Derrick Jensen is a provocative environmental activist and writer. His basic point: save the planet at any cost. If it costs your integrity? Yes. If it costs your life? Check.
He has a short column with Orion magazine. In the recent July|August edition, "Calling All Fanatics" he starts by saying, "there aren't nearly enough of us working anywhere near hard enough to stop this culture from killing the planet."
Should we be enjoying our hikes, kayaking trips, and nice camping trips when our entire society is continuing to allow the destruction of the natural world, polluting the air and water, sending carbon into the atmosphere, and cutting down the forests (and other overharvesting), all to feed the need for greed--our demand for more and more stuff.
"For anyone not to devote her/his talents and energies to defending the planet is a betrayal of the worst magnitude, a gesture of contempt against life itself. It is unforgivable."
I am inclined to agree. Although I am a theologian by trade, a thinker, I want my theory to be grounded in the reality and workings of the world. From my volunteer work teaching in the local county jail it has become clear to me that there are problems that require immediate action, and words without deeds are dead. People's lives are being stolen and abused. We can sit back and pontificate on incarceration, but I know the names of people who need support because every night they get shut up in cages like animals with other desperate people. They need friends, mentors, and they need activists.
I feel the same way about the environment. I agree with Jensen that there is a "contempt against life itself" at work somewhere in all of this.
Yet as a theologian and spiritual thinker, I also want to ask the deeper questions. I want to ask, where does this "contempt against life" come from. I want to take Jensen's militarism, his do-or-die attitude, his courage, and join it with some intelligent spiritual analysis. By "spiritual" I mean that I want to ask about the "spirit" or "mood" or "attitude" that animates this culture of contempt against life. I do believe, for example, that consumerism is based on contempt. We have to first despise ourselves. Once we despise our lives, then we are vulnerable to advertising and marketing manipulation.
In the past, advertising and marketing was simple: for a content, satisfied, or self-actualized life, just purchase [insert product/service]. The sophistication of our current consumerism is such that we are well aware of our own self-content, and yet we continue to consume. This interests me. Self-contempt is celebrated, in often very subtle ways. Of course we still sell cereal by showing happy kids, but its also hip to be angsty: "yeah, I'm a jaded consumer, and to prove it I wear this jacket and these shoes." Even protests against the system necessitate that we participate in the system.
There's a market for the anti-system crowd. These are the saavy, self-aware types. The advertiser can tap into the contempt and bring it to the surface, no problem. An advertiser can use anything to sell a product or service.
How do we respond to this contempt for life? If our consuming impulse is based on contempt and a discontented consumer, how do we stop the consuming impulse before it begins? How does a person (or a society for that matter) become content, undoing our conditioning toward contempt?
It is often the case that our own ill-conceived strategies for life often make us the most unhappy. The world is a chaotic place, and we develop strategies to cope. These strategies evolve into habits, many of which we are not even aware of. There are times, though, when we run into problems in our lives that confuse us, that cause us to step back and reevaluate ourselves. The idea of reaping what we sow seems to have to do with this very thing—ill-conceived strategies for life, lifestyles and habits that come back to cause us grief and pain.
Here in the U.S., we are nearing nearly a decade of war, our economy is in the midst of “the Great Recession,” and we are in the process of dealing with an ecological catastrophe. It may be a critical time in the history of our nation, a time to ask the most basic of questions regarding our way of life: is it working for us?
Clearly our choices of lifestyle have had a devastating impact on the environment. From an economic perspective, it is a matter of debate whether we can continue to push for more growth. But more to the point: our economic push for expansion and growth is coming into conflict iwht our environment’s ability to sustain it. This is due in part to the fact that our deconomy depends so heavily on iol. Eventually the supply will run out. Additionally there is the concern about global warming. Can our environment sustain the impact of all of the world’s carbon emissions? In the meantime, we deal with the oil spills and the environmental destruction from drilling on land.
But let’s bracket these concerns for a moment. Let’s assume that these natural resources are unlimited and that extracting them is not a problem. (After all, most people continue to live as though there were no problems—even those who believe that our way of life is devastating to the planet.)Let’s assume global warming is not happening and that the resources are unlimited. Let’s ask a fundamental question: are we really happy? Do we live a blessed life?
The biblical texts speak a good deal about the blessed life.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” “Blessed are the merciful.” “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” “Blessed are the pure in heart.” “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
As I understand them, the basic premise is that if a person or society walks with integrity, then they will be blessed; conversely, those whose ways lack integrity can expect negative consequences to come their way. This is certainly not an absolute formula for success, and those who use it as such will find themselves disappointed. For example, there are those who walk with integrity but are exploited, abused, die of disease, are pushed off their land, etc. This is historical fact. Still, there is something important about living a blessed life, about being blessed, and it isn’t about living out a formula for a successful life.
What is the standard for a blessed life? Material possessions might be our first response. Or we might perhaps associate blessings with entertainment or other sensual stimulations. Further, we might define success (and blessedness) in terms of achievement—building a career, establishing a ministry, attaining personal goals, or having an accomplished family. Perhaps also we might define a blessed life as some mix of the above.
My understanding of the biblical texts, taken as a whole—the Hebrew scriptures along with the Christian New Testament—is that the blessed life is one that is lived with integrity. The word “integrity” having to do with an “integration”: that all of the activities and relationships of one’s life work together in a harmonious, beautiful, and virtuous way.
For example, we admire a business man or woman as a “person of integrity” if this person is consistently honest in all of his or her dealings, whether professional or personal. If a person is religious at church, but they are dishonest in their work life, we say that such a person lacks integrity, that they have not integrated their values into a harmony. Similarly, if a member of the clergy has a public persona of virtue but a private life of vice, we would say that this inconsistency is evidence of a lack of integrity.
If the blessed life is seen in this way, then we realize that success, achievement, or even survival is of secondary importance. Integrity has a profit all its own.
If the blessed life is a life of integrity, then how does the U.S. fair? The outlooks is certainly bleak. I would say that the reason for this does not necessarily have to do with evil intentions by the majority of average citizens, but more to do with a way of living and a system that promotes fragmentation. Fragmentation is the opposite of integration, or the reverse of integrity. For example, if we want to own a pair of running shoes, we go to Foot Locker or some other chain store and buy a pair. We do not usually think farther than this. But what if our shoes were made in an Asian sweatshop? What if our shoes were produces with exploited labor? Even children? “Well,” we might respond, “how should I know? I’m not deliberately trying to screw Asian workers, I just want a pair of shoes.” But you see, this response presumes that our behavior (buying a pair of shoes) can be an isolated event. We isolate this event and fragment it from any other considerations and from any of our life’s values. We live in a sort of willful ignorance of where our products come from. This is a breakdown of integrity because it is a failure to integrate our values (things like fairness, goodness, kindness, etc.) with our purchase of a pair of shoes.
This kind of thing, though, is a part of life in the U.S. We purchase most of our products without knowing their source, even our food. We work for companies and corporations that isolate us into departments, cubicles, and offices, to do isolated tasks without knowledge of whether our work is contributing to a virtuous cause or causing suffering in the world.
We live in a system that encourages fragmentation, that refuses to allow us to live integrated lives, lifestyles of integrity. And more and more we are seeing the impact of our lifestyle on other people, animals, and the environment. This means that the general public is being confronted with the fact that we have not been living the blessed life.
