Three cups of coffee in less than ten hours does not lend itself to a great night of sleep, nor to productivity. Upon finishing my reading for today from Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt, I was left with my thoughts. I can't escape them no matter how hard I try. I can't pretend that I'm not at times tortured by guilt and regret over things I have done, though saying it like that may be melodramatic. Melodrama underscores the source of many of my problems. I seem to lack the foresight or the reflective powers in the moment of despair to grasp the temporal nature of my issues. While a power outage may be very inconvenient, I have the tendency to make it out as though my very existence was about to be blotted out with the loss of electricity. I'll never forget that during the Snowpocaplyse a couple years ago, they shut down the power in my residence building, but instead of just sucking it up and going to class- I began to research the legality of doing so. In the end, the power was restored before the real snow and wind hit, but 18 people died that night while I sat cozy in my computer chair acting like I was suffering.
My short-sightedness is not purely self-centered, although I think it's definitely the stronghold where all vestiges of my selfishness reside in a smoldering pit of yuck. It's also not as though I haven't turned my sense of being wronged-in-the-moment to something good. I held IIT accountable for a major foul-up that, left unchecked, could have led to a lot of people being affected; that instance does not make-up for or justify my short-sighted tendency to turn problems of the moment into a crisis. I walk around Shimer and certain people I see daily are a constant reminder of the damage that I can do with my short-sighted self-centered attitude. I've burned bridges that could have been wonderful friendships and I have no guarantee that I can ever rebuild those. I have lost countless friends in Minnesota due to my inability to ignore my feelings of being wronged and my relentless efforts to be vindicated. Pride. It's a sort of vain love of myself masked by the shifting of blame onto other people. The problem would be simple if there was a clear distinction of who is right and who is wrong, because I don't usually place blame on innocent people, but rather inundate them with guilt for small wrongs they've done to me and make myself out to be Jesus at the Cross heaping the guilt on the Roman executioners. Thing is, I profess to imitate Christ, but He was pleading for G-d to forgive His executioners- not lambasting them with guilt.
This goes beyond a simple insecurity, although I believe it feeds into insecurities about people loving me. It explains how I can be so selective about what I take offense to and why there's such extremes in my reaction. Something that people would think offends me, but doesn't wrong me personally can go on without even a mention from me. Something that speaks critically of me as a person or is perceived to be a wrong to me directly becomes an issue that won't be dismissed until I thoroughly assassinated the character of the person who wronged me.
And I say all this somewhat frustrated by the fact that I'm not sure recognizing this is a problem that exists will bring me any closer to becoming a better person who doesn't do this to people. Can I stop this indirectly self-destructive externalization of my personal demons before I lose all my friends and those I care about?
James
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
A Very Brief Non-Anecdotal Summary of My Summer
Some people might remember my frantic and often discombobulated pleas for donations towards a non-profit mission. I was fortunate and blessed to receive enough funding to do what it is I set out do this summer, so let me tell you what I did. I'm going to avoid telling stories as much as possible because there are so many I could tell and they're all noteworthy, but this blog entry would be forever and a page long if I tried tell you all of them. Instead, I'm thinking I'll tell a few of my stories as I reflect on different issues pertaining to multiculturalism/multi-ethnic living, ethics of living in a corrupt and broken world, G-d's view of Biblical justice, and whatever else may come.
The program is called the Chicago Urban Program (CUP) and it's through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF/IV) IV then partners with churches and ministries in impoverished neighborhoods in Chicago that are willing to work with and teach college students about the realities of our broken world. In my case, it was in Austin with five other people in a two-bedroom apartment. With a CTA card of $20.00 per person for two weeks, $120.00 a week in groceries, and $5 discretionary spending money we were being asked to live as someone who ate off of what food stamps could afford and spend what little free money we had on our laundry. This wasn't even the focus of our summer "internship" rather it was the setting for immersion into the neighborhood we were living in.
I will summarize the goals of CUP in this way, that we had three primary objectives:
1. Live and learn in an intentional and authentic community within our apartment. This included creating times to share our feelings, thoughts, and where we were at spiritually. Devotionals and many dinners were done together and many other activities were done communally.
2. Live and learn in an intentional and authentic community within our neighborhood. While some teams in previous years had gone door to door or patrolled the streets like street-corner preachers, my team invested quite a bit of time in the people of our partners Circle Urban Ministries and Rock of our Salvation Evangelical Free Church.
3. Study the theological narrative and fundamental basis for justice and practical applications of a Biblical view of justice in the world today.
Our weekly schedule looked something like this:
Monday is the start of our work week. We get up somewhere between 07:00 and 07:45 and have devotionals together at 07:50. We leave for work at 08:25. For my team, it was split between two of working with the high school and middle school students while the other four worked with children between the grades of kindergarten and sixth grade. We worked until 17:30-45 Monday through Friday and occasionally had bring home work related stuff (like in a real job).
