Halloween on Christmas
My son, Garret, went to Albuquerque with his mother recently to visit some people who are still their friends, if not mine. Truth is, as many of us know, this is one of the first casualties of a bitter divorce: mutual friendships.
Garret is 14 years old and quite the thoughtful, respectful, caring young man. In fact, I am very proud of the way he looks at the world already, and I am pleased to see shades of the person he will one day fully become. He’s weathered the divorce, and though it has been (and continues to be) difficult for him, it is admirable the way he carries himself in the face of adversity.
Well, on the way home from school yesterday he was telling me about having a conversation with the kids of this New Mexico brood, talking about things kids are want to discuss: video games, television, sports, and music. On the subject of the latter, the 9 year-old asked Garret what kind of music he liked. My son, whose music taste is varied and broad—one of his favorite songs is an old Doors classic I introduced him to a couple years back—thought about it for a moment and answered:
“I don’t know, I guess rock mostly.”
“Like who?”
“Blink 182,” Garret said.
The young boy’s eyes widened and he asked, incredulous:
“Blink 182? I thought you were a Christian!”
When my son told me the story, we actually had a good laugh. It wasn’t an atheistic overture—both of us believe in God. We laughed for the simplest of reasons: it was funny. The face my son made when recounting the tale was all it took.
(And the irony is, he mentioned several popular Christian bands he likes to these boys, none of which they’d heard of.)
Yeah, I guess it's true. We somehow overlooked the 11th Commandment:
Thou shall not listen to Blink.
On the way to work the next day I got to thinking about the strangeness of religion I’ve seen over the years, from uninformed fanaticism to outright hypocrisy, and I realized that there is nothing inherently wrong with religion, only at many times the zealots who practice it.
There is currently an investigation at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs regarding religious harassment. Turns out the Evangelical Christians are making life miserable for not just the Jews, or the Zen Buddhists, or the Muslims but—oh, Martha, say it ain’t so—yes, other Christians. Turns out less orthodox Christians are proselytized by those of evangelical faith.
What exactly is it about zealots and small-minded people that makes them think God has somehow tasked them to not only find the one and only answer (as if He would have only one) but for them to also make absolutely certain that they persecute promptly any who do not fall in line with their segregated thought? Even the Pope wrote a formal apology for the Inquisition and the Crusades.
And Mahatma Gandhi said:
Please do not flatter yourselves with the belief that a mere recital of that celebrated verse in St. John makes a man Christian. If I have read the Bible correctly, I know many men who have never known the name of Jesus Christ, men who have even rejected the official interpretations of Christianity, but would nevertheless, if Jesus came in our midst today in the flesh, be probably owned by him more than many of us. My position is that it does not matter what faith you practice, as long as the soul longs for truth.
I’ve spent the majority of my life believing in God. I also believe Jesus Christ was His son, sent to Earth to bridge the chasm between the Almighty and this lowly human race. I don’t believe it because my parents crammed it down my throat. They didn’t. In fact, they didn’t take me to church, nor did they have a particular faith.
I joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in college, and asked more questions than I answered. I have read much of the Bible, though I cannot quote scripture. I have read a good number of books on the marriage of science and the creation of the Universe. One of my favorite authors is C.S. Lewis. I teach my son to love his neighbor as himself, to always think of the other person, and to be loving and forgiving above all else.
And yet I am flawed. Flawed but hopefully not a hypocrite.
My ex-friend John in Albuquerque, who now teaches his children that the Simpsons are evil and that teenagers that listen to Blink 182 aren’t real Christians, once told us the story of how he got something for nothing. Or at least for a song:
And he wasn’t 14 either. He was a young adult, and had saved $1500 to buy some top-of-the-line Bose speakers. When he went to the store with the cash, the speakers were $1500 all right, but there was a little something he’d not counted on: sales tax. Somehow John talked the salesman into letting him write a check for the sales tax—something like $75—and was then to pay the balance in cash. Well he wrote the check and the guy cashed out the sale, with a receipt that showed he’d paid in full. The guy even helped him load the speakers, and the whole time John knew that the young salesman had forgotten the balance and he still had the wad of cash in his pocket.
Less than an hour after he got home, the guy called him and said:
“Hey, you aren’t going to believe this but I forgot to get the cash from you after you paid the sales tax with that check.”
John said:
“I don’t know what you are talking about, I have a receipt that shows paid in full.”
Later, this young guy came to John’s house, knocked on his door. He begged John to reconsider, said they both knew what had happened, that he had screwed up and not collected the money. He said he was going to lose his job, that he had a family to support.
John looked him straight in the eye and repeated:
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
The guy left and John never saw him again. And the thing is, when John told us this story years later, he still told it with pride. I asked him how he could do that to the guy, and his answer to me, even then, was:
“What? I had the receipt. What did he expect me to do?”
Nowadays John grows his hair long so that he can play Jesus in the yearly church production at Easter, raises his arms as a prophet and savior over his flock. He keeps his hair that way throughout the year, apparently not only for the pretending but also for a little bit of vanity too.
And he looks down on 14 year-old kids who listen to particular bands or who are prone to quoting the best lines from The Breakfast Club. Regardless of the character of said kids.
There is a saying that many Christians quote. They wear wristbands, put bumper stickers on their cars: WWJD?
What Would Jesus Do?
It’s not a bad question, whether you believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead or not. It’s meant to make you think about your actions, put them alongside a yardstick to see how they measure up.
Let’s face it, most of our actions would be found wanting against such standards. But I can honestly say that my core character hasn’t changed all that much over the years, and I would have given the $1500 back before I left the store.
And so would my son.
Swear that I can go on forever again
Please let me know that my one bad day will end
I will go down as your lover, your friend
Give me your lips and with one kiss we begin
—Blink 182, I’m Lost Without You
The backseat is quiet.
