My current heart condition & Why I am saying goodbye to Facebook forever
Things. Toys. Technology. And so our hearts and our affections are formed by these things. They compress the void in our heart into shapes like toys. The result is that we are easily moved and excited by things - computers, cars, appliances, entertainment media. They seem to the fit the shapes in our hearts. They feel good in the tiny spaces they have made. But in this readiness to receive pleasure from things, we are ill-shaped for Christ. He seems unreal, unattractive. The eyes of our heart grow dull.
The above words are from John Piper in his book “When I Don’t Desire God.” It has been a timely read and the title is the current synopsis of my heart. As I was journaling the other day I wrote ‘Distracted: the current one word descriptor for my life’. While I can’t blame the actual mediums or the messages my heart runs to, I can change my consumption. I am Lactose intolerant therefore my body doesn’t contain enough Lactase to be able to process the Lactose in foods. I must refrain or partake & get sick. Same holds true I am finding with certain pieces of technology and social conventions. My soul just can’t handle, I get sick. This sickness looks like narcism, jealousy, a contentious heart, and more.
I am not writing this to guilt you, but writing this to inform that this soul, mine, is on the wrong trajectory. I must change course and modify my diet in what seems to be the habits of the times, the accepted norms.
So if our ‘lives’ cross paths only in this online world (Facebook), I am saying Goodbye. Joy is from but one source and I pray that for you, and myself, we drink it up.
Suggested Readings are below if you are looking to investigate more as it pertains to how media effects the soul in both positive and negative ways. (some are obviously more media focused while others spiritually focused)
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan
The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman
Bible - Various Authors
When I Don’t Desire God by John Piper (Free PDF download of the book)
Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan
It is the cult of self that is killing the United States.
We have a right, in the cult of the self, to get whatever we desire. We can do anything, even belittle and destroy those around us, including our friends, to make money, to be happy and to become famous. Once fame and wealth are achieved, they become their own justification, their own morality. How one gets there is irrelevant. It is this perverted ethic that gave us investment houses like Goldman Sachs … that willfully trashed the global economy and stole money from tens of millions of small shareholders who had bought stock in these corporations for retirement or college. The heads of these corporations, like the winners on a reality television program who lied and manipulated others to succeed, walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses and compensation. The ethic of Wall Street is the ethic of celebrity. It is fused into one bizarre, perverted belief system and it has banished the possibility of the country returning to a reality-based world or avoiding internal collapse. A society that cannot distinguish reality from illusion dies.
This is from this article in Adbusters. The only end to the scenario in this article is when the Gospel is realized…period. There is no restored humanity and dignity without. I really ‘enjoyed’ the article, realizing that I, perhaps more than most get caught in the cult of self.
ATL Art - Krog Tunnel
Non-Idiot Christian’s in the media
it can happen….Christian’s actually giving well informed answers in the media.
watch it here: http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/face-american-evangelicalism-10744135
spent some time thinking about this. i think you should too.
Given the weight of my post yesterday I had to lighten it up a little bit today. This is a great parody of pop-culture.
cashier: ‘How are you?’ reply: ‘Shitty’ :: Perils of Quaint Moralism
A friend and I met yesterday to discuss life, longings, and present sufferings - it has become a weekly gift of grace given to me only in the last few months. As we talked he recounted an interaction he had with a cashier who asked the normal - ‘how are you?’.
My friend happens to be going through a season of investigation & suffering, so in a flash he responded honestly.
Friend: ‘Shitty’
The interaction continued with an honest, yet gentle discourse between the two ending with the cashier hoping his season of suffering is over soon.
Honesty and suffering takes us back. We have grown not calloused but unconscious of the world that surrounds and the suffering, both subtle and overt, that life involves.
I, as a ‘southern’ Christian white male above 6 foot with a college degree and ‘opportunity’ have sought to rid life of suffering, inconvenience, and all forms of strife. Life is often relegated to sin management and pain avoidance within in the WASP circle, and I have signed up for it. Both consciously and unconsciously I have stood in the ticket line my whole life waiting for the day my ‘ticket gets punched’….only to learn the line leads to nowhere. The line promised to lead to happiness, righteous living, and moralism. I have spent my whole life getting in and out of this line, getting out only after truth graciously battered this ignorant soul into action. Others, yet not all, around clamor for position in the line only to learn there are thousands (millions) in front of them. Their satisfaction for the moment lies in the fact that they are in front of a few thousand (millions), but this soon too wears off.
So to be done with allegory and to say what I mean overtly: you and I both, knowingly & unknowingly, have sought comfort & convenience as our God. We have gone to great lengths to be thought of as moral and look to remove discomfort at any cost from our lives. That is not a life worth living. A community of people, wrestling with the ‘Truth’, is the only antidote to the ‘poison’ (another allegory, sorry).
Picture credit and shout-out: The Resurgence Blog posted an honest discourse regarding the ‘poison that is quaint moralism’ and I encourage the read. I also stole the picture above from their post. It influenced this post and allowed me to help make sense of current conversations.