Tuesday mornings we had inductive Bible-study on the book of Amos, which was a break from work only to be doing this intense critical analysis of the text. Wednesday nights we'd go to North Lawndale and have racial reconciliation discussions. Often times these discussions were spring-boarding off of a movie we watched over the weekend (such as Crash, Blood Diamond, or Color of Fear). Our discussions were emotional, as we began to speak honestly about the racial injustice that exists and how it affects us daily. As a white person, I found myself wondering if G-d could love white people after all we (as a people-group) have done to hurt G-d's children (although white people are G-d's children too).
The weekends weren't much of what we normally associate with a weekend. Saturday became an all-day affair trying to get laundry, groceries, and cleaning done in a the short span of a day. Sundays we went to church. Most of my team was involved in one ministry with the church or another and all but two of us were involved in young adult Sunday school. I was on the praise team providing backing vocals. After church we had our retreat of silence. The retreat of silence was a time we could spend in silent reflection, sleep (napping was almost a necessity for most of us), or just time to be by ourselves (six people in a two bed-room apartment can be a little claustrophobic).
I say all of this to say that I learned so much. I've studied a lot on Biblical narratives of justice and reconciliation, but experiencing it first hand is another thing entirely. I also learned a lot about my limits as a person. I never realized just how much I could do if I pushed myself to do it. On a more sentimental note, I feel like I also got a taste of what my parents have gone through for the past 30+ years of their lives. I actually e-mailed my mom and basically told her how sorry I was for any time that I've ever made her life more difficult than it already was. Being an adult with responsibilities is tough, not without advantages, but it's not for the faint of heart or the person looking to coast on the lazy river.
Finally, I miss my team. In person, I typically refer to them as my Austin family. Each one of them is near and dear to my heart, they are truly a unique and wonderful group of people.
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
The program is called the Chicago Urban Program (CUP) and it's through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF/IV) IV then partners with churches and ministries in impoverished neighborhoods in Chicago that are willing to work with and teach college students about the realities of our broken world. In my case, it was in Austin with five other people in a two-bedroom apartment. With a CTA card of $20.00 per person for two weeks, $120.00 a week in groceries, and $5 discretionary spending money we were being asked to live as someone who ate off of what food stamps could afford and spend what little free money we had on our laundry. This wasn't even the focus of our summer "internship" rather it was the setting for immersion into the neighborhood we were living in.
I will summarize the goals of CUP in this way, that we had three primary objectives:
1. Live and learn in an intentional and authentic community within our apartment. This included creating times to share our feelings, thoughts, and where we were at spiritually. Devotionals and many dinners were done together and many other activities were done communally.
2. Live and learn in an intentional and authentic community within our neighborhood. While some teams in previous years had gone door to door or patrolled the streets like street-corner preachers, my team invested quite a bit of time in the people of our partners Circle Urban Ministries and Rock of our Salvation Evangelical Free Church.
3. Study the theological narrative and fundamental basis for justice and practical applications of a Biblical view of justice in the world today.
Our weekly schedule looked something like this:
Monday is the start of our work week. We get up somewhere between 07:00 and 07:45 and have devotionals together at 07:50. We leave for work at 08:25. For my team, it was split between two of working with the high school and middle school students while the other four worked with children between the grades of kindergarten and sixth grade. We worked until 17:30-45 Monday through Friday and occasionally had bring home work related stuff (like in a real job).
Tuesday mornings we had inductive Bible-study on the book of Amos, which was a break from work only to be doing this intense critical analysis of the text. Wednesday nights we'd go to North Lawndale and have racial reconciliation discussions. Often times these discussions were spring-boarding off of a movie we watched over the weekend (such as Crash, Blood Diamond, or Color of Fear). Our discussions were emotional, as we began to speak honestly about the racial injustice that exists and how it affects us daily. As a white person, I found myself wondering if G-d could love white people after all we (as a people-group) have done to hurt G-d's children (although white people are G-d's children too).
The weekends weren't much of what we normally associate with a weekend. Saturday became an all-day affair trying to get laundry, groceries, and cleaning done in a the short span of a day. Sundays we went to church. Most of my team was involved in one ministry with the church or another and all but two of us were involved in young adult Sunday school. I was on the praise team providing backing vocals. After church we had our retreat of silence. The retreat of silence was a time we could spend in silent reflection, sleep (napping was almost a necessity for most of us), or just time to be by ourselves (six people in a two bed-room apartment can be a little claustrophobic).
I say all of this to say that I learned so much. I've studied a lot on Biblical narratives of justice and reconciliation, but experiencing it first hand is another thing entirely. I also learned a lot about my limits as a person. I never realized just how much I could do if I pushed myself to do it. On a more sentimental note, I feel like I also got a taste of what my parents have gone through for the past 30+ years of their lives. I actually e-mailed my mom and basically told her how sorry I was for any time that I've ever made her life more difficult than it already was. Being an adult with responsibilities is tough, not without advantages, but it's not for the faint of heart or the person looking to coast on the lazy river.
