to be to betray their fellow man in that regard. Nothing that I can come up with, anyway, apart from a serious beating.
While lamenting about this, I realized something: being rude to each other is against the Law.
And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?
And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, "Which is the first commandment of all?"
And Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment.
"And the second is like it, namely this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is none other commandment greater than these." ~ Mark 12:28-31
It does bring some comfort to know that there is, in the end, accountability for all the unloving things a person has done.
But What About the Sacred Romance?
Anyone who's spent time with me discussing religion is likely aware that I'm a fan of a view of Christianity known as the Sacred Romance. It is a poetic/romantic look at the world and seems to be a version of Christianity that is, as for Dorothy, as colorful as Oz is to Kansas.
I don't subscribe the term and concept of God fearing. That's a dated mentality that was used to control people. We are in the future. If God is love and love it's the opposite of fear then... to fear God makes no sense
I understand what the phrase means, but dang if this ain't a whole other perspective on the phrase "God-fearing." Makes me appreciate the romantic & poetic nature of the Sacred Romance. Be define by love, not by fear.
We also mustn't discount the place of fear in bringing people to God, for "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" and "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb 9:27 & 10:31).
God loves us enough to have offered us forgiveness through Jesus' sacrifice, and He loves others enough to punish those who wrong them (Matthew 25:31-46).
DEAR ABBY: My question is very simple, Abby. Who determines right or wrong in your life, your opinions, your column? This will tell me all I need to know about your wisdom or advice. -- RON IN MICHIGAN
DEAR RON: Actually, I think your question is anything but "simple," and the answer is: I do.
Let me first say that I can empathize with the sentiment expressed by Ron: you want to know the information you're getting is legit, especially when you're dealing with morality. Even in our post-modern, relativistic society, I think we can all agree that not all moralities are equal: Adolf Hitler's morality will never be equal to Mahatma Gandhi's morality.
I deliberately chose 2 non-Christians to prove a point.
As a follower of Jesus, there are certain things that I readily acknowledge, among them being the existence of moral absolutes:
There are things in this world that are simply wrong. The reason we know that they're wrong is because of our conscience:
Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. ~ Romans 2:14-15
However, our conscience can become "seared" or numbed to right and wrong:
Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead (read: seared). ~ 1 Timothy 4:1-2
Those verses are referring to those within Christianity, but those outside the church can have the same "searing" of their consciences that will fail to convict them of right and wrong.
So back to "Ron."
I understand that he wants to make sure that what he's reading is morally sound.
I really do.
However, having read Dear Abby for over a decade, I can say that, although the advice she offers is not always biblically sound, she has a lot of knowledge about etiquette and manners to offer. (This can be especially important if you're in a situation that calls for a particular set of cultural customs to be followed.) There have been occasions where Abby has offered advice that I don't agree with, sure. I'm grateful for realizing those times because it reminds me of what I believe (because I look to her for advice, not truth). However, there have been times where she has mentioned something that I wouldn't have thought of that has changed my way of thinking.
"Eat the meat and throw away the bones," as the saying goes.
I'm not saying you should deliberately eat "bones." Not by a long shot.
But I also know that interacting with people that have different beliefs that I do can strengthen my beliefs because I remind myself of what is absolutely true. It forces me to think about what I believe and why.
As to Ron's attitude, I've seen it before in those in my life, as well as in myself.
As I've previously written, I've allowed God to open up my mind to teach me from those I would've otherwise dismissed.
But I've heard others mention that there are entire groups of people that they refuse to open up to because they don't want to "taint" their beliefs. This has the effect as coming across as arrogant and prideful, and communicates the attitude, "Those people have nothing to teach me."
At its best, it's a refusal to listen to people's experience; at its worst, it's a refusal to open up fully to God and allow him to lead you wherever, whenever, to whomever.
And I know for a fact that some of those authors who have opened my eyes to new ways of looking at the world -- even non-Christians -- would have a profound effect on how these other people perceive their life if they would but open their eyes and ears.
