Watching TV is expensive

There is a lot of time we devote to watching TV, surprisingly.  This post makes an interesting and good point that we could be immensely more productive if we would watch less and that it's costing us in the long run.  I should reevaluate my time.

The Dangers of Reading

I think I am addicted to buying books. Amazon.com and half.com have books for much lower prices than you find in Barnes and Noble, and I don’t think I can stay away. For the last few years I’ve really developed a hunger for good books. It’s weird because I used to despise reading in school. In English class, I did my work without reading the assigned books, and always tried to find a short-cut by hunting for Cliff’s Notes or existing book reports so I wouldn’t have to read the actual thing. In retrospect, I probably put more effort towards cutting corners and created more stress for myself by procrastinating like mad and getting bad grades than if I had just read the dang book. Particularly, I really hated history. I couldn’t understand the point of studying the past. When I asked my history teacher in high school about my frustration, I heard the oft-quoted sentence by philosopher George Santayana: “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I understood that it was valuable for important people, such as presidents and kings, to learn history so as not to repeat past mistakes in world policy or whatever, but how did this apply to me, some skinny schmo in high school with a serious social deficiency? Well, I’ve grown out of this immature view, which frankly was mostly fueled by my disdain for reading my history book, and I’ve really become very interested in history. I think the truth is much stranger than fiction; and much more interesting in my opinion. As a result, I rarely buy fiction books.

The danger though I see with my reading, especially with books pertaining directly to Christian theology and practice, is that it can easily lead to the reinforcing of a false dichotomy between theory—that which pertains to my mind, and practice—that which pertains to my actions. This is an Aristotelian distinction, reinforced greatly by the ‘supreme’ mind of Descartes, and does not reflect the philosophy espoused in the Bible. It basically says, as I understand it, that intellectual life consists of that which you observe and ponder abstractly (theoria), and that which you tangibly act on (praxis). So according to this as it pertains to reading books, I can set up my own theory about how life should be—perhaps an idealized Christian-y world where things make sense and I’m content to feed my brain and muse, and the actual world—filled with pain and failure that falls far short of the ideal. This topic is too grand for me to try analyzing here, but I will offer the explanation offered by Lesslie Newbigin in his book Proper Confidence: that in fact the duty of a Christian who knows God as he has revealed himself, is not characterized by this separation dichotomy of theoria and praxis, where life is compartmentalized into that which is in my head, isolated from that which my hands grasp (dare I say vaguely Gnostic?). Rather, it is characterized simply by the single act of belief and obedience. That is, our lives are based on the fact that God speaks truth, and we respond simply by believing him through obedience to him.

Most times, the world does not want to behave this way; instead we want to speculate, brainstorm, navel-gaze, and work up our own utopian theory of how life should be (religion, politics, etc.), and then maybe, if we get around to it, enact the policy or whatever to accomplish the ideal that has originated from our brains. The Bible presents an alternate (and better) solution to the confusion that our world offers. He offers himself as the king, who is to be loved, trusted, and obeyed in all things. There is no speculation required, but simply trust in him who is the Father that knows all.

So how does this relate to reading? Well, I guess the point is that when I read it is sometimes easy to slip into a world of fantasy where I somehow take the true spiritual concepts I read in the book, and wrongly attach them to my own life as if my mind’s resonance with the truth were the same thing as me living the truth that I read. If that’s confusing, I will try and put it in other words: I selfishly ascribe the truth which I recognize when I read it, to my own life even when the two don’t line up. I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, but it is convicting to me that I have recognized this about myself. Perhaps to a certain degree, this ascribing business is due to the notion I put forth, which is I think for the most part subconscious, that because I make an effort to read challenging books, whereas so many people don’t in our culture, I am somehow more righteous than those who don’t. Therefore, since I revere so much the truth that I read, I link the righteousness conveyed in the truth with the very fact that I’m reading it. It’s pretty sick. It seems though that this might be something more common than most realize. I’ve seen some things in other people that suggest this. When they read some new popular book on “how the church should be” or something, and then blog about it because they are apparently such superior Christians because they read it and now want to haughtily promote the ideas in the book (perhaps on Facebook or something), even though they themselves are a far cry from what the book teaches. I believe to some degree, it’s the theoria-praxis dichotomy in action, but at bottom it’s just an intellectualized, churched-up version of pride and lazy theology combined.