Finally, I miss my team. In person, I typically refer to them as my Austin family. Each one of them is near and dear to my heart, they are truly a unique and wonderful group of people.
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
C.S.A.: Confederate States of America
What disturbed me so much about it is that it isn't too far from what I'd imagine would happen. Often times I wonder if America, though outwardly becoming more accepting of other cultures, is actually Orson Welles 1984 and this film as an instructional manual. Sometimes I fear that the soon-to-be minority of fundamentalist Christians will be the ruling oligarchy of America and have their way with this country; ravaging freedom like Jack the Ripper having a field day in London. It's a gruesome reality that I shudder to think about, especially in knowing that I was raised as fundamentalist Christian. (In case anyone was wondering, Walt Whitman amongst others fled to Canada when he found out that slavery was far from being abolished in this alternate timeline. Harriet Tubman tried to help former-President Lincoln escape, but both were captured.) It was basically the story of how Manifest Destiny would play out if it hadn't become a subversive narrative underlying American popular culture. That's right folks, I'm saying it. Manifest Destiny is a live and well today, just not overt and openly admitted by anyone.
Want to know something else super disturbing? Many of the products featured in the commercials were actual products that existed in our real universe (See #10 and #3 for the examples that I'm referring to). I wish I could tell you to go ahead and pat yourself on the back because all of that disappeared back in the 1950's, but what about Aunt Jemima's Syrup and Uncle Ben's Instant Rice? Folks, we're not as far removed from the horrors of our past as we'd like to think. How we've handled the conflict in the Middle East is indicative of our failure to learn from past mistakes. Sure, we're no longer under the authority of that warlord psychopath Bush, but President Obama is no savior; prophet, or angel. He's just a man, perhaps a more honest man with a great sense of humor, but still a man. In some ways, electing him has given America some false hope, as if electing a black man into presidency means something. Obama was put up against McCain and you expected anything different? That old fart was no match for President Obama. McCain started out strong, but in an effort to appeal to more and more interest groups, the guy ended up being a middle ground between liberal and conservative.
There has been some significant changes since then, but we cannot become complacent in the successes of our fore bearers. Currently, I've seen some great stuff coming out of the Occupy movement. My concern is the political agenda of modern social justice movements. I've seen a lot of communists, socialist, far-left liberals, and so on all backing the Occupy movement. The problem? Everyone needs to be involved in a social justice. Another problem? Occupy is not synonymous with social justice. Just as marching with Dr. King during the Civil Rights Movement wouldn't necessarily make me a social justice advocate, social justice is far bigger and has more wide-reaching implications and applications than mere protest. I'm digressing from the point.
Want a good glimpse at the Manifest Destiny undertones made (ready for it?) MANIFEST? Watch this film and see what one film maker and some devoted cast and crew see as America's future had the MD narrative been allowed to flourish openly.
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The Thoughtful Commentary (Shimer Policy Against Exclusive Groups)
INTRODUCTION
I need to start this blog by recognizing that there have been a lot of wonderfully accepting, understanding, and generously constructive criticisms to my angry rant called, "The Gaping Hole Shimer Leaves In My Heart". After I thoroughly dragged my school and peers through the mud, they responded by thoughtfully offering their consoling words and encouragement. Words cannot express the gratitude to the people who did this. To those who did not, I totally understand why you were so upset and I'm not holding anything against you for getting up-in-arms about it.
Shimer College has a policy that, as it is worded on their website states, "Sororities and fraternities and other organizations which promote exclusivity based on sex, age, national origin, economic, or academic status, or any other basis, are not permitted". One of the primary unstated other organizations is ROTC programs. To help me focus what I'm trying to say, I am going to be talking specifically about the fraternity I wish to join, but hopefully the majority of what I say applies to most of the groups not permitted by this policy.
BACKGROUND
When I first applied to attend Shimer College, I never gave it much thought that there was this policy against joining fraternities. My perception of fraternities were these weird cult-like places where the guys get drunk every night and torture their pledges. Why would anyone want to be a part of that? I came to Shimer and one of the first things I learned about the Greeks at IIT was that there was once a fraternity who did something almost unspeakable. In retaliation for losing their accreditation (the ultimate punishment for listless offenses), this house of frat guys poured cement down the water pipes in their house (which they were being kicked out of). That house was going to become the Shimer dormitory. The damages were so extensive that it was more financially efficient to destroy the building rather than try to replace all the pipes. This boiled over my already warm brew of "f- you" for fraternities.
When I joined InterVarsity Christian Fellowship I was absolutely shocked by how many Greeks there were. The place was crawling with them. I didn't get too close to them, but little did I know that the people I made friends with immediately were mostly Greek. I told them that I really did not like Greeks and explained what my perceptions of them were. It took several months, but I came to understand that my perception was a stereotype of Greeks that isn't true of all Greeks. Later I met a graduate student who told me the whole story behind the fraternity that sabotaged the would-be Shimer dormitory. It became clear to me that, even for a stereotypical fraternity, those guys were out of control freaks who just wanted to be destructive.
