Category: Society

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Alien Invasion Please!

I finally finished watching The Vietnam War documentary yesterday.  It took me about six months to watch the entire 18 hours of Ken Burns’ amazing, heartbreaking deep-dive into that wasteful war.  Probably my biggest takeaway from the whole thing was the realization that this particular war is what divided the United States into Us vs. Them.  The sheer number of protest groups that formed as the war dragged on and on through four presidencies was like nothing the country had ever seen.  They (rightly) protested almost daily when it became obvious that the war was a sham.  As with pretty much everything though the pendulum swung too far and several protesters resorted to violence and personal attacks on the returning soldiers who most certainly didn’t want to be drafted.

We as a country were all on the same side, all wanted the same thing – as we so often do – yet there we were in the late 60s, all fighting each other.

It really struck me how different the scene was from the stateside footage during World War II.  In those archival films you see the whole country pulling together, sacrificing whatever it took to win the war and support the troops.  It all ended with celebrations and ticker-tape parades.  The Vietnam War produced fights between students and anti-war activists and those who felt we should support the troops no matter what.  I saw clips of construction workers in New York City attacking protesters as well as National Guard troops firing into crowds of unarmed students at Kent State University.  Veterans returning from the war hurling their military medals at the Capitol Building.

I watched all 18 hours despite feeling sad and disheartened throughout.  Politicians manipulating peace talks to aid their chances in elections, government officials pursuing an unwinnable war for no reason other than trying to stop the spread of Communism.

And Us fighting Them over it.  American vs American.  The 60s was the birth of truly acerbic partisan politics that is even much worse today.

That divisiveness is not uniquely American however.  The Vietnam War was our event that irreversibly divided us, but other countries and regions have had their own catalysts to the same end.  I was talking to a co-worker today who is from Iran.  He described to me the rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, telling me its brutality was necessary to keep all those warring tribes in line.  He said Iraq is really three countries (or more) in one but good luck agreeing on how to divide it.

Shifting to my former home in Spain – I lived in Madrid but traveled around the country and saw how divided they were: arrived in Barcelona by train once and saw a giant sign at the train station claiming: YOU ARE NO LONGER IN SPAIN.  The people there want to form their own country.  Same in several other parts of Spain.  Northern Ireland broke off from Ireland and there’s even still a wall dividing parts of Belfast from one another.  You see the divisions all over the world.

And how many happy families do you see? How many of your friends have divorced parents? How many that are together are actually happy?

It’s dire, isn’t it?

Speaking of family, we are so critical of our brothers and sisters, aren’t we? We tear into them like no one else.  I can’t believe the way she’s raising her children! I can’t believe what job he has! I can’t believe they bought such a big house – what a waste of money!

Oh we lay into our siblings and parents like no one else….until….

Until when?

When an outsider attacks them, that’s when.  Someone you don’t know, some stranger, points out a shortcoming in your sister? You counterattack with ferocity.  Your daughter just pissed you off but some guy comes up and shoves her…Papa Bear emerges.

We circle the wagons.  Loyalty is the child of vulnerability.  When our loved ones are vulnerable to the outsider, that’s when we close ranks and protect them.

I use only my worst insults on my friends.  If I’m not making fun of you then there’s probably some closeness missing between us.

To extend this out, only black people can tell black people jokes.  Only Asian people can tell Asian jokes.  Well, maybe anyone can tell any kind of joke but you’ll end up having to apologize.

It’s like someone who joins your group of friends and acts too comfortable too quickly.  Hey man, ease off the inside jokes until we’ve fully vetted you, yeah?

You can only make fun of people within your Circle Of Trust.  Whether that’s your entire race or family or social circle, the trust must first be established and then the guard is let down.  The real people emerge, the real relationships, the real love.

The world is a divided one now and the way I see it, we need something that will require the entire world to circle the wagons, close ranks, trust each other, and support one another, across every country, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, neighborhood, etc.

What could possibly bring us all together like that, you ask?

A common enemy.  An attack on our “world family”…

An Alien Invasion.

I’m serious.  Let’s find some way to provoke some green dudes from another galaxy because I’m sick of this divisiveness.  Imagine they all just show up in their spaceships one day and launch an assault…what will we do? We’ll do just what we do when someone calls our sister fat: what are you calling my sister, mister? Excuse me? What did you just say?

