Read “Candy from Strangers” (on salon.com)
Does this strike anyone else as scary? It just doesn’t sound very healthy. Or maybe I’m just bitter–no one’s ever sent me anything because of these thoughts.
Yearly Archives: 2001
Driving by the Bong State Recreation Area
So where have I been? Eleven states in four days. Including five states I’d never visited before and the two best-named towns in the country: Schenectady, New York and Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Although I passed up the Bong State Recreation Area.
Relying on Air Conditioning
I’ve come to the conclusion that air conditioning breeds weakness. Our apartment has a box air conditioner in the living room. It doesn’t exactly cool the entire apartment, but with a ceiling fan in the bedroom and a box fan in the hallway, we manage pretty well. In previous summers I haven’t been so lucky. Last year I lived on the first level of an apartment with an air conditioner that could only make the living room cold and moist. The bedroom stayed pretty warm. The previous year I was in Chicago with no AC at all. And every year at school we didn’t have AC.
I’ve noticed whenever I don’t have AC I somehow manage to get by. You drink cold liquids. You invest in a few well-placed fans. You have water fights. You go to the beach. You spend an hour picking out a video so you can enjoy the AC. It’s hot, but you deal with it.
Now that I have AC, even a window air conditioner, I’m a wuss. I suppose it doesn’t help that I spend all day long in air conditioned office. But I’m still a wuss. I get home and crank the AC, turn on all the fans, and collapse for a while. I have no desire to go outside. You couldn’t pay me to go outside. As soon as I get in my truck I have to blast the AC. I used to drive with the windows down.
Sometimes I wonder how people who live closer to the equator make it. But I guess people have been living close to the equator for a long time before air conditioning came along, and they seemed to just fine. I guess we need to toughen up.
Of course you may find it a bit ironic that I live in Minnesota and I’m complaining about the heat. Of course a football player recently died from heat stroke in Minnesota, so don’t start.
Addicted to Books
Books can be very dangerous for me. It’s as if I want my own personal library. Thankfully I limit my book buying to the used section, which almost exacerbates the problem; the books are so cheap, how can I pass them up? The result is a steady turn over of books in the used section of the closest Barnes & Noble.
And it’s not bad enough with me being a writer: my wife is a teacher. And of course, she teaches pre-school and elementary, so our books of interest don’t exactly overlap (but when they do you can be sure it’s a must-read).
I think the only thing I have going for me is the bus. Since I ride the bus I’m actually reading all the books I buy. Although I probably shouldn’t use the word “all.” Currently my book buying is out-pacing my book reading–kind of like the population. Or maybe it’s just my wife’s sneaky way of encouraging us to move out of our apartment and into a house with more shelf space.
Was Jesus an Introvert Like Me?
I envy people who are really friendly. There’s a guy at work who has the ability to talk with anyone and be friendly with anyone. He’s been there a third as long as I have and he knows ten times as many people at work. Being an introvert seems to hinder my ability to get to know people.
Sometimes I wonder if Jesus was an introvert. He kept to himself at times and no one really understood him. Yet he wasn’t afraid to talk to anyone, and often talked to the people no one else would talk to. It seems like it’s almost easier to be a Christian if you’re an extrovert. I wonder if anyone’s ever studied the religious beliefs of introverts versus extroverts. Something tells me more evangelists are extroverts.
It seems like a lot of the problems I see in life would be overcome if I just weren’t so introverted. If I actually learned people’s names and got to know people other than myself, I could over come the racism and classism I often complain about. But I’m sure life isn’t that easy for extroverts either. They probably have some issue that hinders them. I wonder if extroverts envy introverts.
Just What Am I Doing?
Sometimes you think you know someone and you really don’t. You assume something about them, and you always end up wrong. I found out something about someone I work with today that I could have guessed but never really thought much about. It’s making me realize how much we take for granted and how important little things are, like lunch time conversations.
I work for a Christian organization, and it’s pretty well assumed that everyone is a Christian. But that’s not always true. A guy I’ve worked with for the past seven months isn’t really sure if he’s a Christian. I’m not that surprised. But I don’t think I’ve done much over the past seven months to help him be more sure of his faith.
It kind of makes you wonder just what I’m doing.
I’m My Own Proof
A friend asked me the other day what I thought about an article that accused Christians of giving into materialism. I admitted the article was right, but expressed a lot of frustration that it would take a whole lot to change people’s actions. I was my own proof.
And it’s really beyond Christians. Certainly Christians have the most pressing reason to leave materialism behind (let’s just say it wasn’t listed as an ideal in the Sermon on the Mount), but it’s really a problem endemic to Americans.
And who’s doing anything about it? A few kooks have started a magazine and published a book or two. Sometimes they hit the nail on the head, sometimes they don’t.
The whole issue is boiling below the surface of American thought, waiting to rise up. The real question is whether or not the church is going to force the uprising and cause the change, or will the church once again be following culture’s lead with a nod of our heads and a “Yeah, that’s what we thought all along.” It seems the church has been caught with its pants down on plenty of broad cultural idea like environmentalism and feminism. Will materialism be next?
I think it’s time the church lead for once in its life. It happened before when a man named Rev. Martin Luther King lead scores of people on march after march. The Civil Rights Movement succeeded. It was a costly battle, one you could easily argue has been given up recently, but it was successful nonetheless.
The Pope vs. Materialism
“Before our eyes we have the results of ideologies such as Marxism, Nazism and fascism, and also of myths like racial superiority, nationalism and ethnic exclusivism. No less pernicious, though not always as obvious, are the effects of materialistic consumerism, in which the exaltation of the individual and the selfish satisfaction of personal aspirations become the ultimate goal of life. In this outlook, the negative effects on others are considered completely irrelevant. Instead it must be said again that no affront to human dignity can be ignored, whatever its source, whatever actual form it takes and wherever it occurs.” — Pope John Paul II, “Respect for Human Rights,” January 1, 1999 (appeared in the July/August 2001 issue of Adbusters magazine)
Sometimes the Pope can be pretty smart. I marvel at why Christians (especially the brand of Christianity I grew up in, where Catholics aren’t considered Christians) don’t give the Pope more credit. No one stands up against more of culture’s crap than the Pope.
And now he’s set his sights on materialism and consumerism. Where do evangelical Christians stand?
Lake Louise State Park
This weekend we went camping at Lake Louise State Park.
Were you expecting words of wisdom as well? You’re probably pushing your luck. But do you know what I like about camping? Aside from the fact that you get to burn things, you’re free to do whatever you want. If you feel like sleeping in until noon, you can. If you feel like going on a bike ride, you can. If you feel like reading a book all afternoon, you can. There’s no pressure to do anything. I like that. I think I need that once in a while.
Bono Thanks Billy
“At a time when religion seems so often to get in the way of God’s work, with its shopping mall sales pitch and its bumper sticker reductionism—I give thanks just for the sanity of Billy Graham, for that clear, empathetic voice of his and that southern accent, and part poet, part preacher, the singer of the human spirit I’d say. Yeah, I give thanks to Billy Graham. Thank you, Billy Graham.” – Bono, lead singer of U2, in a video on the [now defunct] Thank You Billy Graham website.