And are we even happy? Do we live fulfilled and satisfied lives? The advertising industry, which is the force behind so much of our drive for economic expansion, by definition creates dissatisfaction in consumers. If everyone were satisfied with their life, then there would be no reason to buy the latest ipod, purchase a larger television, invest in a larger house, get that second car, or keep one’s self dressed in the latest fashions. Who in the U.S. is truly content? Who is truly satisfied with what they have? It is almost true, by definition, that we are unhappy.
It is also my belief that living a fragmented life without integrity is itself dissatisfying on a deep spiritual level. We see this in the sarcastic and bitter cynicism that many people have toward working in isolated offices and cubicles. The Dilbert cartoon satirizes this approach to life. How can one feel satisfied working in a glorified assembly line that we call an office space? We are often bored and fragmented, and our entertainment industry is so wealthy because it serves to distract us from this deep spiritual discontent.
To live with integrity. To live a contented life. This is the blessed life. This is the life that can extend itself outside of self and engage the world in a meaningful way. A person who is content and lives with integrity does not need to be another consumer in the market to find happiness or some measure of peace, for peace is found within and as a result of one’s virtues put into action. There is an abiding strength of soul and spirit, a renewed “inner person,” and this transformed individual is free to integrate their values with their lifestyle. And it works in reverse: the person who has transformed their behavior in the world can experience an inward satisfaction and freedom from being bound within the consumeristic cycle of discontentment.
There is freedom in this life. This is a pilgrimage that is not of this world, and yet so deeply engaged in the world so as to challenge its deepest darkness. This is the blessed life.
John Doyle has a short post that I thought I would link to. He discusses the role of Physician costs that contribute to the high cost of U.S. healthcare.
"According to this governmental report, primary care physicians in the US earn about $186,000 per year on average; for specialists it's $340,000. Not surprisingly there's a shortage of primary care docs nationwide, while the vast majority of med school students plan to train as specialists. Physicians in the US are paid more than 5 times the average wage; French physicians, in contrast, make more than twice the national average. Is American doctoring worth it? According to most empirical studies with which I'm familiar, health outcomes and adherence to evidence-based practices are no better in America than in France. And, as has been widely observed, population health is worse in the US than in France."
I thought I might share a short response I wrote on facebook about the Arizona Immigration Bill that passed on Monday, now awaiting the signature (or possible veto) of the Governor.
Here's a description of the bill from FoxNews: "The bill contains several provisions. Among them, it would create a new state misdemeanor crime for failing to carry alien registration documents; allow officers to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving their legal residence; allow people to sue if they feel a government agency has adopted a policy that hinders immigration enforcement; prohibit people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day labor services on street corners; and make it illegal for people to knowingly transport illegal immigrants."
Some have applauded the effort to "crack down" on illegal immigration.
Here was a short thought of mine on facebook, while conversing with some folks on the issue:
"Let's stop making it such a simplistic issue and recognize that the problems in Mexico are our problems too. They are our neighbors. We have exploited them, and that's part of the reason their nation is in trouble. We have damned up the Colorado River and used it's resources so that much of it no longer gives water to Mexican farmers. We have subsidized corn and other grains in the U.S. so that we can sell them for less than cost, and we have exported these cheap grains to Mexico, putting yet more farmers out of work. We have allowed the cartels to grow strong and powerful because we have purchased so many of their drugs.
We have impoverished the farmers and made the criminals wealthy. Let's take stock of our sins before we condemn starving undocumented immigrants who risk death to feed their families."
"Don't play what's there. Play what's not there." --Miles Davis
I was flipping through a new book a few days back called The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani.
He talked about Walt Disney's vision for epcot to be a new kind of living community. When Walt died before bringing this vision into existence, the new Disney corporate heads decided to do something that pleased shareholders: just turn the whole damned epcot project into a theme park. It failed for lack of imagination. Jethani makes a parallel with today's church (in the U.S., presumably):
"Our deficiency is not motivation or money, but imagination. Our ability to live Christianly and be the church corporately has failed because we do not believe it is possible....Wanting to obey Christ but lacking imagination, we reinterpret the mission of the church through the only framework comprehendible to us--the one we've inherited from our consumer culture." p. 18
"Without imagination any solution we conceive will be rooted to the very system we must transcend." p. 19
Problems cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created them --Einstein
I don't really recommend the book, because there wasn't too much that held my attention after Jethani made this initial point. Oddly, the rest of the book seemed to lack imagination......
What about you? How do you imagine church? What if you let your mind and heart go and just think up something crazy....I mean, something just fucking crazy!!! (Using the word "fuck" tends to stir the imagination, studies have shown.) This question is open to all, of course, the churched, the unchurched, the sincere and cynical, and everyone in between. What do you see when you let you think of "church" and just let your imagination go? What do you see?
The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
To shed a bit more light on the system of consumerism and the psychological consequences, we have been looking at a few thoughts from Slovaj Zizek’s The Fragile Absolute. Zizek is some combination of philosopher, psychoanalyst, and cultural critic.
“It is no surprise that Coke was first introduced as a medicine—its strange taste does not seem to provide any particular satisfaction; it is not directly pleasing and endearing; however, it is precisely as such, as transcending any immediate use-value (unlike water, beer or wine, which definitely do quench our thirst or produce the desired effect of satisfied calm), that Coke functions as the direct embodiment of ‘it’: of the pure surplus of enjoyment over standard satisfactions, of the mysterious and elusive X we are all after in our compulsive consumption of merchandise.” (p. 22)
In the prior post, we discussed Zizek's objet petit a: “The nearer you get to it, the more it eludes your grasp (or the more you possess it, the greater the lack).” (24)
In this post, we will look at Coke, as an example of objet petit a and explore Zizek’s psychology: what is the psychology behind possessing more but simultaneously experiencing greater lack. This is a psychological paradox, but one which helps us explore the spirituality of the system of consumerism in our disposable society.
Coke is “the mysterious and elusive X we are all after in our compulsive consumption of merchandise.” (22)
And yet Coke has nothing in itself that makes it desirable. The desire for Coke comes from something else. Zizek suggests that it is (in part at least) Coke’s inherent undesirability that makes it desirable.
“It is this very superfluous character that makes our thirst for Coke all the more insatiable: as Jacques-Alain Miller put it so succinctly, Coke has the paradoxical property that the more you drink the thirstier you get, the greater your need to drink more—with that strange, bitter-sweet taste, our thirst is never effectively quenched.” (22)
So, although being thirsty leads us to drink Coke, the physiological reality is that Coke does not quench our thirst, ironically, it makes us even more thirsty.
What this seems to illustrate is that what we are after when we drink Coke is something more than a drink. There is something deeper. We think to ourselves consciously that we reach for Coke to quench our thirst. But biologically, Coke has the opposite effect. So, what is that we desire when we desire Coke?
Coke, of course, claims that it is precisely because of the product that we want more. I recently watched a documentary on the Coke company, and the executives and marketing strategists showed how the unique mixture of Coca-cola itself is what people desire. And, of course, they all believe it. We all believe it. We all believe it is the product itself. Coke is the stuff of legends, of American legends. As such, there is no conspiracy to sell us something that we don’t want. It’s just that most of us do not understand what it is that is motivating our desire to drink Coke. The motivation isn't the product itself.