Shimer College faculty and staff, to some extent the students as well, speak of the community that Shimer has. If you heard them speak about Shimer community, you'd think we're all one big hippy family that sings kum baya around a campfire. I was really excited to see this in action. I had just left a very close-knit theatre company that had been my community for almost two years and I was not looking forward to leaving that, except at the promise of joining a new community: the Shimer community. I was so thrilled that I was being a given a chance to prove that I could excel in the right academic conditions, then to be told that Shimer has such a generous and close community was like I had just found paradise.
As weeks turned to months, I began to realize that the community that was held in such regard was more a thing of legend; a vestige of the Shimer days of yore. I had come to Shimer in the wake of the usurpation of a very misguided president. This experience had brought a certain sense of community to a select group of Shimer students who had answered the call which comes to Shimerians who want to protect the ethos of Shimer, but I was not a part of that. Also, I had come in the Spring, which meant that I was living on campus with a group of Shimerians who had already spent a semester getting to know each other. I came to Shimer with so many preconceptions about the world, I burned a lot of bridges when I got here. To my shame, I pissed off a lot of wonderful people and further alienated myself from the very people I wanted so badly to be accepted by.
When I came back in the Fall, I wouldn't say that I was completely changed, but I was definitely not the same person. I was coming into a new era of social justice-mindedness. I was suddenly more aware of the disparity between different groups of people by ethnicity, culture, political affiliation, creed, and so forth. I was living on the same floor as all these first year students and I was really stoked about it. I had met some of them from their visits in the Spring. I actually went through orientation with them just so I could try to incorporate myself into the developing community of students who I'd be living with. What came of this was a much stronger bond with these group of Shimer students than I have with anyone else. Unfortunately, I am not as close to them as I'd like to be. I'm sure that is a fault that lies with both myself and the others. I don't believe there is any malicious intent there. They are genuinely wonderful people and I love them dearly.
Over the past year, I've come to meet a certain group of guys from the Skulls (Phi Kappa Sigma). I've come to know them, respect them, and enjoy hanging out with them. I've also done a little research into the fraternity as a whole, and it turns out that these guys have done some incredible things. For example, when a southern chapter wanted to make it so that only white men could join, the rest of the chapters pretty much gave their racist brothers the finger and refused to amend the constitution. It was then that I knew that if I ever found a way to join a fraternity without completely leaving Shimer in the dust, this would be the one for me.
THE DISSATISFACTION
Now we get to the core of what I find myself frustrated with. Shimer College is a close community by virtue of its ethos of dialogue and pursuit of a shared learning experience through inquiry. At present, there is a Shimer floor in the Gunsualus dormitory building, but that is dissolving and next year Shimerians will be fully integrated into the structure IIT has for all their students who live on campus. This means that one of the main aspects of what gave me a semblance of community with my fellow Shimerians is going the way of dinosaurs and cassette tapes.
This is not a bad thing for Shimer College as a whole. It simply means that the dynamics of what makes the Shimer community is evolving the same way the College is evolving. I will still have my Shimerians who I spent the academic year of '11-12 and some of them I may even get to graduate with. There are also some Shimerians who do not live on campus that I feel close to and I will have them as well. It is not the end of the world that there will no longer be a Shimer floor, but I would humbly submit that Shimer may not be a one-stop shop for all an individual's community needs. This is only natural now that Shimer College is located on the second floor another school's building and does not have any external facilities of its own.
With this change in the dynamics of the Shimer community, the question I raise is whether Shimer can afford to sustain its reluctance to allow the students to join organizations which are deemed "exclusive". I've heard rumor of the reasons why this policy was instituted, and I have responses to all of them, but rather than combat speculation with opinion; I will rest my argument on the evolving nature of the Shimer community and what it lacks that can be filled by other organizations currently prohibited by this policy.
THE CONCLUSION
There will be a lot of work ahead of me if I truly want to see a change in this policy. I have heard from some who would support my efforts to, at the very least, bring about a fruitful discussion on the relevancy of this policy in modern Shimer. It's going to take some investigation into the true origins of this policy and a response to the premise on which the policy is founded.
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
I need to start this blog by recognizing that there have been a lot of wonderfully accepting, understanding, and generously constructive criticisms to my angry rant called, "The Gaping Hole Shimer Leaves In My Heart". After I thoroughly dragged my school and peers through the mud, they responded by thoughtfully offering their consoling words and encouragement. Words cannot express the gratitude to the people who did this. To those who did not, I totally understand why you were so upset and I'm not holding anything against you for getting up-in-arms about it.
Shimer College has a policy that, as it is worded on their website states, "Sororities and fraternities and other organizations which promote exclusivity based on sex, age, national origin, economic, or academic status, or any other basis, are not permitted". One of the primary unstated other organizations is ROTC programs. To help me focus what I'm trying to say, I am going to be talking specifically about the fraternity I wish to join, but hopefully the majority of what I say applies to most of the groups not permitted by this policy.
