Long Blog #1: Spiritual Food

I've never really had a spiritual experience solely because of food. What I have had are experiences involving food, family and friends. One instance was when I was on a mission trip. It was our last Sabbath in Ecuador and we had gotten together for communion and an Agape Feast in the church we had built over the past week. We gathered around tables shaped into a big cross and ate dinner by the candle light. As we shared testimonies about how we've seen God working in our lives, we drew closer to each other as a group. It was a great night! It was amazing to see how much of their personal lives people were willing to share with people who, up until a couple weeks prior had been perfect strangers. As we were caught up in the moment, the food became an after thought. Yea, we were eating the usual Agape feast--bread, fruit and soup--but the event, as a whole, was so much bigger than the food.

In our culture, a lot of events are centered around food. You're birthday's coming up, let's go out for dinner! Have no special plans for your anniversary that's coming up in a few days? Take your significant other out to eat. Better yet, cook a romantic meal for him or her! I don't know if it's just an American thing--associating special or monumental events with food (it would explain why America has the highest obesity rate, with 30% of us being obese)--but I really can't imagine a celebration not involving food. It just seems wrong to me. Where else, other than a table, can you gather around with friends and family and talk and laugh about everything for hours? It's a comfort thing.

Because we associate food with special events, once we eat those special foods on their own, without the occasion, they seem to be elevated over other foods. They suddenly make us nostalgic, becoming a way that we can subconsciously live out a meaningful time in our lives. This could be a problem. Because when we start elevating foods to places they don't belong, we start to shift our focus off the special moment, or people, and onto the food itself. This, in the long run, could turn into gluttony. And because food is a basic necessity of life, it's very easy to become gluttonous. As long as we make the distinction of the event being what's special, not particularly the food, we won't have a problem. I'm not saying food can't be special. I'm just making the point that we've got to remember what makes it special.

Meals have become social events, something I've just come to realize since arriving at college. I mat tell myself that I'll only drop by the caf for a quick meal, but a couple hours later, I'll find myself just hanging out with friends, chatting over our empty plates. After returning to my dorm and seeing the loads of homework I have yet to accomplish, I may feel a twinge of guilt, vowing to really make it a quick meal the next time. But I probably won't. I enjoy taking the time out of a busy schedule to sit down with a friend and just laugh and talk about everything and nothing at the same time. It's very refreshing.

So, for me spiritual experiences with food can't be all about the food. It has to be about the environment, the people involved and the purpose for getting together. And of course, we all have those really long days. Days in which you can't wait to get home, curl up on your couch, and eat that bowl of ice cream. As you eat it, the ice cream melts in your mouth and your stress begins to fade away. I guess I understand how that could be an almost spiritual experience. From time to time, it's really good to have some alone time to really savor what you're eating. The caution we have to take in this is that we don't put too much emphasis on the food. That could cause us to become greedy gluttons. Instead, we need to take food for what it is: a basic necessity of life. We need food in order to survive, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying what we eat, but we need to refrain from elevating food to a place where it doesn't deserve to be--a substitute for our hunger for more satisfaction in our lives. Because when this happens, we begin to eat not only to sustain ourselves, but to fill a place in ourselves that is unable to be filled by material things. This is when we begin to waste.

Who do you interact with and why?

When I look around I notice that I like to interact with positive people. I don’t really like negativity around me and I try to make sure I’m surrounded by optimistic people that try to look at the bright side of life. When people are very pessimistic they tend to bring me down and make you feel depressed in life. I think that if you surround yourself with these types of people this can also affect your health. Studies do show that optimistic people are healthier. I think this is due to the fact that when one is depressed their body doesn’t fully operate to its max, so these type of people tend to be unhealthy or not as healthy as they could be. So being around positive people will generally make life more entertaining and fun. I like to enjoy life and don’t like it when people are constantly pessimistic, it makes life boring.

Styrofoam cups vs. regular ceramic mugs

In this class we were asked about our thoughts on using Styrofoam cups to regular mugs. Honestly, I would prefer a Styrofoam cup to a regular mug, sometimes you just want to carry a cup on the go, and you can just throw it away once you reach your destination rather than having to worry about trying to clean your mug. At the same time I know that Styrofoam isn’t biodegradable, so I would opt for paper cups over the Styrofoam. With regular mugs it would be harder to clean it on the go, and sometimes they’re a hassle to carry around. It would be best for the environment as well since you would be reusing the same cup.
I do think that buying paper cups that are biodegradable would be better than the Styrofoam cups and it could also save the amount of water one would waste rewashing the same mugs day after day. I think that biodegradable cups would be better than Styrofoam and regular ceramic mugs when dealing with the environment, but overtime it would be more expensive than just buying Styrofoam cups or ceramic mugs.