There is nothing in the drink itself. The drink itself gives us nothing that a drink should give us.
Where does the desire come from?
Zizek’s point is that what we desire from Coke is precisely its ability not to quench our thirst. In a consumeristic society, what we desire from Coke is “the ineffable spiritual surplus.” (22) We actually desire to desire more. We desire desire itself, and all the while we consciously operate as though we are satisfying real needs and actual “legitimate” desires. But in a hyper-consumeristic culture, it is consuming itself that becomes the prime motivating factor.
“The ineffable spiritual surplus.”
Zizek summarizes: “So, when some years ago, the advertising slogan for Coke was ‘Coke is it!’, we should note its thorough ambituity: ‘that’s it’ precisely in so far as that’s never actually it, precisely in so far as every satisfaction opens up a gap of ‘I want more!’.” (22)
But there is more.
It gets better.
There isn’t just “Coke,” there is caffeine-free diet Coke.
With caffeine-free diet Coke, “all that remains is a pure semblance, an artificial promise of a substance which never materialized.” (23)
There isn’t even any caffeine left, for god’s sake!
Zizek sees in this Nietzsche’s classic opposition between “wanting nothing” and the nihilistic stance of actively wanting Nothingness itself. For example, Zizek notes Lacan’s idea that the anorexic does not desire to eat nothing, rather, the desire is for Nothingness itself, the Void. “Along the same lines, in the case of caffeine-free diet Coke, we drink the Nothingness itself, the pure semblance of a property that is in effect merely an envelope of a void.” (23)
So, the move from Coke to caffeine-free diet Coke is a move from endless consumption and eternal dissatisfaction (wanting to drink something that will not quench your thirst and keep you wanting more—“the ineffable spiritual surplus”) to desiring the Nothingness and Void.
Zizek further explores this in terms of Freud’s super ego paradox: “the more Coke you drink, the thirstier you are; the more profit you make, the more you want; the more you obey the superego command, the guiltier you are….or the more you have what you long for, the more you lack, the greater your craving; or—the consumerist version—‘the more you buy, the more you have to spend….that is to say, of the paradox which is the very opposite of the paradox of love where, as Juliet put it in her immortal words to Romeo, ‘the more I give, the more I have.’”
This paradox is difficult to define. Easier to illustrate, more difficult to define.
What seems to be in play is that the fulfillment of desire somehow opens up the space for more desire. Or, perhaps it is that chasing desire itself is an eternal quest. The more we pursue desire, the more that desire grows. Desire breeds desire.
“The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.” (Ecclesiastes 1:8)
Desire exists for desire’s own sake, as in the illustration of Coke. Or, in the case of caffeine-free diet Coke, desire opens up the desire for the Nothingness, the Void.
For Zizek, the key is the object petit a, “which exists (or, rather, persists) in a kind of curved space—the nearer you get to it, the more it eludes your grasp (or the more you possess it, the greater the lack.” (24)
The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
This is the psychological and spiritual element of the consumeristic desire for desire itself.
The result of this hyper-consumerism within which we move and breath and have our being is that we live in a disposable society. Our legacy becomes waste.
Trash.
Waste.
“So, on the one hand, instead of stable products destined to last for generations, capitalism introduces a breathtaking dynamics of obsolescence: we are bombarded by new and newer products which are sometimes obsolete even before they come fully into use—PCs have to be replaced every year if one is to keep up with the Joneses; long-playing records were followed by CDs, and now by DVDs. The aftermath of this constant innovation is, of course, the permanent production of piles of discarded waste.” (40)
Zizek then cites Jacques-Alain Miller: The main production of the modern and postmodern capitalist industry is precisely waste. We are post modern beings because we realize that all our aesthetically appealing consumption artifacts will eventually end as leftover, to the point that it will transform the earth into a vast waste land. You lose the sense of tragedy, you perceive progress as derisive. (40-41)
Interesting to think of the postmodern legacy being one of waste.
“The obverse of the incessant capitalist drive to produce new and newer objects is therefore the growing pile of useless waste, mountains of used cars, computers, and so on.” (41)
The waste that hyper-consumerism produces is the visible testimony to a deeper psychological and spiritual phenomenon, an invisible force that keeps us locked into the endless pursuit of goods and services. The desire opens up the spiritual spaces within us for more desire to grow. The joy we find in the newest and latest purchase becomes the springboard for more pursuits. We work harder and longer for more.
This is the intersection of economics and psychology, the crossroads of spiritual longing and the American capitalist system that has transformed itself into desire for the sake of desire, or in its more extreme form, the desire for the Nothingness, the Void.
Two hundred years ago, poets and sages sought a back way out of the modern world through the wreckage of the Middle Ages. With the Postmodern Pilgrimage the medieval was revived again. --p. 100 of John Doyle's The Stations
The Salon.
The Salon Postisme is an idea, was an idea; it was a vision and a dream. It was an opportunity to escape the reality of the mundane and trivial. The Salon became something different, entirely. In the end, it became an institution and a corporate entity. But in the beginning? In the beginning it was a portal into another dimension, a dimension of deeper humanness, consciousness. Something deeper, yes, but also an escape from the pull and the gravity of the deep.
John Doyle’s (aka ktismatics) novel The Stations is a discussion of pilgrimage. The Salon is the vision for the pilgrim. The Salon begins as a ratty sign on a door. There are no lights, no advertising media, no marketing, no distribution channels. Just a sign on a door. Stephen Hanley walks through the door. Something is restless. Something is unsettled. It isn’t just “an inner longing.” There’s something in the air, a mood, a collective sense. The sense that even though everything is efficient, secure, and “all is well with the world,” there is still an unrest in the atmosphere.
It is this unrest that moves the pilgrim. And yet before the pilgrim is moved, there is a connection with the unrest. The pilgrim senses something about the world that disturbs her sleep.
Stephen Hanley walks through the door and is handed the baton, he is the new Proprietor of The Salon, or you can just call him “Prop.” No training. Just the vision. Just ambiguity. There’s something that is not right with the world, something in the mood of the world. There will be pilgrims, those who begin to explore difference in a world of homogeneity and same-ness. That’s what Prop is here for, that’s what he wants to do:
“My job as I saw it was to enter into the client’s real strangeness; to have the client guide me into other ways of seeing, into exotic regions of the soul that we could then explore together. What I really wanted, of course, was to become the client. I didn’t want to pull them out into my normalcy; I wanted to climb with them into their madness. I guess I’m just a romantic at heart.” p. 30
Prop is ready to climb into the madness. Their madness, their strangeness. Something is breaking through.
The film (1999) Fight Club opens with the line: “People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden.” The character speaking is the main character, but he remains nameless through the film. So, some of us call him “Jack.” And Tyler Durden? Tyler Durden is Jack, Jack’s subconscious breaking through. At the beginning of the film we only see Jack’s life. It’s a pathetic life. It’s mundane and trivial. “This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time,” says Jack to himself as he boards another plane for another business trip for another corporate gig so that he can feed his slavery to “the Ikea nesting instinct.” “What diamond set defines me as a person?”
A pilgrim finds something, connects to something. There is a mood.
Jack can’t sleep. Something is restless. Ironically, it is insomnia that begins his awakening.