We’ll forget all about the idiotic things that divide us and go kick some alien ass.  Innovations will come from all across the world: Muslim will fight alongside the Jew, gays and straights will team up, people from Michigan and people from Ohio will align to strike a devastating blow, pro-lifers will advance arm in arm with pro-choicers, Republicans and Democrats will legislate for the common good.  We’ll rise up as one and slay the invading aliens and then have world-wide celebrations and ticker-tape parades.  The entire world will mark the Victory Day on their calendars and every single person will remember exactly where they were when the enemy was finally pushed back and we were all safe again.

Give it about a week afterwards and it will all go back to this Us vs Them junk…

…but wouldn’t it be glorious to see, just for a moment? All of us together, fighting for a common cause, arm in arm with our brethren worldwide…?

Where are you, Space Invaders? We need you!

 

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The Controversy Of Gayness

I was at a church community group meeting last night when one of the participants began to tell us about a conflict going on amongst the governing bodies of the Reformed Church of America.  Quick background: Each church in the RCA belongs to a larger governing body called a classis whose job it is to help guide member churches on theology, church governance, dealing with the social issues of the day, etc. – at least that’s my basic understanding of it.

Anyway, two of these particular classis(s?) are apparently now engaged in a heated argument over how to “handle” the “gay issue”.  I’ve been hearing the same argument for four years now.  The Far West Classis (or something like that) doesn’t want gays in the churches or in leadership or getting married – some kind of exclusion – while the Rocky Mountain Classis (or something like that) thinks gays are just fine.  That’s the gist of it at least, but the one thing I do know for sure is that people are spending a lot of time, energy, and money (that they don’t have) on this.  Which leads me to one simple question:

Why?

Shouldn’t we be feeding hungry people? Sheltering refugees? Or maybe getting involved in stopping something that actually harms (kills) people, like mass shootings?

By the way, my aim is to stay non-partisan in this blog so I’m mentioning mass shootings for one reason and one reason only here: people are dying, often children, yet nothing, absolutely nothing, is being done about it.  Isn’t that staggering? I don’t care what the solution is – gun control, mental health, further background checks, whatever –  we just need to do something about mass shootings, all politics aside.

But back to the topic of this post.  I cannot for the life of me understand why people spend so much time and energy on something that is not affecting anyone negatively, at least not in any real way.  You are born gay and we all know that.  God makes all people, so he made “them” gay.  Sure God makes murderers too but those people do real harm and should be punished.  That’s obvious to anyone being objective.

How has a gay person ever harmed anyone? Wait, let me put that more clearly: how has gayness ever harmed anyone?

Of course there are some horrible people – thieves, murderers, kidnappers – who happen to be gay and they should be punished accordingly, but it wasn’t their gayness that did the harm.  Their sexuality had nothing to do with it.

Quick story to illustrate this point: I had a conversation with a relative who considers herself evangelical and I asked her basically this same thing.  She gave me the following example: “What if your daughter had a gay teacher who presented the “gay lifestyle” as an option to your 10 year-old? Like this teacher suggested sexual situations to her, situations that gay people participate in?”

Needless to say, I was stunned.  If that same teacher was 100% heterosexual and suggested 100% heterosexual situations to my 10 year-old my reaction would be no different than with the gay teacher: fire him/her right now.  The teacher’s sexuality had absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever and I was shocked (and enlightened) to learn that my relative could not separate the immoral, the bad, from the gayness.  Gayness does not harm; immorality does.

So given that fact – yes, fact – why do we spend so much time, energy, and money fighting against something that isn’t doing any real harm to anyone? Is it because it’s “in the bible”?

I’ve heard that one a lot.  I’m not sure where that passage is – it’s definitely not one of the Ten Commandments – but I typically hear people cite the bible as the reason they are against gays.  (Incidentally, you know what one of the commandments is? Love thy neighbor…but only if he’s not gay…?)

So just for argument’s sake, let’s say it is in the bible, clear as day, right in one of those popular books:  Gayness is immoral.  In big bold letters.

Is that really how anyone judges right and wrong? When you first heard of someone murdering someone did you have to consult the bible first to know it was wrong or was there something inside you that just knew it? When someone stole your bike did you thumb through the good book to know if you should be pissed?

