The Quiet Desperation of Isolation October 18, 2006
Posted by Matt in Uncategorized.Tags: Elliott Smith, isolation, loneliness
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Originally Posted 10/18/06
This morning on my way to work, inching along in the heavy traffic on I-55, while listening to the late Elliott Smith’s beautifully sad album of loneliness and despair, “Either/Or,” I started to reflect some on society and friends and family and community. In the United States, we have material blessings beyond belief – our homes are filled to the brim with “things,” but the majority of people are not happy. Despite the fact that we are constantly connected to others – cell phones, emails, IMs – we are more isolated than ever.
While creeping along the asphalt path this morning, I began looking around me at the people – at their blank stares and silence – and it bothered me, it bothered me a lot. What is wrong with Western society? I’m in a metro area of over a million people, but we are still surrounded by loneliness. In our pursuit of wealth and comforts for ourselves, we’ve given up on others.
We’ve even abandoned the idea of “togetherness” in our churches. In the first century, the people pooled their resources so that no one would be without. They ate together and communed with each other constantly – building strong relationships that we lack so much today. Their love and caring for each other should be the model that we look back at as today’s church.
For years, Diana and I felt completely alone. We had no close friends, nobody that we, as a couple, could build a close relationship with. It wasn’t that we didn’t try, but for some reason we weren’t able to connect with anybody else. It’s only been recently, since we moved to the Memphis area and started making some very good friends, that we’ve finally started to find our niche.
I know that my outlook on the world has changed and it continues to steadily evolve to where it should be. I am resolved to love other people – whether it’s the homeless guy asking for people’s pocket change or the family driving around in a decked-out Expedition or the people living in extreme poverty around the world or even my next door neighbor. Without love, we are left with nothing. We end up like Elliott Smith who, out of extreme depression and loneliness, died at the age of 34 from self-inflicted stab wounds. Though we may not take it to that extent, without relationships and love we will be dead inside.
Creating God in Our Image October 5, 2006
Posted by Matt in Uncategorized.Tags: America, god, idolatry, military, pledge of allegiance
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Originally Posted 10/5/06
People tend to view things in life through a lens that reflects are own learning and life experiences – it’s just human nature. That being said, I think it’s a safe assumption to say that Americans tend to see things differently than people in Saudi Arabia or China or deepest darkest jungles of Africa. We’ve got our own political systems, our own social structures and so on and so on.
The question here, though, is one of God and our various interpretations of Him. Throughout history and all across the world, people have attempted to define a supreme deity in various ways – twisting and turning the concept of God to make Him fit our perception of what He “should be.” Cultures across the globe have taken the ultimate truths of God and squeezed them to fit what we perceive as right – resulting in countless religions and denominations of religions throughout history.
I don’t have the education or the time necessary to get into all of the world religions – their truths and fallacies – but I do feel like I can talk about us, in America, and our false conceptions of who God is.
What better place to start than that bedrock of Judeo-Christian beliefs – the Ten Commandments, namely let’s look at the first three and how they relate to us:
Exodus 20:2-7
2“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3“You shall have no other gods before Me.
4“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
God starts the passage by clearly stating, “I AM” denoting Him as the one holy and true God. God is not just one of us. He’s not the guy sitting next to you on the subway or the guy on the street corner. He’s not a pop culture God who just wants to hang out with us. He’s not our homeboy. He is God – the ultimate reality and creator of the universe and everything beyond it.
Our self-centered nature is fueling it more than anything. How many times have you heard people talk about, “My spiritual needs,” or how Jesus is, “My personal Lord and Savior,” or any other host of “I’s” and “Me’s.” We, both Christians and churches, have watered God down until he fits “our needs.” We’ve turned Him into little more than a glorified therapist.
So, in Western society we’ve crafted idols out of ourselves and our own wants and desires. What other “golden calves” do we have set up on a pedestal for our adoration and allegiance?
How about our nation, the United States of America?
I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands
One nation, under God, indivisible
With Liberty and Justice for all.
Is it okay for Christians to take this oath to a man-made nation? Who is our allegiance really to? We can wrap Jesus in the American flag all we want to, but He is most certainly not an American, so by placing our hope and allegiance in a nation created by men, we have built an idol out of something that should not matter to us as Christians. I asked in a blog entry last week if it was okay for a Christian to serve in the military and now you can have my answer – an emphatic “No!” Our lives should not ever be given “for love of country,” rather our lives and bodies should be dedicated to a Holy God, one that is greater than nations or men or ideas of “freedom.”
We’ve also gotten careless with the name of God and its use around us. Taking the Lord’s name in vain doesn’t just mean dropping the G-D bomb, it means claiming to speak for God when you do something wholely contrary to what we know of His character. That mean making false claims about how “God wants you to be rich,” or televangelists making false claims of miraculous healing – turning God into a laughingstock. It means claiming that God told you, as president, to invade other nations – killing thousands.
My time as a featured blog is nearing its end, so I thought it would be a good time to “rock the boat” a little. This is something that has been on my mind for a while because it is something that I struggle with as much as anybody. I need to give some props to D. Brent Laytham’s book, “God is not…religious, nice, one of us, an American, a capitalist,” – it helped inspire this entry. I realize that this short entry just scratches the surface, but I look forward to your critique.<b
