Credibility

I don’t readily trust nice, polite people. I know myself well-enough to be aware of my many flaws. If someone agrees with whatever I say or pays me many compliments, my instinct is to assume that this person is a liar (whether they realize they’re doing it or not) and they have manipulative motivations. I would say that my instinct is generally right, based on my knowledge of my broken self.

I think Christians get love and politeness confused. Jesus was the single most loving person to have walked the planet and he was plenty impolite. Ask the Pharisees. Ask Peter.

The truth is we are imperfect, flawed people. There isn’t anything good about us for which we can claim credit. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar. And based on the fact that people don’t tell me how crappy I am on a regular basis, I have to conclude that I’m surrounded by a lot of liars. The fact that I don’t tell people how crappy they are on a regular basis causes me to conclude that I’m a liar also.

Of course, the opposite isn’t true: just because you’re rude doesn’t make you loving. It’s just impossible to love imperfect people and always tell them stuff that makes them feel better.

The nature of the Truth is that it convicts imperfect people. Our egos–our pride–is/are grounded in lies. The Truth doesn’t appease our prideful natures. We have to die to ourselves, surrender to God, before we can like the Truth. Because the truth stands in opposition to the masks we wear and the inflated images we want people to have of us.

One point of pride for me is my insightfulness. I tend to think that I know a lot more than I really do. And sometimes I arrogantly flex that intellectual muscle to make people think more highly of me. That’s right, I’m an ass. Anyways, I was being bluntly honest with one of my friends in a way that wasn’t loving and served the purpose of cutting them down and building me up (because one of my recent revelations is that the truth is often blunt, as I’m talking about in this post). I was trying to be insightful. She called me out on it and it certainly didn’t serve the notion that I’m an insightful person. It did cater to the fact that I’m an insecure person who believes that I am, in fact, at the center of the universe. Her truthfully calling me out didn’t make me feel good about myself. It convicted me. It made me aware of the reality that I am not the ideal person that I think I am.

This post was written to provide affirmation to loving friends of broken people who know that the truth won’t make their friend happy, but must be said nonetheless. The Bible talks about believers supporting eachother and it recons it to “iron sharpening iron”. When iron sharpens other iron, there is a lot of friction, heat, and conflicting forces. It’s not an easy process–it’s very messy, like nearly every aspect of Christian spirituality. But it’s necessary.

I hope this blesses you in some way. Sincerely.

Ugly People

So I have a problem with my local church. My problem is that I’m one of the ugliest people who go there. And it’s a biiigg church. This is problematic primarily because there are plenty of ugly people in the area and they aren’t proportionally represented in our local church. If we really accept all people the way we say we do (that being without regard for how much or little value the World puts on them) then I think ugly people would feel just as welcome as anyone.

And understand that I don’t mean to say that any church verbally rejects people based on physical appearance (although other terms of worldly value, like sinfulness, may cause you to be rejected from churches); however, nonverbal cues comprise some 90% of our communication so even if we don’t tell people, “get out, you don’t look good enough” in those words, verbatim, we may be saying the same thing via our dishonest politeness (we ugly people are good at detecting rejection or reluctant acceptance, even when cleverly disguised).

All of this is a problem. The other problem is the misconception that we shouldn’t call people ugly. If a person is physically ugly and we tell them they’re not, we are liars. Plain and simple. The problem isn’t that they’re ugly–the problem is that we don’t accept ugly people. The problem isn’t that we tell them they’re not attractive. It’s that we tell them they’re not attractive enough.

If we tell an ugly person they’re pretty, we’ve given them something other than God and themselves in which they can put their identity. They’re putting their identity in a lie. They think they can be loved for something or someone that they are not. This is known as flattery and for all practical purposes I would think it would apply to non-ugly people as well. They think their reason for being loved is that they look a certain way.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to let a person think that they’re physically unattractive and show that we love them anyways. That they don’t have to look a certain way to fit in. Could you imagine? Perhaps ugliness isn’t as insulting as our society has made it out to be? Perhaps physical attractiveness, like wealth, intelligence, or any other concept that leads us to believe we have power in our world and control over our reality is all a lie. Maybe we’re not the gods we think we are over our little realms? Perhaps this is the same lie that the snake told the first people in the garden: “Eat of this fruit and you will be like gods.”

Perhaps the first people were terrified that God wouldn’t love them if he saw that they had failed to earn God’s love for the first time. Perhaps that’s why they hid themselves. “Who told you that you weren’t good enough for my Love?” Is that what God’s asking us?

All I know is that since the beginning of time people have prided themselves on how much they have and what they’re capable of, as if this is why they should be loved and respected. And since the beginning of time, God has favored the weak who have nothing to pride themselves in, as if to show humanity that he loves our non-fake bad parts infinitely more than he loves our fake good parts. We can’t earn this love by being good enough, strong enough, etc. We are what we are and that’s all it takes for God to love us (of course, he loves us too much to let us stay that way so he encourages us to grow but doesn’t make it a requirement for His Love).