The bible has a lot of good in it but it also has a lot of contradictions, and I guarantee 99% of people have not read and understood the entire thing.  The Ten Commandments is a simple list that I could see people using as a guide, but the bible? The whole thing? It’s a massive, complex book that you need footnotes or a theologian to understand.  And that footnote author or theologian often has their own agenda and interpretations…just like the people who wrote it.

The bible was not written by God – it was inspired by God – but our morality, our soul did come from God.  I believe that he creates that.  In my opinion, when we look inside ourselves to judge right or wrong, when we consult our morality and just know that sexual abuse (for example) is wrong, it’s not from some book – it’s from our soul.  I am positive that a newborn baby could witness a murder and just know that it’s wrong.  No one would have to tell them – they would just feel it.

So, do all these people who want gay people to just stop being gay and want to banish them from their communities just feel it inside- as in truly despising the entirety of that gay person – and merely use the bible as an excuse? My guess is that their imaginations jump to the sexual acts that gays engage in and that is what disgusts them and then they use the bible as the moral compass for that disgust.  OK, fair enough – gay sexual acts disgust you.  But I’ll tell you this – it disgusts me to think about anyone having any kind of sex.  Picture your parents having sex – disgusting ? Of course.  Do you hate them for it? Why jump to this thing – sexual acts – that comprises probably 1% of a person’s life and use that as your judgement of them? We don’t love everything about about anyone in this world.  Sexual orientation is a very arbitrary criteria for moral soundness.

And as far as using the bible for that criteria, imagine someone shows up one day and says “hey wait, biblical scholars just figured out that the part in the bible that says gays are bad was actually added in the 1700s by some English king  – it’s a bogus passage”.  Would all the people who despise gays change their minds overnight? Snap! Oh, OK, gays are all right after all! Nice! I can start loving my neighbor now!

Or another example: I know guns were not invented in the era of the bible, but let’s say they were and someone discovered a new book by Saint John that said we shouldn’t have guns – would people just throw them away because “it’s in the bible?” Does that book really define their morality?

I doubt it.  I think it can be a fine guide (I think the stuff about idols and loving your neighbor are words to live by) but a word-for-word guide to life?

Often times we find many of the same people who live by the bible also live by this other text created a couple millennia later: the United States Constitution; another fine document with some great ideas, but also not without contradictions.  Like, for example, the 18th and 21st amendments.

18th: booze is bad!

21st: no, we had it wrong, booze is great!

We see a lot of people cite the 2nd amendment to justify their use, love, and defense of guns.  “It’s my right, this weapon is my right, it’s in the constitution”.  Tell me, how did they work around the 18th and 21st amendments when it came to alcohol? From 1919 to 1933 the 18th amendment banned all booze from being bought, sold, or consumed in the United States, and I guarantee you there were large groups of people pointing to that amendment to justify their conviction that drinking a beer was immoral.

So what was their argument then on December 5, 1933 when the 21st amendment passed? Were they suddenly OK with your six-pack of IPA?

Governments are different entities than saints, I get that.  Governments write laws (constitutions) while saints (mostly) wrote the bible, so with a lot of people the bible and constitution carry different weight, but by listening to the 2nd amendment folks there isn’t much weight difference.

But those documents and texts are not truly the point here.  I believe the bible and the constitution are treated much like our news channels are nowadays – you find the one that supports your sense of morality, your sense of rights and wrongs, and you justify your beliefs with it.

Those staunch defenders of the constitution who always cite the 2nd amendment? Many of those same people support politicians who seek to ban the 14th amendment (if you are born here, regardless of your parents’ status, you are an American).

If the constitution is your gold standard you have to defend it all.  No exceptions.  You can’t use it to justify your morality on some issues but not on others.  You just can’t.  That’s called hypocrisy.

Again, giving them the benefit of the doubt that the bible tells you not to be gay (I don’t believe it does but I’ll give them this), how about the couple commandments I cited earlier? Are they adhering to those? The commandments are definitely in the bible and I guarantee a lot of those anti-gay folks do not automatically love their neighbors.  I guarantee they have on occasion made idols of things other than God…like cars, wealth, status, etc.  Guaranteed.

We’re all hypocrites in the end.  I’m a hypocrite.  You’re a hypocrite.  Democrats are hypocrites.  Republicans are hypocrites.  All humans are hypocrites.  Why, you will often catch me eating a piece of chocolate cake and drinking a…..diet coke!