“How often had someone come to me wanting to stop being something, to stop doing something? They wanted to get away from their jobs, from their friends and families, from the world, from themselves. The Salon Postisme offered a way out….People often come to the Salon equipped with a sophisticated ambivalence, an ironic self-awareness, and a vague general disdain that masks an intense and personal frustration with the way life was turning out." p. 7
The pilgrim is finding something deeper within, but in another more real sense, they are not going deeper within the self but rather connecting with something in the world. It’s vague and indefinable. It seems to manifest itself as “an intense and personal frustration” with the way life is panning out. And somehow, conventional remedies don’t work.
The first instinct is to run, to get away. The first instinct isn’t always the best instinct…..of course, it isn’t always the worst move, either…..But it’s hard to put a finger on just what a pilgrim feels when the overwhelming sense is that “this world is not my home.”
The frustration grapples to latch onto something, call it “sophisticated ambivalence,” or “ironic self-awareness,” or “a vague general disdain.” These are the “masks” that express that which cannot be defined, that which should not be defined.
But this is the beginning of pilgrimage.
This is where it is conceived, where the possibility of new life begins.
The pilgrim has not yet taken her first steps. She has not even yet been formed in the womb.
There are any number of possibilities.
But this is the beginning.
[This post follows the prior post and begins our exploration of pilgrimage]
“A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation.” (Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, p. 13)
I am taking a brief respite from blogging on the spiritual/psychological/human consequences of our American economic system. The purpose of this hiatus is to discuss Kierkegaard’s notion of the self. “Self” is a term I use quite a bit in my blogging, so it seems worthwhile to discuss and dialog on what I mean by “self.” Kierkegaard is a great place to start. For Kierkegaard, “the self is a relation that relates itself to itself.” This carries with it the idea of a self as a process of understanding itself. A self has a certain consciousness of being a self. As human beings, we contemplate our place in the universe and the cosmos, we form a sense of identity, we look for meaning, try to discover our purpose, and we reflect on ourselves. We ask the “who am I?” questions. This capacity represents our capacity to be a “self.” In Heidegger terminology, we are beings for whom our very being is an issue. However, my understanding of Kierkegaard is such that even though we can begin to ask ultimate questions and contemplating existential issues of our individuality and personhood, this only represent the beginning of the possibility of discovering our self.
The self is a relation that relates itself to itself. But this process of understanding and becoming self is easily hijacked in the world. “Most men live without ever becoming conscious of being destined as spirit—hence all so-called security, contentment with life, etc., which is simply despair.” (p. 26)
We recall that Kierkegaard uses “spirit” and “self” interchangeably. Self/spirit is a process of “becoming conscious,” a process that most do not truly engage. We might ask questions of purpose and meaning, but these frequently remain somewhat trite, and they are often insignificant when compared with the securities and entertainments that life has to afford. In other words, we are easily distracted from deep knowledge of self. However, knowing one’s self and engaging the process of self-consciousness and self-awareness does not simply mean that one becomes the stereotypical brooding existentialist. This kind of brooding does not mean that the self is relating itself to itself in any meaningful way. (It could be a meaningful process, of course, but not necessarily so.) In fact, a person might live “full” lives, experiencing the wide range of emotions that human existence has to offer and yet still remain very unconscious of who one is as a self.
“…only that person’s life was wasted who went on living so deceived by life’s joys or its sorrows that he never became decisively and eternally conscious as spirit, as self, or what amounts to the same thing.” (p. 26)
Consciousness is a key component of self. There must be a recognition of a deeper connection that one can have with one’s self, a sense that there is a “me” that is much deeper than merely cruising through life, experiencing it’s joys and sorrows. Theologically speaking, I think that “self” also has to do with the imago dei, the image of God in all of us—the sense that as an individual, each person has a beautiful and majestic self; that we are capable of connecting with something divine within us, the “Inward Light” as the Quakers termed it.
“The self is composed of infinitude and finitude. However, this synthesis is a relation, and a relation that, even though it is derive, relates itself to itself, which is freedom. The self is freedom…. “Self-consciousness is decisive with regard to the self. The more consciousness, the more self; the more consciousness, the more will; the more will, the more self. The person who has no will at all is not a self.” (p. 29, emphasis added)
Will, freedom, and self are connected. To understand one’s gift as the image of God, a reflection of the divine—to appreciate the wonder of human existence—it is necessary to engage the process of becoming self, of being aware of self. In some sense, one’s ability to be human is at stake. “The world” is the environment where the self gets forgotten, where the deeper exploration of one’s soul is lost in the economics of daily life and the indulgences of the ego. No one cares about the loss of self. “Such things do not create much of a stir in the world, for a self is the last thing the world cares about and the most dangerous thing of all for a person to show signs of having. The greatest hazard of all, losing the self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.” (p. 32)
In Kierkegaard’s philosophy/theology of self, God is an important aspect of self-hood, however, to lose one’s relation to their self means that the God relationship will be warped and perverted. To be related correctly with God means that one must be related correctly also with one’s self.
It is easy within the world to lose the self. It is quite common to get distracted from thinking and contemplating the self. It is often the case in this world, that we allow ourselves to become swept away and defined by the world, and to lose our sense of self and freedom. We lose our connection with ourselves, and we become fragmented. Or perhaps we define ourselves (by the standards of the world, of course), and believe we have some sense of identity. But the tragedy of the loss of self remains.
In the next post, we will look more closely about Kierkegaard’s insights about how a person’s relationship with “God” can become distorted if that person does not understand their self. That is, sometimes religious folk believe that they have escaped “the world,” but because they have still have no self/spirit, their view of God is, as Kierkegaard calls it, a fantasy of the infinite.
“For decades, Americans have been known as epic consumers, but it would be more accurate to call us epic upgraders….It is so neatly woven into the double helix of our DNA that we hardly notice it…..
Forget the upgrade. The game now is avoiding the downgrade. This is grim and troubling, in part, because so much of our consumer culture is built around the enticements of the Better....
Entire corporate strategies target the bottomless American appetite for the upgrade.
In the United States, upgrade-mania has bred a sense of entitlement, which has only stoked upgrade demands.
But there has long been an on-again, off-again war in the American soul between the forces of consumerism and the countervailing force of austerity. The consumers have had the upper hand for decades, but we might have little choice now but to find comfort in the words of the philosopher and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, ‘Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.’”
In my first economics post, I discussed the economics of the American system. I grant you, there were oversimplifications, but I think the point is clear: the American economic system is based on an obsession with expansion. Corporations must turn profit, the economy must grow. I asked the question, What happens if we are over-extended?
In the next posts, I want to explore how this over-extension affects the self. More than that, I think we lose the self in the system. The self disappears. I find, my friends, that there are many reasons why we must say, “Fuck the system. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” The first way in which we lose the self is through discontent and dissatisfaction.
The American economy is based on sowing discontent and dissatisfaction. It is based on desiring the desire of the other. Others have it, customers have given it rave reviews on Amazon.com, a celebrity looks good in it, my friends love it, the neighbors just got a new one. In the American marketing matrix, we cannot be content. We cannot afford to be content. If our economy is in recession (i.e., it is contracting, not expanding), then people lose jobs. Politicians talk about our dire need for them to fix the economy and help Joe the Plummer. Why do we need to help Joe the Plummer, exactly? Truly. I wonder. Is it just so he can afford to get more stuff he doesn’t need? There is a real sense in which we screw those in the lower economic classes by doing our damnedest to help them acquire more stuff that they don’t really need.