BACKGROUND
When I first applied to attend Shimer College, I never gave it much thought that there was this policy against joining fraternities. My perception of fraternities were these weird cult-like places where the guys get drunk every night and torture their pledges. Why would anyone want to be a part of that? I came to Shimer and one of the first things I learned about the Greeks at IIT was that there was once a fraternity who did something almost unspeakable. In retaliation for losing their accreditation (the ultimate punishment for listless offenses), this house of frat guys poured cement down the water pipes in their house (which they were being kicked out of). That house was going to become the Shimer dormitory. The damages were so extensive that it was more financially efficient to destroy the building rather than try to replace all the pipes. This boiled over my already warm brew of "f- you" for fraternities.
When I joined InterVarsity Christian Fellowship I was absolutely shocked by how many Greeks there were. The place was crawling with them. I didn't get too close to them, but little did I know that the people I made friends with immediately were mostly Greek. I told them that I really did not like Greeks and explained what my perceptions of them were. It took several months, but I came to understand that my perception was a stereotype of Greeks that isn't true of all Greeks. Later I met a graduate student who told me the whole story behind the fraternity that sabotaged the would-be Shimer dormitory. It became clear to me that, even for a stereotypical fraternity, those guys were out of control freaks who just wanted to be destructive.
Shimer College faculty and staff, to some extent the students as well, speak of the community that Shimer has. If you heard them speak about Shimer community, you'd think we're all one big hippy family that sings kum baya around a campfire. I was really excited to see this in action. I had just left a very close-knit theatre company that had been my community for almost two years and I was not looking forward to leaving that, except at the promise of joining a new community: the Shimer community. I was so thrilled that I was being a given a chance to prove that I could excel in the right academic conditions, then to be told that Shimer has such a generous and close community was like I had just found paradise.
As weeks turned to months, I began to realize that the community that was held in such regard was more a thing of legend; a vestige of the Shimer days of yore. I had come to Shimer in the wake of the usurpation of a very misguided president. This experience had brought a certain sense of community to a select group of Shimer students who had answered the call which comes to Shimerians who want to protect the ethos of Shimer, but I was not a part of that. Also, I had come in the Spring, which meant that I was living on campus with a group of Shimerians who had already spent a semester getting to know each other. I came to Shimer with so many preconceptions about the world, I burned a lot of bridges when I got here. To my shame, I pissed off a lot of wonderful people and further alienated myself from the very people I wanted so badly to be accepted by.
When I came back in the Fall, I wouldn't say that I was completely changed, but I was definitely not the same person. I was coming into a new era of social justice-mindedness. I was suddenly more aware of the disparity between different groups of people by ethnicity, culture, political affiliation, creed, and so forth. I was living on the same floor as all these first year students and I was really stoked about it. I had met some of them from their visits in the Spring. I actually went through orientation with them just so I could try to incorporate myself into the developing community of students who I'd be living with. What came of this was a much stronger bond with these group of Shimer students than I have with anyone else. Unfortunately, I am not as close to them as I'd like to be. I'm sure that is a fault that lies with both myself and the others. I don't believe there is any malicious intent there. They are genuinely wonderful people and I love them dearly.
Over the past year, I've come to meet a certain group of guys from the Skulls (Phi Kappa Sigma). I've come to know them, respect them, and enjoy hanging out with them. I've also done a little research into the fraternity as a whole, and it turns out that these guys have done some incredible things. For example, when a southern chapter wanted to make it so that only white men could join, the rest of the chapters pretty much gave their racist brothers the finger and refused to amend the constitution. It was then that I knew that if I ever found a way to join a fraternity without completely leaving Shimer in the dust, this would be the one for me.
THE DISSATISFACTION
Now we get to the core of what I find myself frustrated with. Shimer College is a close community by virtue of its ethos of dialogue and pursuit of a shared learning experience through inquiry. At present, there is a Shimer floor in the Gunsualus dormitory building, but that is dissolving and next year Shimerians will be fully integrated into the structure IIT has for all their students who live on campus. This means that one of the main aspects of what gave me a semblance of community with my fellow Shimerians is going the way of dinosaurs and cassette tapes.
This is not a bad thing for Shimer College as a whole. It simply means that the dynamics of what makes the Shimer community is evolving the same way the College is evolving. I will still have my Shimerians who I spent the academic year of '11-12 and some of them I may even get to graduate with. There are also some Shimerians who do not live on campus that I feel close to and I will have them as well. It is not the end of the world that there will no longer be a Shimer floor, but I would humbly submit that Shimer may not be a one-stop shop for all an individual's community needs. This is only natural now that Shimer College is located on the second floor another school's building and does not have any external facilities of its own.