48hr Media Log

In class we were asked to write down the hours of media we were exposed to in 48hrs. For my log I found that I was exposed to about 5hrs of media over the course of two days. The days I recorded my media use was Thursday and Friday. I think that the reason my media exposure was low was due to the fact that I had a lot of school work and I had a lot of engagements to go to. I think that it is very easy to get distracted and end up turning to media and watching a program on TV.
I would find myself watching a show on my computer while I was supposed to be looking up information online. During this log I found that I could spend 2hrs easily watching a shows on my computer each day, and about an hour on facebook. I think that I didn’t use a lot of media, but if I didn’t really have that much school work, I do know that I probably would have used a lot more. It was interesting to see how little media I was exposed to when there tend to be advertisements and other media everywhere.

Church Service

(LONG BLOG 1 of 2)

Service.

The word sounds a bit stale, doesn't it?

A soldier serves his country. A tennis player serves a ball. A waitress at Chili's serves you a glass of Coke. A murderer serves a sentence in prison.



Where do you go to get gas? A service station. How about terms of service? Cell phone service. Customer service. Funeral service. Wedding service. Secret service. Postal service. National Park Service. Internal Revenue Service...and you don't want them serving you, trust me.

Or maybe this. When I picture a servant, I have the classic stereotypical image in my mind of a "butler": full tuxedo, at attention, looking like a well-aged, ripe and sexy Antonio Banderas. Or maybe an indentured servant: some poor seventeen-year-old from the mother country with freckles and a malnourished body, working as an apprentice until he can get-the-heck-outta-dodge and find himself a new career. When I think of a servant in the religious sense, maybe--just maybe--I see Jesus: Jesus, the white man in a white robe with a groomed beard and combed shoulder length hair (Jesus has very good hygeine), a towel wrapped around his arm, washing the "dirty" but still manageable feet of the disciples. Mmm.

Maybe. But that's not my first image. And why not?

I want to say it's because "service" has become so very sterile and clean and tidy. It reminds me of tax forms or hospital rooms or the government. When people say, "serve your neighbor," I think...hm. That could mean a lot of things. Awkward things.

And its strange how we've turned "church" into a service, too. Just like the weather service or the postal service, its a "church service" that we attend on Saturday (Sunday) mornings. Many Adventists go to church embracing this attitude of filling up the tank for the week: getting their weekly worth of hymns and holiness stuffed into their little hearts and ears. In return for the sermon and their dose of spiritual supplement, the constituents offer some money here, a handshake there, a potluck dish or two (vegetarian, of course), and their valued opinions--which usually become the hotbed of Friday night conversations.

"So, do you think that rock-in-the-face had anything to do with Ellen's prophecies?"

"Her visions are from God, you idiot."

It's a catering deal: I scratch your back, you scratch mine. You come to the church, and the church will serve you. That's the attitude. And, frankly, it sucks.

OK. So before you brush me off as the worst Adventist EVER, just let me say that:

• I'm just as guilty as anyone. I'm in the boat, too. Me and T-Pain.
• I'm walking on Berrien soil here. Better watch my back.
  
• There are a lot of good things about the church that I'm not mentioning.
• "The church is like the ark. It's stinks something awful, but if you leave it, you drown."
  
• I believe Ellen White was a lady of God, but I'm a tad skeptical of her writings.
  
• I'm too cynical - working on that.
  
• I know I'm overgeneralizing things. Mostly.
• Some people might find this offensive. That's not my intention.
  
• I suck at being diplomatic.
• And I should probably take into account the whole Romans 14 thing. But I want to vent. Publicly. And these things NEED TO BE SAID. At least, I feel that way.
  

Disclaimers aside, I think that the modern church (both the SDA institution and the whole enchilada--that is, the Christ-following body of believers) has a twisted, narcissistic view of service. Our culture has rendered service to be an act of utilitarianism and employment: you serve, therefore, you get a paycheck. You serve, therefore you deserve.

Even more harmful, most of the time, the service rendered is emotionally and mentally detached. When we serve people outside our tight-knit (Adventist) social circle, the service is too often devoid of love. It is without connection, without soul - without face or name.

This is very serious.

For service without love is nothing more than a gas station. It's nothing more than a spiritual tax write-off. SERVICE SANS LOVE is a clanging symbol. It's just noise. You can donate all the money you want...to all the charities...in the Ronald Reagan "trickle-down" I-get-rich-so-you-can-get-off-the-streets sense, but it doesn't do a lick of difference to further the cause of Christ without LOVE. This is because people don't need more money, they need more love.

I would say if TRUE COMPASSION was the driving source behind helping out your neighbor, then service would look a whole lot differently. It would look like family helping out family--instead of a fast food job, instead of a lock-and-load, hit-and-run, one-time-only event. Imagine if we actually liked the homeless people we were feeding. Imagine if we liked talking to them and were genuinely interested in their well-being, instead of patting ourselves on the back for a Matthew 25 job well done. Imagine if we actually loved the people in the pew next to us--and knew their names, asked their stories...knew their favorite foods and their favorite songs, to know the things that move them to tears. Church would be a beautiful place of friendship and family. It would feel like home, because people want to know who you are at your core, and they want to love you with all they have. That's what all of us cry out for, in the innermost of our broken souls: to be loved by other people and to be loved by God. We want a place to be safe and secure. We want a place of refuge from the scrutiny and anonymity and the judgment outside. We want community--dangerously vulnerable community--full of grace and love and tension, the stuff of beauty and the stuff of songs and the things that prop up our very hope in God.