Remember, the economy must expand, which means we have to dispose of old stuff and be continually buying new stuff. We have to define ourselves as consumers, always buying more.
When this happens, we lose most of our capacity to make decisions based on what is healthy or life-giving. Or, more to the point, we lose our capacity to make decisions based on what is healthy or life-giving for us. We measure our health and wellness based on our information about what everyone else is doing. But who controls this information, in most cases? It’s either the government or Corporations, which are one and the same, both working together to keep us discontented enough to keep buying more and to grow the American economy.
If our motivation is always for the next purchase, then we are only temporarily satisfied. The thrill of a new purchase, the feeling of newness, the tingling of being reborn, it passes. We find that the stuff gets old and less exciting. “When goods increase, so do those who consume them, so what is the advantage of the owner, but to look at them?” (Ecclesiastes 5:11) But there is always something else to buy. And here’s the thing: it is not a devastating cycle. It’s a cycle, but it can be a very pleasant one. We don’t notice that the self has receded deep into the background. We don’t notice the loss. Truly.
And, unfortunately, many contemporary churches don’t help. They preach/teach, of course, that we should be satisfied with what we have, but a quick scan of the church parking lots or the annual budget often tells a different story. For example, I have a question: why does every church bulletin I’ve ever seen always show that the church isn’t quite at its annual goal? Even our churches over-extend themselves financially.
Many churches have very important reasons why they cannot preach/teach the importance of the simple life. With budgets that are fully extended, churches quite literally cannot afford to alienate the affluent. So, rather than preach/teach about the spiritual significance of simplifying and severely downgrading, churches teach/preach that the “love” of money is the problem—it’s okay to have it.
So, then when we preach/teach on giving, we tell people that they need to give more. Maintaining the same over-extended, American standard of living and adding more ministry/church giving means that the church-goer must keep putting the hours in at work in order to pay for the Lord’s work. This is all contributing to sowing discontent among the religious. The result is a loss of self.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Even the “giving” of many church goers winds up going to support church buildings, church administrative expenses, or teen mission’s trips—in other words, all the “giving” comes back to benefit the givers, even if only indirectly.
Jesus talks about identifying our “treasure,” because what we invest in is where our heart is. But talking about the location of our “hearts” is really just another word for talking about the “self.” It’s about identity. It is as simple as saying we are our economic choices. Our “self,” our identity, is found in what we invest in. In a culture dominated by the corporate marketing of discontent, our identity is our dollars.
And what I mean to say is that even those of us who are insightful enough to write clever blog posts about the loss of the self are in the same boat. Anyone who participates is on the same ship.
Has the "Emerging Church" died? Such was the topic of a recent (and rather provocative) article on the Christianity Today website. This rather short and simple article coincides with a good deal of what I have been thinking through over the last year or so....ever since I walked away from institutional/organized religion.
“The emerging church will disappear.” That is what my informant told me as we shared drinks at our clandestine watering hole. I felt like Luca Brasi being handed a dead fish wrapped in newspaper. The hit had been ordered…the emerging church’s fate had been sealed. In my informant’s mind, the death of the emerging church was a settled matter. I double-checked my surroundings for listening ears before whispering, “How can you be so sure?” The informant (who worked for a publisher) leaned forward and said their marketing plans included dropping the “Emerging Church” brand within two years.
That was two years ago.
Now comes word from recognized leaders and voices within the emerging church movement that the term has become so polluted that it is being dropped. (Cf. McKnight article)
If you want my take on the issue, I favor a merging and submerging church: that those with a faith centered on Jesus would merge with culture and submerge beneath the turbulent waters of dogma, institution, and commercialized, market-driven religiosity.
My struggle is that I see all of Christianity as a fad, commercialized, consumer- and market-driven. To say "I am a Christian" is not to say that one identifies with Christ, but that one identifies with some form of a hyper-commercialized movement.
This explains, in part, the fact that the church has such a difficult time retaining those who are passionate about changing the world, have a heart for joining believers in open/authentic community, and have intelligent minds that desire to challenge status quo thinking. These are three key types of people that seem to be lacking in most church institutions. Most institutions tend to prefer organizing around static beliefs/practices rather than letting dynamic people loose to affect genuine change.
I can't help but sense an urgent need to purge and purify; a need to go underground; a need for silence, reflection, and growth.
In my opinion, the American church is neither hot nor cold. It is bland and boring. A few months back my boss told me that the water heater had not been working for quite sometime....but no one had noticed. Why? Because the water heater doesn't do a good job heating water, and so we don't ever expect the water to be hot. Such is the state of Christians.
Thought: Once the water is no longer hot, there is little difference between water that is merely warm and water that is cool.
When Nietzsche suggested that God is dead, wasn't he really just suggesting that God is not needed? If God doesn't actually exist, would that make a difference for the Christian religion? If we found out that there was never really a water heater to begin with, would the water temperature change?
Is it in the best interest of Jesus to let Christianity die? To put the movement out of its misery? I tend to think that the answer is, “yes.”
What would faith look like if it were just a gathering of people? Sharing life together? A non-Movement movement?
For most Christian leaders, a non-Movement movement would be too ambiguous…..the author of the above emergent church article says as much at the end of the article when he snidely remarks, “As the emerging church rides off into the sunset, where does that leave things? Well, news has been leaking about a new network being formed by Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus, and Scot McKnight among others…..They appear to have learned from the emerging church’s mistake—define purpose and doctrine early so your identity doesn’t get hijacked.”
But is it even possible to think faith without religion? To think spirituality without an Institution to regulate it? To think about Christ w/o Christianity?
Where is “faith” going these days?
The so-called "Reformers" did little to change the structure of institutional Christianity; they merely substituted different doctrines and introduced more legalistic standards to measure faith so as not to allow the church to devolve into the types of corruptions and abuses that Luther was so appalled to see when he journeyed to Rome as a naive young monk.
Interesting note: a friend recently informed me that Luther seriously considered the idea of organizing the new reformed churches as house churches. His one drawback was there were not enough people who could read, and hence there may be many house churches without someone to read the Bible…..hhhhmmmm…..but is such a drawback still an issue in 21st century America?
It is interesting that the emerging church appears to be going the way of the dinosaur. It was essentially a Movement that masqueraded as a non-movement. Hence, one kind of always felt as though a diagnosis of "multiple personalities disorder" was in order. I don’t mean to be too critical, but they did consciously decide to take this Movement public via mass distribution channels.
So......what now?
Eh hem….well, my thoughts….
I suggest: merge with culture and lose the holier-than-thou mentality; submerge from religion, dogma, and institution. Free people as individuals within community to pursue a pure and liberating faith.
Perhaps, this merging/submerging move would mean the death of commercialized Christianity and the use of "Christian" as an adjective: no more "Christian books," or "Christian music," or "Christian tee shirts," or "Christian worldviews," "Christian churches," or even "Christians.”