With this change in the dynamics of the Shimer community, the question I raise is whether Shimer can afford to sustain its reluctance to allow the students to join organizations which are deemed "exclusive". I've heard rumor of the reasons why this policy was instituted, and I have responses to all of them, but rather than combat speculation with opinion; I will rest my argument on the evolving nature of the Shimer community and what it lacks that can be filled by other organizations currently prohibited by this policy.
THE CONCLUSION
There will be a lot of work ahead of me if I truly want to see a change in this policy. I have heard from some who would support my efforts to, at the very least, bring about a fruitful discussion on the relevancy of this policy in modern Shimer. It's going to take some investigation into the true origins of this policy and a response to the premise on which the policy is founded.
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
Friday, April 13, 2012
I Don't Hate Atheists, I Hate High School
I have a few atheist friends, though I admit they're more like acquaintances. I guess I'm lucky though, for the most part I think my atheist friends are smart people. Five years ago I pretty much thought all atheists were idiots and they thought I was an idiot. Thanks to the great discussions I have at Shimer College, I've come to realize what it is that really bothers me with atheists.
I should say what bothers me with certain kinds of atheists. You see, no two atheists are the same, though they may share that one commonality of not believing in any conception of G/god. One atheist could be as different from another as a Methodist is from their Pentecostal neighbor. The problem I have actually extends to all kinds of people, not just atheists- today I'm just going to talk about atheists because the examples I've seen lately were atheists. Remember high school? I know that if you are like me, you try to forget and spend many nights crying yourself to sleep over the nightmare that was those four years of pubescent insanity. The most amusing thing about high school is the groups that students form. We've got environmentalists, Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA), a Bible study, anime club, sports teams, and so on. Atheists sometimes have a group, but unfortunately it varies based on where and how many students want to put their belief- or lack thereof on display.
My high school didn't really have an atheist student group, or if they did it wasn't well promoted. I certainly heard a lot from atheists though. Oh yes, I heard so much about how stupid I must be because I believe in God. In retrospect, a lot of the same people who said such nasty things to me about my faith were people who got burned by the Church in one way or another. At the time I thought all atheists were just bitter self-righteous individuals who were fixated on insulting every theist. It wasn't until very recently that I realized that those weren't atheists, those were bullies. They had to make everyone else feel miserable while bolstering themselves up as the only intelligent people to grace high school with their presence.
I can forgive the kids who were like this in high school, especially since I was no better in my high school days at representing the love and grace of Christ. What bothers me is people who call themselves atheists, but really they're just bullies. They are a disgrace to the wonderful and incredibly intelligent atheists I have had the pleasure of knowing- even for a short time. Bullies like this hide behind their "atheism" because they can hurl insults at people and claim that whatever they say is valid because they are the "free-thinking" ones. It's about as absurd as claiming that I am the most fashion-forward person because I wore the right shade of blue today.
What worse is that it isn't limited to atheists who have these bullies in their ranks. Christians can't even label themselves as such without their stereotypes being applied, especially the stereotypes created by some really insane bullies who called themselves Christians. Environmentalists, feminists, and so on and so forth. I used to think it was just because they were the most radical people of their movement, but radicalism (not to be confused with extremism) is not an excuse to be a bully. You can hold the view that people who eat meat are virtually cannibals without having to walk around calling people with a burger in their hand "savages" or something like that.
I'd just like to thank my atheist friends for showing me that one can hold the view that there is no G/god without being a complete idiot-jerk about it.
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
I should say what bothers me with certain kinds of atheists. You see, no two atheists are the same, though they may share that one commonality of not believing in any conception of G/god. One atheist could be as different from another as a Methodist is from their Pentecostal neighbor. The problem I have actually extends to all kinds of people, not just atheists- today I'm just going to talk about atheists because the examples I've seen lately were atheists. Remember high school? I know that if you are like me, you try to forget and spend many nights crying yourself to sleep over the nightmare that was those four years of pubescent insanity. The most amusing thing about high school is the groups that students form. We've got environmentalists, Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA), a Bible study, anime club, sports teams, and so on. Atheists sometimes have a group, but unfortunately it varies based on where and how many students want to put their belief- or lack thereof on display.
My high school didn't really have an atheist student group, or if they did it wasn't well promoted. I certainly heard a lot from atheists though. Oh yes, I heard so much about how stupid I must be because I believe in God. In retrospect, a lot of the same people who said such nasty things to me about my faith were people who got burned by the Church in one way or another. At the time I thought all atheists were just bitter self-righteous individuals who were fixated on insulting every theist. It wasn't until very recently that I realized that those weren't atheists, those were bullies. They had to make everyone else feel miserable while bolstering themselves up as the only intelligent people to grace high school with their presence.
I can forgive the kids who were like this in high school, especially since I was no better in my high school days at representing the love and grace of Christ. What bothers me is people who call themselves atheists, but really they're just bullies. They are a disgrace to the wonderful and incredibly intelligent atheists I have had the pleasure of knowing- even for a short time. Bullies like this hide behind their "atheism" because they can hurl insults at people and claim that whatever they say is valid because they are the "free-thinking" ones. It's about as absurd as claiming that I am the most fashion-forward person because I wore the right shade of blue today.