But I also recognize that not everyone is called to everything. My favorite author, John Eldredge, apparently enjoys reading Dallas Willard (Eldredge has referenced several of Willard's books). Personally, I can't stand reading Willard because I find him to be too dry. That is, however, my personal opinion and something I had discover through personal experience; if you enjoy reading him, then go for it.
However, too often people avoid/dismiss others based on prejudice and stereotypes, not on personal experience (or, much less, following the Holy Spirit).
All this to say that you must take care when espousing viewpoints of absolutism. I mean, you don't want to come across as a Sith lord:
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't believe in absolute truth, because truth is absolutely necessary to keep your bearings in a world so adrift when it comes to morality and evil:
But humility and compassion are "absolute" musts; "the greatest of these is love," as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:13. Without following the greatest commandment to love God with every fiber of our being and to show his fervent love to ourselves and our neighbors, the followers of Christ will represent him as judging and austere (I'm pointing fingers at you, Westboro Baptist Church!).
Contrast that with this:
"Do you think that I like to see wicked people die?" says the Sovereign Lord. "Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live." ~ Ezekiel 18:23
So all that to get to this:
If you're going to turn down something, manners matter! "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1).
Learning to be a loving person is the loftiest goal anyone can aspire to:
To be unloving is to fail at the very thing we were created for. It is a rejection of the essence of our existence, a rejection of the Love that made us... I think you can fairly easily sort out the people who have come to this epiphany from those who have not. There is something different about their approach to life -- what upsets them, what makes them laugh, and especially the way they handle people. ~ Love & War, "Learning to Love"
There are some who would seek to dismiss love as an inefficient limitation, as if a bird had chosen to remind grounded and give up their aeronautical ways.
As The Shack notes,
"Love is not the limitation; love is the flying."
This does not mean that you can't tell others that they're wrong; Jesus walked perfectly in love and let the Pharisees have it, for sure -- but his ire was usually directed toward the overly-religious, not those outside the church or honestly seeking God.
Love can be fierce as well as tender. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you when each is needed (Luke 12:12).
Dedicate yourself to God, ask him to love you, and you will become a more loving person who will handle others with care.
There's simply too much brokenness in this world to not pursue love above all else.
So for anyone who doesn’t know, I made a bet with one of my science classes one year that if 70% of the students in the class scored a 70% or better on their end-of-the-year test, then I would:
grow out my hair for the rest of the school year (which would be something like 5-6 weeks and a big deal for me since I tend to buzz it almost every other week), and
dye it a color of their choice during the last week of school.
Long-story-short, they missed the percentage by one person, but I went ahead and did it anyway; purple won the vote by a landslide, and this is the shade I chose:
The icing on the cake was that one of the students suggested that I grow my facial hair out, too, so I did; I didn’t shave for over a month (the longest ever for me by far).
On the night after the last day of school, my hair had been dyed for about a week. Suddenly, no longer being bound by my agreement with my students, the prospect of having the freedom to cut my hair was upon me.
To be honest, I enjoyed it.
No, not the fifty billion times I’ve been asked, “Why is your hair blue?” (Unfortunately, it came out more of an indigo color.):
No, not that. Rather, it’s the act of having done something completely different with my (otherwise) unassuming appearance.
I know; I’m boring. Well, at least at first glance...
But one of the things that I like about my plain manner of dress is precisely that it’s not outwardly appealing. I mean, I’d be more likely to blend in with the crowd as opposed to stand out – that is, unless my freshly shaved head happens to catch someone’s eye. (Bald is beautiful! Haha, just kidding.)
And I like it that way.
First, it’s low maintenance. Throwing on jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers – without having to worry about my hair – is incredibly pragmatic. The only thing more utilitarian would be to pull an Einstein and wear the same clothes every day (or at least identical sets of the same clothes lol).
Second, it’s plain. The fact that my appearance doesn’t really stand out allows what’s truly important about me to shine through: my heart, my mind, my personality, and my character. You know, all those intangible qualities that you can’t measure with a dollar sign because, like the MasterCard commercials reiterate all the time, they’re “priceless”:
Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within... which is so precious to God. (1 Peter 3:3-4)
The above verse deals with jewelry and the outward appearances regarding styled hair, jewelry, and clothes, but it doesn’t say that those things, in-and-of-themselves, are wrong. It just means that those things won’t be good for winning the hearts of others (see 1 Peter 3:1).