But to merge and submerge, as I am suggesting, would be the end of "Christianity" and "Church" as an institution and as an institutional powerhouse. Of course, such is still a radical suggestion....it means that the gathering of the faithful is organized around things like freedom, openness, love, acceptance, grace, and self-discovery......most Christians will prefer some sort of modified hybrid: an institution that merely shifts its values a bit. Add a bit more love, lose a bit of the moxy.....add some room to disagree on dogma, lose a bit of the need to control......sure, modifications can be made to ensure the survival of the mediocre institution, but in this era, I think such a suggestion is naive: the American church is overrun with the complacent, and a shift of values merely means that we will be complacent about a new set of "priorities." But perhaps this is an issue I am wrong about. Perhaps institutions with new values would, in fact, provide a new and fresh vision around which something powerful and dynamic could be formed….hhhhmmmm…..I’m doubtful, though……I think we need something more radical and extreme, something less man-made, synthetic, or artificial. Something that indicates a real connection to an external power surge. It seems difficult for me to see how things like love, freedom, grace, and power can be captured by religion. Religion and institution tend to kill these things…..but regardless, it seems quite clear that churches simply will not survive with any vibrancy unless something changes. And faith itself seems to me to be on the brink.
My suggestion of merging and submerging would seem to require the greater amount of courage, boldness, and failure: small groups striking it out on their own; trial and error, victories and failures, highs and lows. People of faith (and even non-faith) who are no longer connected by the obligation of a large-scale religious affiliation but by a more intangible and undefinable connectedness.
The following is from the script of the film Donnie Darko:
Ms. Pomeroy sits across from Principal Cole.
PRINCIPAL COLE I'm sorry, Karen, this is a specialised school. We don't think the methods you've undertaken here are appropriate.
MS. POMEROY "Appropriate". (trying to contain her anger) With all due respect, sir, what specifically about my methods do you find inappropriate?
Principal Cole stares at her for a moment.
PRINCIPAL COLE I don't have to get myself into a debate about this, Karen, I believe I have made myself clear.
MS. POMEROY You call this... clarity? I don't think you have a clue what it's really like to communicate with these kids. You don't think that they can smell your bullshit from a mile away? Every day that goes by... that we fail to... inspire them... is another moment that we all lose. And we are losing them to apathy, and this... prescribed nonsense. They are slipping away...
PRINCIPAL COLE I am sorry that you have failed. Now if you'll excuse me, I have another appointment. You can finish out the week.
What are the signs of American apathy? And the ramifications?
As I see it, there are three areas of apathy within the institutional church. The first is a preference for services and routine rather than community. By "community," I mean a kind of community that mirrors the early church in Acts, where believers are found sharing their lives together: spending long times in fellowship over meals and even selling their possessions and having their stuff in common--a clear violation of the truths of capitalism that we hold to be self-evident!
The second area of apathy is a general tendency to become so absorbed in the American lifestyle that there is no real vision for radically changing the world. Third, I would say there is a definite lack of freedom. That is, the church--like the greater culture--seems more interested in conforming and manipulating the self so that it meets its end goals and advances its values. In this context, creativity, originality, intellectual exploration, and dynamic vision are viewed with suspicion. (Cf. Tamie's recent post on the artist and priest.) In many contexts, not changing is viewed as a virtue.
But such apathy is not really unique to the church, is it? In many ways, apathy in the church is only a reflection of the apathy that is uniquely American. In fact, the three areas of apathy mentioned above (isolation/anti-community, lack of vision for world change, and conformity/manipulation of the un-free self) are manifested regularly in the culture at large.
What is the cause?
Well, that's a difficult question--a complex question, really, with no simple answer. However, might I suggest that one problem is that of saturation. Saturation? Yes, the idea that if a person has too much of a good thing, they tend to not appreciate it. That which is good becomes common and dull. Dullness leads to boredom and apathy.
In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul talks about demolishing "every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God." Might it be that we live in a world, particularly in the U.S. of A., where we are so saturated with the knowledge of God that God has become meaningless and dull?
I would suggest that one of the greatest spiritual tragedies of our time is that the Bible is history's #1 best seller. (See Wikipedia) The knowledge of God is everywhere in America. On Sunday mornings, sermons pollute the airwaves--preachers who take some of the most meaningful aspects of life and in the typical American sitcom style, they reduce these meaningful discussions down to a simple three point sermon with application points. We have multi-billion dollar industries dedicated to providing Christian music, literature, and multi-media. Multi-billion dollar industries! And we still think we need to get the message out????
I'm not saying that no good can come of all of this, I'm just saying that less is more. I am convinced that in 21st century America, the greatest obstacle to the knowledge of God is the knowledge of God itself. Knowledge of God is cheap and easy: go to church, listen to the radio, get a podcast, pop in a cd, turn on the television. And our Christian American leaders boldly continue "preaching the word," as if more information is going to make a difference in this over-saturated society. They seem to think that if only the world had the "right" message, then America would shake off its apathy. But they only add to the cacophony and noise.
Maybe it's time to for a fast. If we really value the knowledge of God, maybe it's time to protect it by hiding it.
Is mass media the new swine pit into which we cast our pearls? Is it a saturation that contributes to our apathetic faith?
And what is the connection between religious apathy and apathy in the American culture??? Has religion followed culture, or has the culture followed religion on this issue? I think it is quite probably that the church has taken the apathetic leadership role. That is, the apathy we find in Donnie Darko might be a result of the American culture following the church. I think this is particularly the case due to how closely church and culture were connected in the American life of the past.
There is a common phrase the Christians often use: Be in the world but not of the world. Two recent discussions (within the last several months or so) have me thinking about this topic.
Coming out of the men's dressing room, I sat down and was looking through The New Yorker. Then I gazed at some art work on the walls. Sadly, a huge TV was on. Before I knew it, the area was full of the sounds and sights of a rape-murder scene. It was in a public area. I was shocked by the visceral evil of the scene even as I fled the area as soon as I could, disgusted, shaken--wanting to rid my consciousness of what I just heard.
This culture has lost its sensitivity, its sense of saying "No" and leaving some things alone. There is no more childhood, as Neil Postman said. Everything is out in the open. There is no reticence, no restraint. This TV scene was from a major network and played on a public screen.
Being removed from TV culture, this kind of thing stuns me. And to think of the millions who see it every day and thing nothing of it... As Isaiah said long ago, This people has forgotten how to blush.
I posted a comment that said, simply, "So?"
The comment was promptly deleted.
So, I expanded my thought a bit and posted this comment:
I'll take another try.
My original comment was "So?" which was deleted because (I assume) you presumed I was being mean spirited. But that's not my point.
For the younger generation your above description is day to day reality. You can express moral indignation and awe, but in the end the question I have is this: how then shall we live? Your description does not shock me because I live within and inhabit a world you do not understand. My purpose in living in this world (rather than running from it) is to present a Redeemer to those who are interested in redemption.
So, I watch the movies, watch television, surf the internet, read widely of contemporary literature, and try to stay abreast of popular culture. I live the culture and become the culture. I don't run from the culture. You may criticize myself and others for "selling out" to the culture by becoming a part of it and not taking "the high ground" like yourself, but Christ became sin for us and inhabited the world, and he is my example.
Your post leaves me and others with nothing. That's why I ask, in all seriousness, "So?" For all of your moral indignation, you leave the next generation with no real plan for action, except to blog (i.e., use contemporary technology) about the evils of the contemporary world.
My question is a serious one of theology and praxis, and I submit it to you again in hopes that you will engage it. I do not do so in spite; I ask you in passion, but also in the spirit of grace and charity.