But church is no refuge. Not now.

Without love, the church is a country club. It's a membership. It's a weird fraternal organization. It's a business, with plastered smiles and nice suits, good haircuts, and mounds upon mounds of sober, thick judgment--slow to love and eager to fix. And we wonder why people aren't standing at the doors, begging for seats in our cold-floored, cold-hearted sanctuaries. We wonder why the kids stop going to church. They find something more exciting than Friday nights in youth groups--and without an emotional connection, they have nothing to mourn. No love, no reason to stay.

Today, church is a show. It is a program. It is a service(!) Complete with lights and sound and words on the screen, a good motivational talk, and minimal--yet oh-so-very strange--social interaction.

For this reason, I say our ideas of service are royally screwed, and I mean that in the most polite way possible. The prompt for this blog asked, "Is giving money to an organization enough, or is there intrinsic value in helping out other people yourself?" In response, I would suggest that there is plenty good done with redirecting cash flow toward groups of people who have means and methods to help. By all means, give money! Volunteer! What better is there to do with your time? However, just because you knock off a tenth of your income and mail it to OxFam doesn't mean that your soul swells with the purpose and spirit of true, Jesus-like service. And just because you dirty your hands in a soup kitchen doesn't mean that your heart beats with compassion and love for your neighbor, either.

Service should never come out of a place of obligation--whether direct obligation or sublime, guilt-trip-like persuasion. When it is, it too often looks like a charade. We are performing an act of love without the love. We become Hollywood actors and actresses in front of our church members and in front of the people we are helping. Do we think that people are so stupid that they can't tell our motivations? Far from it. They know what they're being served. They know what we're dishing out to them--fake compassion and fake friendliness--from a bunch of hoity-toity Bible slingers who don't drink and don't cuss and think they're the healthiest and holiest bunch of people since the pope. They think we're hypocrites and we're fakers. They think that we think we are better than them. This is what happens when we "serve" people in the name of Love, and have not love.

True service only stems from true compassion and care and humility. It comes from admitting we are just as effed-up as everybody else....and that we have addictions, closet sins. That we battle demons and lose. That we hold on to wounds and barely keep it together. That we're sick of our jobs, our churches, of human experience in general. That we don't hear God when we pray, that it hurts when people play pretend church. That we get annoyed, and frustrated, and angry, and that death and sickness rips us to pieces. Only then, from acknowledging our human commonality, embracing the tears and the laughter together, that we can eat at the same table comfortably. I think this is where Jesus is and where love abounds. For the sick and mentally ill, we find Christ in them. For the addicted and broken, we find Christ lodged in their suffering. For the poor and the starving, Christ's stomach is writhing and distended. For the oppressed, Christ hangs on a lonely, splintering tree. The story becomes clear, why Christ had to suffer and die, in light of the brokenness and darkness we are closed inside.

And because his heart bleeds when a soul suffers, so should our hearts bleed. For that is what it means to love others.

Media Log

(Sorry this is posted late!) That week was a really busy time for me, so these two days I really didn't have as much media as I'm generally exposed to. Still, here are the last two days of that week:

Thursday the 19th

Websites: 

- Facebook (frequently - I averaged about 8 times a day)

- Twitter

- Washingtonpost.com

- Andrews email

- joshreads.com

Movies/Television

- The Office (playing a friend's room)

- So You Think You Can Dance (my roommate was watching it. I wasn't really paying attention. Do you think the subliminal messages got in, anyways?

Music (by artist)

The Monkees

They Might Be Giants

Coldplay

Weezer

The Magnetic Fields

frankie big face

Norah Jones

Friday the 22nd 

Websites (basically the same. call it a ritual?):

- Facebook

- Twitter

- Washingtonpost.com

- Andrews email

- joshreads.com

- postsecret.com

- yahoo.com

xkcd.com

Magazines:

- The Adventist Review

- Newsweek 

Television Shows (seen in the rooms of various friends):

- House

- How I Met Your Mother

- America's Next Top Model

Music:

- Simon and Garfunkel (copious amounts. I declared it Simon and Garfunkel day, so that's basically all I listened to.)

-The John Benjamin Band

- The Magnetic Fields

- They Might Be Giants

- A bunch of artists my friend was playing in her car who I had never heard of. (Sorry!)

So I guess while I'm at college, the best way for advertisers to reach me is through music, and the next best way to reach me is to reach my friends, since I just listen to and watch whatever they listen to and watch.

Project

I think this was supposed to be posted, but it probably went past some length parameters or something, so I'm going to post a link.

Evangelistic Advertising in the Seventh-day Adventist Church

By Theron, Arianna, Jo