Category Archives: media

Does Hope Live Paycheck to Paycheck? Seriously? Does it?

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If you watch Hulu at all you’ve probably seen this video. I don’t want to say anything negative about Rethink Church ’cause I know absolutely nothing about them and I don’t really have a practice of talking bad about churches–even churches that I might disagree with, it just does not seem very productive to speak poorly about my family (Right? Even if your family sucks you still don’t shame them publicly)

But in the video one of their big questions is “Does hope live paycheck to paycheck?”

Umm…what?

What does that mean?

Does it really live paycheck to paycheck?

…I’m not reasking the question rhetorically, I’m seriously wondering if it does. I don’t know?  Does compassion live paycheck to paycheck? How about kindness? Does kindness put more money in savings? How can we help hope stop its overspending?

Or maybe the idea is that those with hope literally stop living paycheck to paycheck–once they find hope they start making better decisions and start saving more money. Is that the idea?

Or is it a metaphor for how we live our lives when we have no hope. If you’re someone who has little hope in your life do you find that you “live paycheck to paycheck”? Or, in other words, do you find that you’re living moment to moment, expending everything you have as and leaving little legacy behind?

Hmmm…neither of those two options really resonate with me. One would suggest that once you give your life to Jesus you’ll save more. But the reality is that following Jesus invites you to give more and to put your hope in relationship and resurrection not in savings (not that I’m against saving). The other ‘metaphorical’ option doesn’t really resonate with me either simply because it’s tedious and not very clear.

From my perspective here’s what hope can bring (this is by no means an exhaustive list!) Hope:

  • Gives us meaning because it gives us a larger identity that we can find ourselves in
  • Gives us energy because it helps remove that feeling of “what’s the point?”
  • Disappoints. It does. To hope is to raise your expectations and to believe that something beautiful will happen. But on this side of life that isn’t always the case.
  • Is bigger than today. Hope on this side of life disappoints–that’s why those from the Jesus way of life place their hope primarily in resurrection, new life, and a restored creation.
So I still have not solved the mystery before us: what the hell does the question “does hope live paycheck to paycheck” mean! I like hope. I like paychecks. I like that this church is trying to engage in a hope-dialog. I like Hulu. I don’t like commercials. Therefore vis-à-vis, quid pro quo, using the properties of transsubordination, etc. etc. we must deduce that the definitive answer is yes.
done.

Oh Sinister Prejudice…

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It is interesting how innocently or easily prejudice can have a hold on you and the way you see the world. I’ve only just this morning realized that due to Lady and the Tramp I’ve had a dislike of siamese cats for most of my life.

Are they really as sneaky and sinister as I’ve always thought?!

Quite possibly not!

The reality is that I’ve been caught

–not caught smoking pot

(of which I do not

partake)

But caught up

like throw up

in this messed up

world.

Thanks Disney, I blame you.

 

Tattling in the Bible?

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I’m sorry, but I’m just not a good enough Christian to be into this. There’s just something offensive to me when we work so hard to make sure that our kids understand their own depravity. I also find it offensive when the greatest story ever told is used instead as some kind of controllable tool to manipulate others behavior.

Don’t get me wrong I’m sure that the people who put this together (in addition to those who use this product) are good people with good intentions. We just see things very differently. They would be equally grossed out by many of my views on theology and childrearing and I’m comfortable to just ‘agree to disagree’.

And don’t get me wrong, using the aforementioned child raising tactics probably means that their children are more ‘appropriately’ behaved than mine–but isn’t it time that we stop defining “well behaved” as “you operate according to my rules when I want you to or else…” and instead think in terms of children learning to make good choices not out of fear of punishment (getting hit over the head with a Bible is definitely punishment) but out of experiences that validate the worth of a health and good choice? If a child makes a bad choice he shouldn’t fear getting lectured to death but should instead experience the consequence that fits that unhealthy decision.

And regardless of parenting preferences, do I really want my children growing up understanding the Bible as a tool used to make them feel bad? Because I should clarify that this blog isn’t (shouldn’t be) about parenting styles or preference in discipline, etc.. No, to me the greater offense is the way in which people are invited to wield the Bible. The Bible is the greatest love story ever told, it is a narrative that gives us a glimpse into God’s overtures of love to his created humanity! Wouldn’t you much rather your children understand the Bible as a grand love story than a rule book? Which one fits better with the life and words of Jesus? And isn’t the point that we want our children to live like, with, and for Jesus? We want them to learn what it means to die to self, to love their neighbor, to know that they are completely loved, to know that they are created perfectly in the image of God, and to know that God does indeed desire them to live free of destructive things such as deceit and laziness (but its not because they’re doing it wrong but because God cares for them and wants them to live free!!!)

While I am intrigued to read the scriptures associated with “tattling” I don’t think I’ll be buying this Bible. I think its important for my children to interact with the story of the Bible–but not this way. I want them to see the life that oozes and drips from its pages, I want them to see the whole of Scripture through the lens of Jesus (’cause he is the perfect image of God himself and therefore the best paradigm we have of understanding God’s activity both past and present), I want them to see the Bible as more than a set of quotable verse to be used to prove your point, and I want them to understand that the Bible’s not about being right but about showing love.

Being right can sometimes be wrong.

Israel, Palestine, and Jon Stewart

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I don’t claim to know much about the Israeli/Palestinian crisis nor our awkward involvement in it. But for a show that follows a collection of adult cartoons on the Comedy Central network the Daily Show often seems capable of asking some pretty good questions. These two clips are worth watching for sure.

Bored.

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I’ll admit it, I like New Girl. Jess and I watch it on Hulu pretty much every week and generally I think it’s pretty good.

The last episode we watched centered around one of the characters discovering he had a growth on his thyroid. Could it be that he has cancer? All his friends started treating him differently, realizing that he might be dying. In the end he learns his lesson that he’s got to truly live life, he’s got to stop living in fear and start taking some bold steps out of his comfort zone (in this instance… swimming in the ocean). In the end it turns out that he does not have cancer, that it’s just a cyst and that everything is going to be alright. What a surprise?! Hurray!

I just don’t know how I feel about this episode (and I’m fairly certain there are about a dozen other shows that have told the same story). Well, for one, I found it a bit formulaic. There’s just something about it that felt all too simplistic. I get it, it’s a sitcom. Sitcoms should not ever have characters die of cancer unless its a marginal character and is somehow funny (if we can’t laugh at cancer what can we laugh at right?….right?). I sat there watching it, knowing exactly what would happen, knowing exactly what the character and his friends were going to learn, knowing for certain that it would turn out to be nothing.

Hmm…I wish I had a good point. I just felt a need to blog about it because it stirred strange feelings within me as I watched it. Maybe what it all comes down to is that I found the episode…boring. Is that it? Is that all it was? Was my true feeling underneath all this simply the idea that this episode took little to no effort to write? A child could have written this, a novice could have created a storyline where nothing actually happens but the fear of something causes the characters to learn their all too important lesson on life. Yes, maybe that’s it.

And the moral of the story is that I should have been a television writer.