Garret is 14 years old and quite the thoughtful, respectful, caring young man. In fact, I am very proud of the way he looks at the world already, and I am pleased to see shades of the person he will one day fully become. He’s weathered the divorce, and though it has been (and continues to be) difficult for him, it is admirable the way he carries himself in the face of adversity.
Well, on the way home from school yesterday he was telling me about having a conversation with the kids of this New Mexico brood, talking about things kids are want to discuss: video games, television, sports, and music. On the subject of the latter, the 9 year-old asked Garret what kind of music he liked. My son, whose music taste is varied and broad—one of his favorite songs is an old Doors classic I introduced him to a couple years back—thought about it for a moment and answered:
“I don’t know, I guess rock mostly.”
“Like who?”
“Blink 182,” Garret said.
The young boy’s eyes widened and he asked, incredulous:
“Blink 182? I thought you were a Christian!”
When my son told me the story, we actually had a good laugh. It wasn’t an atheistic overture—both of us believe in God. We laughed for the simplest of reasons: it was funny. The face my son made when recounting the tale was all it took.
(And the irony is, he mentioned several popular Christian bands he likes to these boys, none of which they’d heard of.)
Yeah, I guess it's true. We somehow overlooked the 11th Commandment:
Thou shall not listen to Blink.
On the way to work the next day I got to thinking about the strangeness of religion I’ve seen over the years, from uninformed fanaticism to outright hypocrisy, and I realized that there is nothing inherently wrong with religion, only at many times the zealots who practice it.
There is currently an investigation at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs regarding religious harassment. Turns out the Evangelical Christians are making life miserable for not just the Jews, or the Zen Buddhists, or the Muslims but—oh, Martha, say it ain’t so—yes, other Christians. Turns out less orthodox Christians are proselytized by those of evangelical faith.
What exactly is it about zealots and small-minded people that makes them think God has somehow tasked them to not only find the one and only answer (as if He would have only one) but for them to also make absolutely certain that they persecute promptly any who do not fall in line with their segregated thought? Even the Pope wrote a formal apology for the Inquisition and the Crusades.
And Mahatma Gandhi said:
Please do not flatter yourselves with the belief that a mere recital of that celebrated verse in St. John makes a man Christian. If I have read the Bible correctly, I know many men who have never known the name of Jesus Christ, men who have even rejected the official interpretations of Christianity, but would nevertheless, if Jesus came in our midst today in the flesh, be probably owned by him more than many of us. My position is that it does not matter what faith you practice, as long as the soul longs for truth.
I’ve spent the majority of my life believing in God. I also believe Jesus Christ was His son, sent to Earth to bridge the chasm between the Almighty and this lowly human race. I don’t believe it because my parents crammed it down my throat. They didn’t. In fact, they didn’t take me to church, nor did they have a particular faith.
I joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in college, and asked more questions than I answered. I have read much of the Bible, though I cannot quote scripture. I have read a good number of books on the marriage of science and the creation of the Universe. One of my favorite authors is C.S. Lewis. I teach my son to love his neighbor as himself, to always think of the other person, and to be loving and forgiving above all else.
And yet I am flawed. Flawed but hopefully not a hypocrite.
My ex-friend John in Albuquerque, who now teaches his children that the Simpsons are evil and that teenagers that listen to Blink 182 aren’t real Christians, once told us the story of how he got something for nothing. Or at least for a song:
And he wasn’t 14 either. He was a young adult, and had saved $1500 to buy some top-of-the-line Bose speakers. When he went to the store with the cash, the speakers were $1500 all right, but there was a little something he’d not counted on: sales tax. Somehow John talked the salesman into letting him write a check for the sales tax—something like $75—and was then to pay the balance in cash. Well he wrote the check and the guy cashed out the sale, with a receipt that showed he’d paid in full. The guy even helped him load the speakers, and the whole time John knew that the young salesman had forgotten the balance and he still had the wad of cash in his pocket.
Less than an hour after he got home, the guy called him and said:
“Hey, you aren’t going to believe this but I forgot to get the cash from you after you paid the sales tax with that check.”
John said:
“I don’t know what you are talking about, I have a receipt that shows paid in full.”
Later, this young guy came to John’s house, knocked on his door. He begged John to reconsider, said they both knew what had happened, that he had screwed up and not collected the money. He said he was going to lose his job, that he had a family to support.
John looked him straight in the eye and repeated:
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
The guy left and John never saw him again. And the thing is, when John told us this story years later, he still told it with pride. I asked him how he could do that to the guy, and his answer to me, even then, was:
“What? I had the receipt. What did he expect me to do?”
Nowadays John grows his hair long so that he can play Jesus in the yearly church production at Easter, raises his arms as a prophet and savior over his flock. He keeps his hair that way throughout the year, apparently not only for the pretending but also for a little bit of vanity too.
And he looks down on 14 year-old kids who listen to particular bands or who are prone to quoting the best lines from The Breakfast Club. Regardless of the character of said kids.
There is a saying that many Christians quote. They wear wristbands, put bumper stickers on their cars: WWJD?
What Would Jesus Do?
It’s not a bad question, whether you believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead or not. It’s meant to make you think about your actions, put them alongside a yardstick to see how they measure up.
Let’s face it, most of our actions would be found wanting against such standards. But I can honestly say that my core character hasn’t changed all that much over the years, and I would have given the $1500 back before I left the store.
And so would my son.
Swear that I can go on forever again
Please let me know that my one bad day will end
I will go down as your lover, your friend
Give me your lips and with one kiss we begin
—Blink 182, I’m Lost Without You
The backseat is quiet.
posted by Commish at 3:40 AM
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