Sometime I’ll tell you the tale of how I came to concretely realize this, but for now it’s time for work!

Think about this stuff. Srsly. And read the beattitudes for a glimpse of who has power in God’s Kingdom.

Love Somebody

This is a copy/paste of one of Derek’s Facebook notes.  We’ve been talking a lot about this lately and I’m really glad he wrote this. I know it’s something he’s been frustrated with lately, so it’s pretty raw, which is great. Here it is:

I have a lot of frustration with my world lately. I feel like no one wants to be honest. No one wants to seek the things that really matter. Everyone is so concerned with what everyone else thinks of them that they end up wearing a mask in every setting they’re in. Someone who is blatantly honest about the way they are feeling is seen as rude. It’s socially unacceptable. It makes people uncomfortable when someone shares what is really going on inside them. But isn’t that the most important? What is a friendship or relationship based on if that isn’t acceptable?

We all act like everything is 100% peachy all the time. There is no way that is reality. In a world as messed up as this one, someone we interact with on a daily basis is probably having a bad day for one reason or another. Either we don’t care enough to really ask someone how they’re really doing or when someone does ask us that question, we don’t say how we’re really feeling. We lie. We put on the happy mask that says everything in my life is great! How do we ever expect to help each other and really be there for each other if we aren’t transparent enough to tell people how we’re really doing? How do we ever expect other people to overcome struggle in their lives when we won’t even admit our own?

What is and isn’t socially acceptable annoys the crap out of me. If someone says “Come and talk to me if you need anything,” then mean it. It’s that simple. If you want to be there for someone, then be there for someone. That person is not usually going to ask you for help when they’re really down. They’re not going to want to talk about it. IF you’re a true friend, then love on them. Do something. Take initiative. It doesn’t mean you need to be the Dr. Phil in their lives. Just be there. It doesn’t take much too really show someone you care about them.

It seems to me that there are so many things that are backwards in my life. I would tell you that the friendships I have in my life are very important to me. I feel like they should be more important than a night of studying. Yet how easy is it to use school as an excuse to not spend time with someone? “Oh, believe me I would hang out with you, but I’ve got a busy next three weeks. How about sometime during Christmas break?” Congratulations. You’ve just succeeded in making someone feel like they don’t matter to you. Of course you’re busy. We’re all busy. Busy is easy to do in our society. It’s slowing down that’s hard. Take time to love somebody.

Truth

My facebook status currently reads “Craig is learning about Truth.” Last week, Craig was learning about Love. It’s interesting to note that I couldn’t tell you when I stopped learning about Love and started learning about Truth. This is because, I think, the two flow together seamlessly. Just like all themes of Christianity (except it seems to me that good themes flow together on an opposite pole from bad themes like selfishness, pridefulness, and dishonesty).

Anyways, I’ve learned a lot about truth and about the lies I tell myself lately. It’s been an amazing past couple of weeks as I’ve realized that the truth is convicting to those of us who are perfect. It, like exercise to the body, makes us feel good about ourselves in a healthy fashion, unlike lies which, like sweets and excessive video gaming, are instantly gratifying and pleasurable. My decreasing fear of the Truth has caused me to put more of myself into relationships (that is, make myself more vulnerable in conversation–giving my friend power over me in a sense) which has yeilded fruit in the form of more trusting relationships and friends who are willing to tell me intimate details of their lives so that I can have something of them to love and protect. Truth is amazing.

Anyways, I regard everything pro-Christian with extreme skepticism as I’ve found more-often-than-not the case is that these slogans, movies, policies, etc are driven by hateful intentions and seek to elevate Christians above other social groups. This is the worst place for Christians. Christianity is good, but it should never be powerful in worldly ways. As such, it should not successfully be attractive to the world as many Churches try to make it (however, the opposite–that which is unattractive or boring is Godly–is not necessarily true).

All of this was going to point to a quote that I saw, but it’s deeper than I can really grasp so I won’t comment on what I don’t understand. But the above pretty much points to what I thought it meant. :p

Conviction. Compassion. Jesus screwing up my life. Again.

Crap. I hate stuff like this because it makes me aware that I have not arrived. That there is more to do still. I’m in a state of conviction (not to be confused with guilt, which is conviction’s ugly cousin) about this and about poverty in general. This just makes it feel more real and urgent. It speaks out against the lie that there is plenty of time to deal with that later (preferably when I’m rich). What if Church was like this? What if we lived like this? What if we loved like this?

I was scanning through some older posts and came across this video. This is the link to the original post that I made about it if you are interested in reading my thoughts on the matter. If not, I don’t blame you.

PS: Theresa from next door told me last night that I should change my major to French. I’m a junior and that notion is terrifying. I just might do it. If only I had courage…