What worse is that it isn't limited to atheists who have these bullies in their ranks. Christians can't even label themselves as such without their stereotypes being applied, especially the stereotypes created by some really insane bullies who called themselves Christians. Environmentalists, feminists, and so on and so forth. I used to think it was just because they were the most radical people of their movement, but radicalism (not to be confused with extremism) is not an excuse to be a bully. You can hold the view that people who eat meat are virtually cannibals without having to walk around calling people with a burger in their hand "savages" or something like that.
I'd just like to thank my atheist friends for showing me that one can hold the view that there is no G/god without being a complete idiot-jerk about it.
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Racism: A Discussion That Needs to Happen (But Isn't)
When I was in elementary school, I thought racism was a thing of the past. We learned about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, about the segregation of the 50's and 60's; the picture painted was that Dr. King curb-stomped racism when he marched throughout the south. I thought racism was only an issue that had existed in the south, that the north were people with some darn good common sense. Tack that in with the capitalist notion that all it takes to be successful in life is hard work, that everyone has an equal chance; racism couldn't possibly exist.Fortunately, my parents abhorred racism and did their best to raise my siblings and me to be accepting of all people regardless of skin color. The problem that rose up was that racism was not discussed in the modern context. It wasn't portrayed as something that still occurred. Even when I was in high school, though by that time I knew that racism still existed I still had no idea how rampant and embedded it is in the American culture (if I can be permitted to express it that way). My position was solidified when I was falsely accused of making a racist comment towards a latino student at my school. I said, "is that so hard to understand?" and he heard, "do you speak English?" At the time, I was enraged that someone would have the audacity to claim that I was a racist. I felt like my entire essence was being put on trial and my value as a human being was being assessed. Ultimately, I was suspended for two days on account that I had only myself to support my side of the story while the latino guy had three black friends who said they all saw it his way. Do you see the way this story is shaping up? At the time, it seemed like the school was favoring the other guy simply because he was latino and yet it didn't matter that there might have been a conflict of interest when his three black friends stood up for him.
For years I harbored bitterness towards other ethnicities, not because they were different; I didn't really see them as being any more different than my German-Irish family is from my Scandinavian neighbors. I did not ask to be born of the privileged white male elite. I did not ask to inherit the history of an oppressive, evil, and savage stereotype. I did not enjoy looking into the eyes of a black man and feeling as though he might think I'm a racist "like all other white folks". I've grown up in a multi-ethnic church (though not necessarily multi-cultural). After the pastors' daughter married a man from Uganda and they started orphanage there, I became more and more accustomed to the differences in culture between my American self and the boys of Uganda. I actually had the privilege to spend time with some of the boys who came over here to study (and another who came over for medical procedures). Even then I was still so bitter that because I was white that I automatically must be a racist.
It wasn't until I went on a retreat with my chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IV) that God began to work on my hard heart. I began to understand that God was calling me to leave my bitterness at the foot of the Cross and begin to see with the eyes of love again. My resentment towards my own elite status of color and sex were actually causing me to be less sympathetic that there is in fact a huge disparity between races and genders. It wasn't about who was a racist and who wasn't, it was realizing that God's heart was for the oppressed and overlooked- that included those victims of racism I so neglected to acknowledge.
Enter Kony 2012 trend...
When I first watched the film there was a conflict between my rational mind and my emotions. Emotionally I was ready to jump on the Kony 2012 bandwagon and do whatever Invisible Children (IC) told me to do. Rationally, I was thinking about how things weren't adding up that the only part of me that was moved by the video was the emotional side of me. I mean, who doesn't want to help scared children who are being taken away by big scary mean warlords? I was on their website, literally about to order the geo-tracking bracelet they feature in the film and a kit of about 30 posters. Just before I put the order in I stopped and thought about it. I asked myself if this is the kind of revolutionary action Jesus would take to end such a horrible thing? Would Jesus really drop Benjamins into the hands of other warlords to kill one warlord in the spotlight?At the same time, I still wanted to do something. I heard people complain about the IC and the Kony 2012 trend and felt as though it was an attack on me personally. I felt as though all the awful things they were saying about IC were also being said about me. At that point I broke down and posted on my Facebook wall that I was upset that no matter how genuine I tried to be in my attempts to do good work in the world, there was always a critic to point out the flaw in my work. This status inspired a few people to respond sympathetically, but at least one person wanted to discuss it openly and honestly. From this talk, I didn't come away with more answers, but it did clarify something to me. Racism is an issue and it needs to be discussed.
Not just racism, but what does it mean to be American? One of my favorite authors from last semester, W.E.B. DuBois brings up the issue of being both African and American- not wanting to sacrifice being either. What does it mean for me, of German and Irish ancestry, to be living as an American? What is my responsibility as both white and male? What about white guilt? There are so many questions and so few discussions on this and many more issues... The scary thing is that the more we ignore these discussions, the more I believe we will see things like what Jezebel reported in this article.