The other discussion I had was with JPS, who made the point that popular level conservative Christianity is a slave to the same entertainment industry, albeit without the four letter words. As he put it, we Americans are all addicted to entertainment (both Christian and non-Christian), the only difference is that Christians have "Christianized" forms of entertainment. So, Christians might ingest the same amount of entertainment (or nearly so), but it is a softer version; that is, our movies/music/etc. doesn't have the four letter words. For JPS, the problem is the same: an addiction to entertainment.
These two engagements bring to the forefront the question of "the world": What is the world? How have people of faith related to the world? And what are the implications for our interactions with the world here in the 21st century?
The 20th century conservative Christian reaction is essentially this: create alternative realities and an alternative "Christian" culture. So, we create Christian coffee shops, Christian cafes, Christian roller skating parties, Christian bookstores selling Christian books, Christian radio stations broadcasting Christian music, and, of course, most importantly, Christian thinkers labor long hours to develop a "Christian worldview" that Christian schools and Sunday school classes can then teach to Christians who do not want to be polluted by the warped thinking of the "secular worldview."
The Christian artificial reality, however, does keep us protected from the evils of the world, but it has had some interesting results. For example, the children of James Dobson's crowd are pure and safe, but they are still as spiritually bankrupt as the rest of the heathens, suffering the same OCDs and addictions as the rest of "the world," just without using four letter words. This is because the same Big Empty remains, regardless (or perhaps because of) how pure and safe we are.
In Romans 12, Paul says to not conform to the pattern of the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. To me, this indicates that there seems to be a sense in which "the world" may be a pattern of living and thinking that does not depend on one's environment. That is, regardless of the believer's sitz im leben (or "life situation"), the question is one of mindset. Being "of the world" is a state of mind/heart/soul.
Let's turn to Jesus.
There is an odd thing that Jesus says in John 17 that interests me. John 17 is usually used as the basis to suggest that Christians should be "in the world but not of the world." But that's not really the point of Jesus' statement, as far as I can see.
15My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
What Jesus actually says is strange: being "of the world" is not a choice for a believer. Those who have the faith that Jesus speaks of cannot be "worldly" even if they wanted to. Verse 16: these people are not of the world just as Jesus was not of the world. This is something of an ontological statement of being; it's the stuff that true believers are made of. Believers just are not worldly by their very nature. As such, sitting through an "immoral" movie, listening to "secular" music, or even watching a porn flick doesn't mean one is worldly because being "of the world" is not an action or even a choice: it's the status of those who have been transformed by encountering Jesus and making the decision of faith.
Just like the Apostle Paul, the vision here in John 17 is pro-active and optimistic: be sanctified by truth. What is truth? Where do we find it? This doesn't matter b/c all truth that is sanctifying truth originates from "the word." The word moves the believer forward into a state of purity and sanctity. One can abstain from all of the so-called vices that "the world" offers, but this would be to miss the point. For Jesus and Paul the vision is to move forward in truth and being-of-truth.
This being-of-truth is not something I claim to know anything about, but it is clearly a powerful vision for transformation that does not depend on creating an artificial "Christian" culture. The Christian culture movement has created an us-versus-them mindset, but Jesus himself broke down such cultural boundaries by feasting with "sinners." Those who follow him in faith seem in the same situation: they are no more "of the world" than Jesus.
Let us continue to explore the ipod phenomenon in relation to American culture.
The ipod commercials with the silhouette people have been crazy successful, contributing to the creation of an ipod cultural revolution. Everyone has ipods and earbuds such that we can now recontextualize Timothy Leary's "Turn on, tune in, drop out" for a new generation. [wiki]
The shadow people intrigue me. They are empty and undefined. They represent nothingness, save for the earbuds that connect the mind to the ipod.
From one perspective, the silhouettes represent the worst of consumerism. Interpreted this way, they embody the perception by Apple and other corporations that consumers exist as empty beings--empty and in need of products to fill the void. The space is space for the product; the space is the desire, lack, and emptiness that fuels capitalism and consumerism. The empty space is also a spiritual void that can be filled only when the consumer can connect with music.
The idea of filling a spiritual void is something that Christianity seems to have targeted in recent years. The idea is that there is a God-shaped hole that only God can fill. Real satisfaction/contentment/joy/peace/etc. can only truly be realized through a relationship or encounter with God. Perhaps this is true, I'm not sure; but what I am sure of is that God has become objectified and treated as a product for spiritual consumers to consume. God = the missing piece = filling the void. I find this working itself out in all of the very diverse strands of Christianity: God will make you happy, God will fulfill you through your misery/self-denial/repentance, God will make you materially wealthy, God will make you spiritually wealthy through material poverty, only with God in your life can you truly appreciate anything else, etc. Regardless of what movement of Christianity, the common theme seems to be that we (like the ipod shadow) need God to fill the Big Empty.
There is a sense in which the ipod shadows strike me as a very direct appeal to our desire to fill the Big Empty.
The ipod also represents the need to continually upgrade, so that one has more and more space to fill; more gigabytes. This means buying more songs and more videos....we buy bigger houses to fit more stuff in them.....we are continually appealed to by advertisers to buy more space, and then there are always more and more things to buy to fill the space. Upgrades. Upgrade to more space.
Tyler from Fight Club (1999) says the following:
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need we're the middle children of history no purpose or place we have no great war no great depression our great war is a spiritual war our great depression is our lives
.....but on the other hand....
I can also see a positive interpretation of the ipod silhouettes. What if the darkness is not emptiness and void? What if the space represents simplicity? I think there is a very positive perspective to the ipod shadow people. American life is cluttered and fragmented. We have too much junk in our homes, too many to-do's on our to-do lists, and too many activities in our schedules.
Can the ipod silhouettes represent a return to the simplicity of the self?
If this is the case, then the emptiness has redeeming value. If we were truly able to simplify, then perhaps we could empty our minds for spiritual and personal growth.
Consider: when a room is cluttered, no one object in the room needs to be labeled as "bad." All of the items in the room may be good and profitable; however, taken together as a whole they represent clutter. Sometimes too many good things become bad when they are taken as a whole. Such is the case in 21st century life: we all try to fill our lives with so many good things thinking that more is better....but sometimes less is more.
So, which interpretation is correct?
Do the ipod shadow people represent the desire of the Corporation to fill our voids with more "shit we don't need"? To create more voids so that we can be sold more shit? Or does the ipod represent the kind of space that cultivates growth and simplicity?
These are questions of interpretation: how do we define ourselves in relation to our excess of products in 21st century American society? It is a question of reflecting on and observing how we define ourselves as subjects and how we form and construct our identities (Michel Foucault).
Here are a selection of ipod commercials (that I think are particularly interesting) for your consideration:
The stuff you own ends up owning you, says Tyler from Fight Club. Jesus' message was similar: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The point of both is that we are not the master of our things, but the slave. We do not invest in the things our heart treasures; rather, the heart follows the treasure. We become what we buy; we are what we eat.
My take on the general mood of American Christianity (my very humble opinion) is that one can have stuff as long as one has a good perspective. So, for example, we can justify buying that bigger house if we say, "This is the Lord's house!" It's all a matter of perspective: if we have the correct mind set, then we can buy more stuff and increase our standard of living. Hence, the boat is not my boat, it is God's boat that I am going to use for ministry and for God's glory.
