ah yes . . . another year, another warm bizzle. here are two choice clips from the slide show. thanks to my codirector for sending me the link to vimeo. i hope you enjoy watching them as much as i enjoyed making them. ^__________^
:edit: i figured out how to embed my vimeos into wordpress! :/edit:
:: warning – this evening’s post is a bona fide late-night rant ::
my “theology of poverty” professor and past director of the evangelical environmental network, stan lequire, taught me this phrase. it’s taken from a strategy employed by ecologists and animal rights activists to get supporters: the prominent display of the cute, cuddly, intelligent and beautiful species of the planet on the covers of their propaganda. they know that most people aren’t gonna be compelled to save endangered animals just by displaying a patch of moss and a couple plants (and if they do, you know the plants are gonna be covered with colorful, breath-taking flowers . . . with a possible brightly plumaged bird soaring out of the branches) . . . people want to save the majestic bald eagles, the exotic and playful pandas, and the mysterious and awesome blue whales. they know that for most donors, it’s not about saving species . . . it’s about appealing to our culture’s attraction to the aesthetic, beautiful, and charismatic. and sadly, i think same thing goes with the way a lot of Christian organizations work. there are some faces that’ll make you open up your check books just a little bit quicker than others. you’ll probably find either healthy, smiling poor folk, or the 3rd world destitute pictured on the front cover of Christian aid catalogs. and you’ll probably find some adorable children too . . . but what ever the setting or people group, they’ll always be presented as innocents, meaning whatever circumstances they find themselves in are clearly not the result of their own bad moral choices (the reason children adorn their literature). and just as you’re not going to find fugly plants or parasitic tapeworms on the cover of rain forest magazine, you’re not going to see crack hypes or paranoid-schizophrenic alcoholics on the promotional material of any Christian organization. even on mission year’s website, an organization i’m still a part of, there are plenty of pictures of smiling, semi-attractive people . . . and kids.
now you know i’m not knocking ccf, or anything like that – i think programs like it are priceless . . . my mom’s going to go work for one in thailand in less than a year. but i think it’s sad that our nation’s version of Christianity has been so tainted by material capitalism and upward-mobility such that we get to choose which poor will receive aid and compassion. and the advertising powers that be know who the Christian americana will choose to “love”: the innocents. cause when it comes to people who’ve made bad choices, or have lived a life of sin even though they’ve had all the same advantages that we’ve all have as free americans . . . we write them off as losers, smelly, dangerous losers. in fact, based on the way we treat the poor, we don’t even consider them humans at all – just a bunch of projects and problems to be selectively solved. they aren’t worthy of our help, and we tell them to pull themselves up by those effing bootstraps and live better.
the church of these united states has forsaken her literal neighbor. freaking fubar. my heart is about ready to collapse from exhaustion after reading all these books in class about poverty in the united states. page after page about evils that are so deeply intertwined within our society … evils that our churches so effortlessly ignore: the divides in wealth, education, opportunity, and humanity are ever growing . . . and yet, we sit here twiddling our thumbs, waiting to dream dreams that the prophets already dreamed for us, waiting for a calling that God’s been speaking to us since civilization, doing little more than playing favorites with God’s favored. God’s going to judge us and yes, we are responsible for our own actions (and thoughts) down here on earth . . . but to boast such temerity as to pick and choose who has lived a life worthy of love and Biblical charity, as if our filthy rags mean anything, i think verges on heresy – acting like we’re God . . . shaping Him into the image we think He should be and choosing who we will love. withholding grace and kindness, and therefore rejecting God’s grace and kindness.
something in me snapped last night . . . i was exhausted from fuming over the sad, ungodliness of our nation, and i got sick of myself for my hypocrisy. i even went to bed at 9pm (about 5 hours early for me). today, i had a lot of time to reflect and pray . . . and i think God rebuked me and reawakened some passion in me that’s kinda fizzled away lately. and i think it’s because i over romanticized the urban poor and urban ministry. i expected it to be challenging, but still kind of easy and intuitive . . . i expected my neighbors to like me, immediately . . . i expected the people i was serving to be kind, polite, well-mannered, pleasant, appropriate, understand my humor and my “asian-ness” . . . i expected to be thanked and appreciated . . . and expected to live some wonderfully bohemian and justice-centered life filled with deep and delightful relationships. i made up in my mind what the poor should be like, and how i would fit perfectly into the inner-city. i’m ashamed that i was so selfish and arrogant and ignorant. Lord, forgive me for the vain rewards i was looking for here in the city. forgive me for exploiting Your people in my heart and mind. forgive me for only wanting to serve those i wanted to and for trying to do it with my own strength . . . i’m so sorry . . .
Church . . . our nation hurts more than we care to know. there are a lot of poor people out there that Christ, Himself, identifies with . . . and we choose to pass by, we choose to ignore, we choose to let remain hungry and friendless. what if Jesus was ugly? smelled of sweat and fish? hung out with weirdoes and seemed to talk to Himself? i’m not trying to be heretical here, but i think there’s a good chance that these things might have been . . . maybe reasons why He was despised and written off by so many . . . save those who were aware of their own deep poverty and helplessness.
1. NEW GLASSES
so you all know me and my ghetto self . . . my last pair of glasses started falling apart . . . but i wasn’t until both the side pieces fell off, numerous bouts of trying to super glue them back on, and finally wearing them as a “bi-monocle” for a week that i decided it was time to get some new ones. and they’re ecko. i feel so urban. ^^
aaand … $20 says that the funeral that jack went to at the end of season three was sawyer’s.
pl&h,
chris