I would do much better to simply believe in God’s truth and be humbly obedient to it.

Do Hard Things

I’m in a posting mood right now so I’ll just add another one on the crap pile today. I like how I get in these moods where I’m just like, “ok this time, I’m going to start posting every day,” but it never lasts more than a couple days. Then I go for months and months with nothing on here and then pick back up like there wasn’t a huge void there, and expect anyone at all to read it. I admit it’s silly. Maybe someone in like a month will stumble upon it. But I’ve sort of resigned to not caring anymore if anyone reads anything, though it would be nice. I write stuff all the time, it’s just never really presentable in any sort of coherent way. But I can probably muster something every now and then. Plus I found a way to post just by writing an email, so there isn’t the hassle of navigating to the freaking page every time and putting up with the slightly terrible interface that’s on here. So that’s nice. If anyone does actually read this, let me know, and maybe it will provide a little more motivation. But if not that’s fine, I’ll just keep talking to myself, or maybe let another year go by before I post again.

I notice that many people I know also exhibit this pattern of long periods of non-posting, and then a serious “get-back-on-track!” post that explains why they haven’t posted in forever. I’m not sure why we feel the need to explain why we don’t devote time to something that very few people care about, other than the need to feel like someone does care what we write. I suppose I do care some, and granted it might be pretty neat if people were actually looking forward to what I write next and checked it every day (although the use of the word “neat” may hinder that happening). But I am also accepting the cold hard truth that that will most likely not happen unless a lot of effort were put into it, which is probably not going to happen since blogging is not exactly one of the most important things on my agenda. Maybe the nice email-in feature will help out since I’m apparently too lazy to….enough already….on to the stinkin’ post.

I just read this new book by Alex and Brett Harris called Do Hard Things. It is targeted at teens, but the premise sounded really interesting so I thought I’d pick it up. Plus I used a gift card, so that’s good. The message of this book probably destroys my explanation of why I don’t post, since much of it has to do with being lazy, so I’ll work on that, but anyway... This book is geared towards teens and wants to goad youngins to not wasting their “adolescent” years (a term whose concept the authors pretty much dismantle and I agree with). It explains the pattern our society has set up to where nothing is really expected of teenagers because we don’t think they can contribute anything to society since they’re always playing Xbox, picking a fight, or texting their underachieving slackers of friends on their cell phones about things of absolutely no value to anyone in the universe. This is such a perceptive observation, but also a rather obvious one if you go the mall or to the movies on Friday night and see the culture of misfits and retards that our country is producing at an alarming rate (myself included, though my parents did a good job). The point here is not to insult them (because much of it is not their faults), but to point out how messed up our culture is where teenagers are merely thought of as being in “adolescence,” the concept of someone in transition from childhood to adulthood, somehow justifying the bane and uselessness that characterizes so much of their “adolescent” existence in teenage years. The problem in this worldview is that there is no cultural right-of-passage that exists in our society largely because no one can really give a definition of adulthood, or more accurately—maturity.

Biblically, maturity means that I take responsibility for myself, my actions, my soul, my wife, my kids, my family, my church, my society, my culture, and my world and say that I’m going to repent from worldly thinking and seek to live for the glory of God. In American culture, however, there is a complete abdication of responsibility in so many arenas of life (especially for men I might add), primarily (I would say) because there is no real prevailing truth to speak of in this world we live in, according to the philosophy of postmodernism which has permeated so much of our culture’s thinking. There’s nothing that anyone can agree on, since everyone has their own worldview/religion (or lack thereof) and we all seem to accept that no religion/worldview is better than another. The problem in logic here is simple, since we’ve all as a culture, bought into the religion of Secularism: that God has nothing to do with how we live; He’s simply concerned with “spiritual” things—we don’t realize the serious lack of sound reasoning here in that we want to claim that no religion is better than another, this itself being a religious statement in essence, since it cannot be empirically proven. That is another tangent I could go on, but I’ll save it for now.