In short, the article highlight that's people are feeling cheated because they invested emotionally into characters from Suzanne Collins book, The Hunger Games, only to see the film version come out differently than they expected. What was different? Was it missing plot points? Was it bad acting or misrepresented characters? No, it was because the characters were faithfully portrayed as ethnically diverse, in particular the character of Rue. Let me warn you that SPOILERS are ahead. Reading the book, almost everyone falls in love with Rue. It's hard not to. She's sweet, innocent, and most people can readily identify her as the little sister-type. When people went to the movies and saw her as a young black girl, suddenly they got upset. They got upset because somehow being emotionally invested in a black girl is bad and it's Hollywood's fault for portraying her as black. This speaks volumes about the underlying racial attitudes of white people in America. It says to me that racism is still alive and thriving, only now it is unspoken. It's not in-your-face-cross-burning that was seen in the 60's.
I don't have all the answers... I don't know exactly how to begin, but I encourage everyone to start thinking about racism and the questions we have when we think about it. Maybe you've been on the receiving end of racial slurs, maybe the one spitting them out; the discussion must happen if want to see a change. Sweeping it under the rug has not solved anything.
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
Friday, March 9, 2012
What Feminism Means To Me
When I was younger this image would have encapsulated my understanding of what "Feminism" is. What's even worse is that my experiences with feminists has been mostly negative. It wasn't until I met a few who weren't telling me about the evils of men or how everything I do can be pointed back to patriarchy that I realized that feminism deserves a second chance. It's at this point that I believe I should admit that I have not read anything about feminism specifically, but I have read In A Different Voice by Carol Gilligan as well as a few suffragist writings. The book I linked to heavily influenced my thinking and I plan to continue to learn and try to understand what this is all about. Just thought I'd give a fair warning before anyone jumps down my throat.Feminism gets a lot of heat from conservatives, which is really unfortunate since feminism shouldn't be about conservative or liberal agendas; it should be about common sense. This wasn't clear to me until I started talking to my sister. We were brought up with conservative Christian values and as you might imagine, the thought now makes me gag, but all the same it's what we were raised with and I'm not ready to call foul-play on the people who raised us. Unfortunately, there's a rather nasty underlying implication about our upbringing that I am trying illuminate for you. Though it's never directly stated, and in fact many conservative Christians would deny it outright, but the narrative implication is that women are the lesser sex.
This is further complicated by the fact that my parent's church (but not the same church my sister went to) had a female head pastor. Our church was very unorthodox for a conservative Christian church. As a little kid I didn't know that it wasn't normal for women to be pastors, and frankly I had (and still don't have) a reason to think women can't be pastors. Still, I was taught that women do certain things, men do other things. Men lead, women follow. There's a lot of spiritual discussion that I'm leaving out of this, because this entry isn't meant to discuss theology from an egalitarian perspective. The point is that I realized that women in my life who were brought up as I was had been led to believe that they were inferior, and the most incredible thing was that they couldn't see how.
It's not like many of these conservative Christians are trying to be anti-equality. Many of them would make compelling arguments to the contrary, and I was one of them, but over the course of several conservations with my sister I began to find myself saying things like, "No, you have just as much right as anyone else to thing A and no one should make you believe otherwise." I'll use the example of dating because it's the example most forefront in my mind. For a long time and still today, many men and women of the conservative Christian camp believe that men should initiate and women can sometimes feel inhibited by this. I know that when I was high school I would tell my friends that if a girl asked me out, I would have to say no because I believed so strongly that a man should be the one to initiate. But why? Is a woman any less capable of asking me out on a date? Is she any less capable of coming up with something fun to do? Is it so wrong if she pays once in a while? Men have been painted by the conservative Christian narrative as being absolutely evil creatures who, if they don't have Christ and live according to this very narrow conservative interpretation of Scripture, are bound to cheat women out of everything they have. Women are taught that men who follow Christ are the leader, that they are to follow men down the aisle in marriage to the grave. Women are also taught that there is something wrong with them, that their body is somehow evil, and that if they don't cover every inch of it that they will cause a man to do something bad. Really? So if a woman in the nude walks past me, I will be compelled to do something to her? Don't I have say in this? Yes, yes, I do. I have a responsibility to keep my penis in my pants and my hands by my sides; a responsibility that is so much easier than my upbringing would have me believe.The fact of the matter is that there are lot of great people who don't realize the damage done by these implications. I wouldn't be surprised if there are things I don't know about my conservative Christian upbringing that has taught me some misconceptions about women. It is my hope that more and more followers of Christ will critically analyze their beliefs about the roles men and women in our sub-culture and realize just what kind of nonsensical ideas we've been taught to believe. There's nothing wrong with wanting to treat women with respect, as it is phrased by many a conservative Christian man, but why not just treat everybody equally and then you won't have to worry about how you're treating women?
Peace that surpasses all understanding,
James
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