CONNECTION vs. SHALLOWNESS, and APPRECIATION vs. DISMISSAL
Being in a school and working with kids also gives me an outsider’s perspective on how we treat each other when we’re younger – and, for a large part, this is based heavily on appearance.
Quick side note: some kids don’t grow out of this as they “grow up,” so this can go for adults as well:
Alright, I’ll just go ahead and put it out there:
Some kids are so unbelievably shallow that it’s disgusting.
I thought about saying “appalling” instead of “disgusting,” but I’d rather not mince words.
Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t go for all of them, because there are a lot great kids, too.
However, some don’t really care about anything beneath the surface, and your value in their eyes is largely determined by brand-name shirts and shoes, hemp necklaces, hats with stickers, mp3 players, cell phones, and how very much like them you happen to be. This occurs across socio-economic, gender, and racical lines.
Part of me wonders if it’s because they don’t have anything better to do...
But even the kids who are good fall into the “conformity trap” sometimes:
One of the things that I’ve realized – and, to be honest, it took some adults like this for me to realize it – is that people who are shallow enjoy life less.
Let me explain.
For the people who judge – and dismiss – each other based mainly on the exterior (or the trivial), they never get a chance to know someone for who they really are.
Okay, so someone doesn’t wear a particular brand of clothing, or they don’t wear it a certain way. Really, though, that’s “small potatoes” – or, more accurately, onions – because most people have multiple “layers” that they gradually unfold and let others into. As the depth of the friendship increases, so does the strength of the connection between the hearts of those involved, and the only way to discover the treasure of others’ hearts is to give it a shot and let them in:
Let me say something real quick here: Never, never, never underestimate the power of enjoying the “little things” with someone.
Those little things that, in your eyes, don’t really mean a whole lot, may be just enough for someone else to build a bridge between the two of you over which they feel comfortable enough to cross and open up to you:
Ken used to be the IT guy at the school where I teach. When he would come by to work on my computer, I would make a point to talk to him instead of doing something else while waiting for him to finish.
One day he came up to me and asked where I lived; it turns out that he needed a ride home. My commute is about 40 minutes, so it’s not a short distance, which means that providing a ride home for him would be a significant commitment.
Did I mention that he said he wasn’t leaving until 5pm? I had to be at work around 7, so that made it a 10-hour day for me.
I’d also be willing to bet that I was the first person he asked simply because I was intentional about making a connection with him.
Now, I’m not sharing the story to brag; in fact, I don’t really want to share it because I don’t want to seem like I’m toting how great I am (I’m not).
I’m sharing this because it’s a great example of what it looks like for someone to feel comfortable enough with you to “cross the bridge” and be vulnerable enough to ask for help.
ENJOYMENT
But if you don’t appreciate people for who they really are, it prevents you from enjoying all (or even some) that they may have to offer. And even if they don’t offer to unburden the depths of their soul to you, lots will still offer more than only the surface-layer stuff when they feel truly accepted and loved.
There’s nothing quite like having people who just get you in your life, who appreciate you for being you:
If you want a more grown-up version of this, just look at the theme song from Cheers:
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they’re always glad you came(i.e., they appreciate you being there)
You wanna be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name
In other words, people enjoy being valued for who they are, and they’ll naturally gravitate toward a person/group where they feel the most acceptance. I mean, why would you stay where you’re tolerated when you can go to where you’re celebrated?
So when I realized this about the adults I was hanging out with, instead of judging them for their unaccepting disposition (which, I will admit, not judging others is a work in progress for me), I felt sorry for them. Especially because they won’t be able to enjoy the full uniqueness of others because they see peculiarities as quirks/blemishes instead of the “good stuff” that makes each and every one of us unique:
I mean, even people who have the exact same personality are completely unique. I can say this for certain because I’ve met several sets of what I refer to as “personality twins” who have practically identical mannerisms, speech patterns, etc.:
My high school psychology teacher was most certainly a character, and he was extraordinarily loved by his students because of it. However, the extroverted timeshare salesman who strongly reminded me of him just wasn’t quite the same because he was unique in his own right.
