Monthly Archives: October 2011

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Is He-Man The-Man?

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I try to read opinions that are different than mine. At first that sounds really noble, but then you ask me why I do it, and I might tell you it’s so I can note how irrational those other views are compared to me. So not that noble.

Anyway, I was fiddling around on the internet the other day, and I came across this from Pastor Mark Driscoll:

One of the reasons I believe we [Mars Hill Church] were named [as a place to meet singles] among such places as gyms, bars, and (naturally) dog parks—there are more dogs per capita in Seattle than kids—is because we tend to verbally beat boys who can shave (men who are adults chronologically but kids in terms of responsibility) like drill sergeants. The ones who don’t leave to blog about their hurt feelings tend to stay, grow up, man up, and eventually get married to a nice gal who would like to have babies but does not want to be married to one.

I usually ignore Mark Driscoll. It makes my life easier, and certainly, he has said things stranger than the above quote. I have never had dinner with Mark Driscoll. I have never had coffee with him or lunch or any other sort of social meal. But I have the strong suspicion that he would make fun of me if we did meet. That hurts my feelings and makes me want to blog.

Is this not a man?

Is this the only type of man?

A long time ago, I had a project where I was trying to figure out what manhood meant. How did boys become men? What I discovered on that journey is that there is a social process and an inner process. In the social process, manhood is judged on these outside things (which are all really silly socially constructed arbitrary goals), but in the inner process, we learn how to respect ourselves and develop a cool self-confidence. That’s not really unique to men, though; that’s how girls become women, too.

I don’t know. I think I fear sometimes that we are going to limit what being a man means. Why can’t a man talk about his feelings on his blog?

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Usin’ Some Grace Colloquially

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I wrote this piece for my school newspaper. It got relatively good feedback. My friends enjoyed it. People I didn’t know enjoyed it. I should have counted that as a success. But I didn’t. The one, loud, glaring piece of feedback is a comment someone posted. The commenter accused me of using too many exclamation points (maybe I did, so what!) and too many colloquialisms (I use colloquialisms on the reg so whatevs). Those are facts. I did use more exclamation points and more colloquialisms than normal journalism usually allows. But he went further. He said these things damaged my credibility and that the piece sucked. Downer.

I got angry at first. I wanted to respond to his comment and tell him he was really stupid for thinking all of that. In my daydream, other people came to my rescue, too. They lauded my response and ridiculed him and basically verbally pummeled him. Obviously, this was not a healthy place to be.

And then I got to thinking. I do this all of the time. I criticize things that I have no right in criticizing. For example, I was recently reading this best seller, and I just wasn’t jiving with the writing style. I got to this point where I was thinking that this piece was objectively bad writing. But obviously, it’s not. It was a bestseller. Thousands of people love it. I just want my own opinion to be justified on an objective basis, and that’s balderdash.

I have a friend who gets to work with famous people regularly. A week or two ago, a group of us was all really excited because she got to meet a celebrity we all really admire. Turns out, this celebrity wasn’t all that nice to my friend. And we were all really disappointed when she told us. But my friend pointed out that she only got to interact with the celebrity for a couple of hours. So maybe the celebrity was having a bad day or a bad week or was going through something hard or was disappointed in the ticket sales. None of those things really justify being mean or rude, but at least they humanize the whole thing. We can identify with people who are mean because they are distracted by other things. That makes sense to us.

I guess my point is that we hardly ever know the full story. What that kid who commented on my piece doesn’t know about me is that I have a disease that makes me use too many exclamation points (not true). And maybe the author of the bestseller I was reading was really influenced by her editor and publisher. Maybe they made her cut her story into nothing but plot and dialogue.

For the brave ones: when did you judge or criticize someone too quickly?

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I Wish I Went to High School with Isaac

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I don’t talk to many of my friends from high school anymore. It’s a bit of a shame because they are all really cool people, and they would all probably be a really good influence on me. Most of them are all super responsible, routinely get to bed before midnight, and know what they want to do with their lives.

I do this thing, though, when I am having a bad day. I cyber-stalk all of my high school friends. I do it because it makes me feel worse about myself. It’s the same line of reasoning that makes girls watch chick flicks right after they have been dumped. My high school friends are all incredibly put together people who are mindful enough not to be internet downers. It’s probably not true that their lives are perfect (because no one’s is) but that’s the way it seems to me.

It’s all really self-indulgent and annoyingly embarrassing that I do all of this.  I probs shouldn’t even be sharing it with you.

Anyway, I was reading some Genesis the other day. And I got to the part where Isaac meets Rebekah for the first time. A little background for you:  1. Isaac was 40 years old when he wedded Rebekah. I’m not sure how the whole maturing into adulthood thing worked in the Bible because, you know, people were living to be 175 and stuff, but we have that whole movie The Forty Year Old Virgin. That movie is funny because it is absurd to think that someone so old would be a virgin.

2. Isaac didn’t know Rebekah was coming. Abraham (Isaac’s father) sent his servant to find his son a wife.

So for over fifty verses leading up to the meeting, the narration has been focused on Rebekah. We don’t know what Isaac is up to. And the first mention we get about him is this:

Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. (Genesis 24:62-3)

Isaac was meditating when Rebekah came! He wasn’t worrying that as a forty year old he was doomed to be alone. He wasn’t stressing out about if he was ever going to get married. He wasn’t waiting for a wife. He wasn’t cyber stalking his friends and self-indulgently comparing himself to them. No, he was meditating. He was spending time with God. He was enjoying a beautiful evening.

I think I should be a bit more like Isaac.