Hypocrite.  Are you really watching your calories, Mike?

When people see me they may chuckle to themselves and take note of the hypocrisy but it certainly won’t bother them.  It doesn’t hurt them.  A reasonable person won’t spend any time thinking about it.  They may notice it briefly, and then get on to the more important things in their day.  Maybe they’ll get back to their productive job, maybe teach somebody something useful.  Maybe they’ll get in their car and drive off to see an ailing neighbor.  Maybe they’ll arrive at the construction site where they are helping a group of people build a house for someone.  Maybe they’ll just go home and spend time with their families.  They certainly have much more important things to do than get spun up about my behavior.

They won’t spend any time on the thing I’m doing – even though they may not agree with it – because it does not actually affect them, not in any way.  They don’t need to read a line in a book to tell them that my drinking a diet beverage and eating a fattening cake is harmless- they just simply know it.  So, most likely, they merely notice the behavior, shrug their shoulders, and then get on their way, to the actual important, productive things in life…

…you know, like the Reformed Church Of America should start doing.

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Seize The Moment

I’ve been thinking a lot about contentedness recently.  There are myriad slogans and catch-phrases that address it, such as ‘money can’t buy happiness’, ‘seize the day’, ‘first-world problems’, ‘do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life’, etc., but it can’t really be explained away that easily.  Contentedness is a lot more nuanced that that.

Economically, I’ve been at both ends of the spectrum at various points in my life.  Not flat-broke or uber-rich but certainly lower (lower, lower) middle class and probably what most would consider upper class, although I don’t like applying that label to myself, so let’s call it ‘pretty well-off’.  Either way, I’ve been equally miserable and equally joyous at times in those different economic states.  When I think back to my life, I don’t really remember my overall emotional state related to my economic state as much as I do some memorable moments during those times.  Example – I met my future wife when I barely had a dime to my name.  That was great.  But conversely I also suffered great embarrassment when I once received a notification that my bank account was overdrawn by 16 cents and I had to scrounge up 17 cents in pennies and nickels from a desk drawer to get my account back in the black.

On the other end of that spectrum, becoming a home owner certainly qualifies as a highlight of being well-off.  But the Yang to that Yin are the deep frustrations I’ve felt at the very job that puts me into that economic category.

I’ve found myself complaining no matter how much money I have, which brings me to one of my favorite phrases: First World Problems.  Whenever I find myself complaining about the short life of my iPhone battery, I just mumble that golden phrase someone certainly invented to shame us for even thinking about complaining.  There are kids starving in Yemen, Mike.  Good God man, get some perspective.

These phrases may help us feel thankful and content for a short time but we always return to the norm.  Things irritate us no matter how good we have it.

‘Money can’t buy happiness’ is one of the most famous phrases of all.  It’s proven true immediately by simply observing rich people.  Do they have any problems? Absolutely.  In fact many of their problems are exactly the same as those faced by everyone else: poor health, bad relationships, feelings of incompetence, poor career choices, loneliness, etc.  All the cash in the world won’t help you if you are genetically sickly.  A fat wallet is meaningless if you can’t relate to other people.  A large bank account will not raise your low self-esteem.

Do rich people have fewer problems? Biggie Smalls says ‘no’ emphatically in ‘Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.’  Maybe not more problems, B.I.G., but you definitely had different problems than a lot of us; very few of us will ever get shot at multiple times in our lives…the last time fatally.  Yikes.

Do poor people have more problems? Probably, at least in some aspects of life.  Health care would be one of them.  Access to good education certainly another.  In one of those ‘you-have-no-right-to-complain’ moments in my life I observed a family living in a landfill in a shack made out of garbage outside Guatemala City – and they were smiling and laughing.  No one would trade places with them but they were certainly not miserable, at least not in that moment.

How about people who turn their hobby into their full-time job? Paid to sky-dive, paid to eat, paid to see movies, paid to travel the world.  The people who magically figure out some way to turn the things they’d happily do for free into steady paychecks as opposed to those of us slogging away at a computer inside a gray cubicle housed in some run-down building in a strip-mall alongside the interstate, working interminably at these meaningless tasks that add no value to our lives other than feeding our bank accounts? Those people are happier than us, right? Maybe, but I believe the moment you have to do something to earn that paycheck then it becomes work.  I have a friend who complained forever that corporate america sucked and he just wanted to work for a brewery.  He eventually landed the brewing job and guess what? Do I even have to say? Yeah, you guessed it – he’s as miserable as ever…his complaints are just different.