The guy from a church I used to go to still had a separate identity for all the life experiences and quirks that made him him, even though he had the same personality and laugh as one of my college roommates who commissioned into the military.
And the parent of a student who instantly reminded me of my brother-in-law in how he spoke and interacted with others, although similar, was, at the same time, completely different from him.
As a friend of mine – and this is someone that I used to tease all the time for being “high maintenance” – once said:
“Yes, but to love me is to love everything about me – even those things you see as my little quirks.”
To quote one of the girls in the youth group at my church:
Why do we try so hard to be perfect when the people who think we are perfect love us because we aren’t perfect? (Thanks, Monica!)
“People call these things ‘imperfections,’ but they’re not. Oh, that’s the good stuff.”
SO WHERE AM I GOING WITH ALL THIS?
When I thought about how I was now free to cut my hair as I wished, a thought – you could say it was a temptation – crossed my mind. It was something along the lines of...
If I cut my purple hair, then what will I have that will make me unique?
And for a second, I considered keeping it:
Don’t’ get me wrong, because cutting it was always a sure thing; it was just a matter of time (though a little longer than 0.68 seconds lol). This is mainly because I like how not having any hair feels and I wouldn’t (regularly) go to the trouble of coloring it like that.
For one thing, it’s a refusal to live by the appearances-are-the-most-important-thing mentality that so many people choose to embrace. And in that sense, I’ll “drive” myself, thank-you-very-much:
Esse Quam Videri, as the saying goes:
To be, rather than to appear.
But no, not just that. Anything that you make room for in your life has the potential to make a place for itself in your heart.
I remember a few years ago when, ironically, I had grown my hair out and actually maintained it at a length where I had to go get the first haircut I’d had in over a decade in order to keep it long enough to style.
During spring break, I went to visit my alma mater and scheduled a time to meet with the chaplain who had mentored me during college. During our conversation, he spontaneously placed his hands on my head to pray for me.
You know what the first thing that ran through my mind was?
“No, he didn’t just put his hands on my hair!”
And I knew right then that it had to go.
As Henry David Thoreau said,
Men have become 'tools' of their tools.
Or, to put it another way, “The things you ‘own’ end up ‘owning’ you”:
Don’t get me wrong: I’ll be the first to admit that I look better with hair – especially if it’s spiked a bit. However, I know that the true “gold” of me lies beneath the surface, not from whatever appearance I may or may not have at the moment, and this simply forces those around me to look deeper for what is truly important.
Which reminds me of a conversation I had with a cashier at Target:
I was standing in line behind a woman who was talking to the cashier while having her items rung up. During the conversation, the cashier mentioned that she had bought a pair of jeans that cost $135, and would spend almost $80 on only a few items of makeup.
Trying to speak something positive to her heart, I commented that “real beauty is on the inside,” which she (unfortunately) dismissed. She essentially said that, because she’s “anti-social,” she must present an outer beauty, “otherwise how will anyone know that I’m beautiful?”
You see, she wasn’t secure in the beauty that was in her heart, and so she felt compelled to present her “made up” outward beauty as a substitute.
It wasn’t enough for her to be beautiful simply for the sake of being beautiful as God created her; she felt compelled to go looking for validation of her (outer/false) beauty from others.
Politicians know that lots of people judge based on looks, which is why they focus so heavily on their appearance:
That saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? That’s because lots of people do judge books (and others) based primarily on their covers/appearance.
Am I saying it’s wrong to be beautiful/handsome on the outside? Absolutely not.
Is it acceptable to have a sharp manner of dress?
Absolutely.
Just don’t become attached to it:
It's when those ravishing good looks (or style of clothing) are used as a substitute for who you were originally created to be, then they become false because they are not the truest thing about you – but more on that in Part 2...