The result is a lot of parents and families that raise kids into their teen years, but nothing is expected of them since we see them as in “adolescence,” meaning we see them as transitioning from immaturity to maturity by some sort of natural process I suppose. Apparently we think the maturity fairy will come in the night to set them free from their purposeless destination and give them a reason to live, instead of the parents imparting this to their children intentionally according to the design of God. A child is so much the product of its environment, especially its parents (though we should never discount the absoluteness of personal responsibility). This is not to mention the staggering amount of children raised in poverty and in disgusting situations where they have no fathers or their mothers are drug addicts, and the children just mimic the behavior of their parents because it is all they know.

The book basically says all this in a slightly nicer way, and gives teenagers a strong push in the right direction by showing many examples of teenagers “doing hard things,” such as helping a political candidate or starting an organization to end poverty. I admit that during junior-high/high-school that I felt much the same way, that I really didn’t have much of an idea what I was doing or any sort of real plan to speak of in life. This was largely due to my culture’s imparting its worldview on me, but I can accept full responsibility for my stupidity here, and ultimately it’s everyone’s responsibility as a human facing God in the end (though each will be judged according to his own areas of authority, such as a father for his children). I was strongly motivated by this book, even though I am not a teenager anymore, and the message is applicable to anyone in need of a kick in the rear. It reminds me that maturity is not something you get when you get your driver’s license or turn 21, or something stupid like that that our culture teaches. There’s plenty of old people we could say are in a state of perpetual adolescence, if you will. Maturity is something that is obtained through the grace of God as he molds his children, and something that is so greatly facilitated through parents leading their children into it. I’m thankful my parents taught me this. I also wish to do the same with mine someday, Lord willing.

Critics and Laziness

I find it extremely easy to be a critic, someone who throws rocks at the houses others have built. It’s really convenient to sit in your recliner and make judgments over people, churches, organizations, pastors, etc. It’s really handy to critique a bad teaching or a church policy (such as a “seeker-sensitive” model), all done while sitting on your rear, and completely consign someone or something to the junk drawer of embarrassing, shameful, or cheesy Christian subculture. It’s a common practice among those that would wave the flag of American evangelicalism, or conservative Christianity. But I find a lot of it is complete crap, simply because I’ve done it so much and have sensed the emptiness and deception involved here. It is empty because it leads nowhere but to cynicism about church, Christianity, and those that may actually be doing a lot of good. It is deceiving because it makes you feel like you are a great Christian simply because you can poke holes so easily in another’s theology or church government or whatever.

What I’m not saying is that the standards for where you spend your church time should be lower, or that you should simply think it’s ok that people are spreading a lot of nonsense in churches that is not biblical or good. But I am saying that we probably shouldn’t be as concerned with judging the person and work of others, but more with judging ourselves and repenting by working hard to build something good, or by contributing and serving somewhere where it is needed.

I find it extremely difficult to be a builder of something, someone who helps build a house instead of standing back and throwing rocks at those that are working. I believe that is what Proverbs speaks of when it calls out the “sluggard” and the “scoffer.” It is someone who won’t pick themselves up off the couch, but will bark criticisms and scoffs at others that have put their hands to something. And it is someone who makes constant excuses for their own laziness: “There’s a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets” (Pr. 22:13)

While I do not advocate an attitude of ignorance and dismissal about those silly caricatures of what you could call “robust Christianity,” I also think that I should be hard-pressed to find much time for devotion to throwing rocks at them. Instead, I should pray for them, and perhaps do something to reverse the tide. I should be too busy loving them to tear them down.

On the other hand, they used to burn heretics…just kidding.