Hell, I even got bored and frustrated on my trip around-the-world.  Let me describe my life for those 2.5 years: no work, just exploring the different town, region, or city I woke up in that day.  Ate whenever, never set an alarm clock, went wherever I felt like going.  Drank at 10 in the morning if wanted to.  No concerns about money because I had socked it away for several years.  Basically every day was Saturday in some exotic location.  It was amazing, but of course I still had problems: Thieves.  Loneliness.  Sickness (mostly food related).  Boredom.  Lack of a goal.  Feeling unfulfilled.

Yep, lots of problems, and that was my dream trip!

When I think back on it though I rarely remember the bad parts; I remember rather the great moments.  Seeing the Great Wall of China for the first time from the train window.  Walking down the street to Red Square in Moscow, knowing that when I turned to the left I’d be staring at the iconic, colorful St. Peter’s Basilica.  Mountain biking down a mountain in Ecuador.  Seeing the ocean floor while descending down a rope-line on my first scuba diving expedition in Thailand.  Climbing up to the Sun Gate and gazing down at the ruins of Machu Picchu as the clouds cleared from the jungle in Peru.  Even the bad times, the bad moments, have become some of my funniest stories to tell around the campfire, several of which will eventually appear in this blog.

So as I mull over my lifelong pursuit of contentedness I reflect on all these different points in my life and the circumstances within them, trying to decipher when I was most content.  I suppose I have never been truly content.  I am beginning to think I never will.

What does it mean to be content anyway? Does that mean you never make a change again? That you stay in the same place, with the same people, and do the same things for the rest of your life? You just find this happy balance and stay there? Well, that couldn’t work because the people, places, and things will change around you – they will force change upon you.  Some of your relationships will end, your health will decline, your neighborhood will change, your job will get worse, unexpected expenses will pop up.  Change gonna come, Sam Cooke, whether you like it or not.

And besides, that lack of movement, the disinterest in pursuing change, of simply remaining as you are stinks of laziness to me.  Ambition is a good thing, right? Improvement? That’s something we admire in people usually.  If you are discontent, make a change.

Given all of this, contentedness seems impossible…can it even happen?

Perhaps it can for some people.  Really, really adaptable people maybe.  People who just plod along and roll with the punches, unaffected by the changing landscape around them.  Maybe simple people too, those with few worries or desires.  Gandhi seemed pretty content, no?

But how about for the rest of us? I don’t think most of us are really, really adaptable or enlightened Gods of Hinduism – how do we find contentedness?

It seems to me that the answer is to change our expectations.  We think – or at least I do – of contentedness as a long-term state, but I really think it’s more fleeting than that.  I think contentedness exists only in the moments of our lives.  Reading back over what I’ve written, I find that word popping up over and over: moments.

Maybe because for those of us who aren’t so happy-go-lucky, who may get bothered by trivial things, who continually seek out what’s next, true contentedness is a fallacy.  You find that perfect parking spot and then return to the car to find a door ding.  You eat a great meal only to later fall ill to food poisoning.  You find the perfect house and then the horrible neighbor moves in.  Each of those situations contains a moment: when you pulled into the parking spot, when you were eating the delicious meal, when you walked through the front door for the first time, a the moment when you were so content…but then it was gone, like waking from a blissful dream.  Poof.  Ugh, not this shit again.

An entire day of being content is so rare.  Almost impossible.  Seize the day! yelled Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society.  Make the most of it.  Good advice, but maybe that’s too much for us.  A day is too big usually.  Maybe we need to focus a bit more on the building blocks of those great days, those tiny slices of time where the experience is just what you want and perfect and amazing and just right and “oh why can’t I bottle this?!”

How many great days have you had? OK, OK, now how many great moments? Ahh, there we go…you’ve had a whole lot of those.  Maybe if you stitched them all together they’d be enough for a lifetime…a lifetime of contentedness.  Maybe…maybe.  I’m going to work on that and get back to you…I will take those smaller snippets of time in my day, the moments, and I’ll seek the joy in there, bask in the glow of them, find the satisfaction in them…

I will Seize The Moment.