But is this perspective legitimate? Is it possible to merely be an "owner" of stuff, or is it more correct to understand that the more we have, the more we are controlled and shaped by our things? For example, as a house size gets bigger, does the person who "owns" it get smaller? Does ownership of more things steal away bits and pieces of our souls? And does this happens regardless of whether it is "God's house" or "God's ministry boat"? I suggest that the idea that "It's not my house, but God's!" is merely a fantasy. It is true that it is not your house, but neither is it God's house. The house belongs to itself and to the complex cultural and societal matrix in which it is embedded.
To the extent that we accumulate more stuff, buy the boats, and take out a bigger mortgage for a bigger house, we participate in the cultural/societal matrix; this means we give away our control and our souls to the culture/society. I don't know that this is necessarily "wrong" (I'm not here to make a value judgment), but I do think that we are kidding ourselves if we think we can sanctify our stuff as "belonging to God." Each purchase we make costs us more than the money we give; we literally pay with our lives and give ourselves over to the control of our possessions. Again, I'm not saying that this is wrong; I'm merely presenting this as a discussion point.
So.....on that note, it is interesting to spot a new trend amongst American consumers. In a land of unparalleled affluence (which is, perhaps, unprecedented in all of human history) people are cutting back.
Here are a few selections (emphasis added) from an article in Time, How to Live with just 100 Things. I find it interesting to note the psychology (and perhaps spirituality) that goes into "ownership" of things:
Excess consumption is practically an American religion. But as anyone with a filled-to-the-gills closet knows, the things we accumulate can become oppressive. With all this stuff piling up and never quite getting put away, we're no longer huddled masses yearning to breathe free; we're huddled masses yearning to free up space on a countertop. Which is why people are so intrigued by the 100 Thing Challenge, a grass-roots movement in which otherwise seemingly normal folks are pledging to whittle down their possessions to a mere 100 items.
But what about Christmas ornaments? Family heirlooms? Those skinny jeans you hope to--but will probably never--wear again? "It's a very emotional process," says professional organizer Julie Morgenstern. Her new book, When Organizing Isn't Enough: SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life, lays out a plan for clearing out both physical and sentimental clutter. "Often these are things that represent who you once were," she says. "But once their purpose is over, they just keep you stagnant." SHED, by the way, is an acronym for "separate the treasures, heave the trash, embrace your identity from within and drive yourself forward." Which is a handy little guide to Dumpstering your way into a state of Zen.
"It comes down to the products vs. the promise," says organizational consultant Peter Walsh, who characterizes himself as part contractor, part therapist. "It's not necessarily about the new pots and pans but the idea of the cozy family meals that they will provide. People are finding that their homes are full of stuff, but their lives are littered with unfulfilled promises."
Walsh isn't surprised that decluttering is so popular these days. Between worrying about gas prices and the faltering economy, people's first reaction, he says, "is often, 'I need to get some control over my life, even if it is just a tidy kitchen counter.'"
God, Who provides for all, will not desert us; especially being engaged, as we are, in His service. - Don Quixote, Book 1, Part 11
In our recent discussion on worship music, some of the commentators seemed to have a common theme: if a person (me, in particular!) is not engaged in a worshipful experience, then that's a you problem; that is, it is your fault and you need to get your heart right and join in the worship.
This response reminded me of an offhand comment made by a Pastor friend of mine at a recent lunch. He was complaining about the fickleness of the younger generation. Specifically, he bemoaned the fact that church attendance for the young is so irregular. The other two members at the table began to grin, laugh, and look at me. Why did they look at me? Because I am on a church fast.
Yes, friends, I am fasting from going to church, and I have been for quite some time. I have not attended a service since last August. On a few occasions I have been in the church building for sundry reasons, but a service I have not attended.
Just as it is healthy to abstain from foods or sex or television for a period of time, so I am beginning to believe that stepping away from church for a time may have similar benefits to one's spiritual health. Indeed, I have come to believe that church attendance has been a negative influence on my life.
Is this another me problem? Am I fickle? Is my heart in the wrong place?
I don't think so. I think the problem is with church itself. To me there appear to be so many opportunities presenting themselves to the body of Christ in this generation, and all we seem to be concerned with is filling a damned building for an hour or two each Sunday morning!
Most Christians go to church as an obligation, and yes, friends, even at this point I still feel the burden of obligation that has been seared into my heart and soul. This past Sunday was Easter. How can I call myself a Christian if I'm not on church on Easter Sunday!??! Ah, but that's just obligation--that's just social pressure.
The stats tell the story: most young church kids are forced to go to church when they live with their parents and then they split the scene. They may possibly return later in life when they have kids and settle down. Is this their own fault? Fickleness?
Perhaps there are youth who are fickle. I'll grant that. But there are also good reasons that the young are leaving church. In fact, in some regards I applaud them! The young want to be intellectually and spiritually engaged. They are looking for something stimulating and real. But the church, as we all know, is not a place for the intellectually curious or those with spiritual hunger. It is no place for the young. It is a place for the old guys who are set in their ways. In this sense, then, a church fast is important, because too much time in church with church folks can make one intellectually and spiritually complacent. After all, in church we all have the right answers and we listen to a sermon from someone who more-or-less has it all together.
I think that the whole idea of preaching is misguided. Whatever the intentions behind it, the church (particularly the conservative evangelical types) has created a spiritual elitist class who can "preach the word." There is a direct implication here: some voices are worthy to be heard on Sunday morning while others are not. Usually the ones able to preach are the seminary trained white guys in their middle ages or older. In other words, the dudes who have it all figured out; those who look and sound like good Christians. And if we would only listen to their wise words, then we would be able to get our acts together too!
But did Jesus really want to establish this spiritual hierarchy?
The problem is even greater than this. The whole church notion is based on a stadium show. We come, we sit, we follow orders. We sing what we are supposed to sing and we listen to the spiritually enlightened tell us how to think, live, and feel. The show is carefully programed so that common themes are explored and everything is wrapped up in a nice box for us to take home. (Although most of us forget the substance of the show 5 minutes after the final "Amen": "Uh, what was that sermon about. It was a good one. Something about loving unconditionally...")
The whole Sunday show closely resembles the television sitcom: meaningful issues are opened up and within 30 minutes we have closure and perspective on that issue. 30 minutes??!?! Friends, life is far more complicated! Particularly the life of faith!
The young spiritually minded need a better place to dialog on meaningful issues. That is, if anyone cares anymore. Perhaps television and church has dulled our spiritual sensitivity to the point that we do not even know how to open up these issues anymore. I think this is the current state of American pop Christian culture: we don't even know where to begin when it comes to discussing meaningful issues in the church, and we sure as hell don't know how to hold meaningful dialog with those outside the church.
So, friends, I am on a church fast. I feel healthier and more spiritually engaged than I have in years. It is not a safe feeling. I struggle. But I'm glad to struggle. Christianity should not be about eliminating struggle. Christ called us to struggle. So, embrace the struggle. Sign up for a church fast.
"Theos" is the Greek word for "God," making this blog something of a God Project........A project that we all collaborate on, that we all share in, saying what can't be said.......different faith traditions in dialog, believer and nonbeliever in conversation.......Please feel comfortable joining the dialog, each perspective is valuable and beautiful in its own way, because all of us "know in part."
