A Nation of Gluttons

Independence Day is just around the corner. I can already hear the fireworks that my wife and son enjoy, but which our dog, Dixie, could altogether do without. I can already hear the booming echoes of exploding rockets. I can already see the night sky filled with red trails of sizzling heat. I can already see my finger getting burned with a sparkler.
 

Most of Americans will celebrate Independence Day in some form or fashion. But what is it that we celebrate? Honestly, how many of us will gather with others and explicitly acknowledge the importance of the Declaration of Independence? Perhaps a philosopher could argue that our parties and streamers and coca cola serve as praise to the founding document of our nation. But this argument would be hard won; after all, even China has fireworks and Coke.

 Freedom is not, as someone once wrote, the right to do as you please; freedom is the liberty to do as you ought. And this, my friends, is what is missing in the USA.

Freedom has slipped into uncontrolled desire. Indeed, when a free society no longer values the twin sisters of wisdom and restraint, freedom is lost in a sea of licentiousness and gluttony.

I will not pretend to know the good and bad of all moral choices, as the categories of good and bad are now philosophically and culturally relative, which is, to some degree, necessary. The proper use of freedom is, in our postmodern culture, debated; there is no longer a fixed moral custom for our citizenry. Whether this is an asset or liability to freedom is an entirely different argument— and one that I am not inclined to entertain at this time.

However, what I will venture a judgment upon is gluttony, which is a misuse of liberty. It’s not too strong to say that we have become a nation of gluttons. From super-size french fries, super-size SUV’s, and super-size religion (insert “prosperity gospel”), we have learned to understand freedom as the liberty to do as we want, not necessarily to do what we ought.

We may continue to be the most ostensibly religious nation in the West, but I now wonder what our religious convictions amount to. Somewhere along the way we have been converted into believing that freedom is equivalent to unmitigated self-indulgence, rather than doing what we ought to do, a practice that often calls for restraint.

Patience

http://staugustine.com/living/religion/2012-05-24/hunter-camp-secret-patience

Living Outside of a Box

Do you try to box God in? Have you put God in a box to fit your own political, theological, or economic opinions? We all do it, of course; but the transcendent God is not our pawn. God does not belong to us. We belong to God.                                           

Just as God will not let us put "him" into a box he will not let us put our money into a box either. God insists that the ways we spend and give our money be integrated into our faith. To render unto God what comes from God is to offer everything for God’s use: our work, our play, our time, our money, our very selves. And when we trust God with the whole of our lives, we will experience the joyful freedom of living outside a box. 

Spitting on God's Art

I walk out of my neighborhood to a main east-west road that leads to the beach, which is four blocks from my house. I carry a black hefty garbage in my right hand, along with gloves and a 'grabber' that I use to pick up trash, which is strewn along the roadside.

The sun is mid morning high and the leather gloves are sweating. Despite the three trash cans posted along this road, some people continue to toss bottles and cans, candy wrapers, fast food bags, and cig butts. All of this litter is hiding in blades of tall green grass that border a state park and bird sanctuary.

Cardinal and seagulls fly over head oblivious to my attempts at making the earth, and our community, a little cleaner. Drivers pass me by watching from their air conditioned cars; some of them chuckle and point at me, as if I'm a elephant dancing on a ball. I continue walking, bending, picking. And then I have this thought: throwing trash in the grass is like spitting on God's art. And then I wonder, "How many of these trash-?throwers profess Christian faith? Is littering a sin against God"

CAGE FIGHTING and JESUS

I was driving and got stuck behind a bright yellow Hummer. As I contemplated the hideous gas mileage, searing color, and why anyone would need a military style SUV for in-town transportation, something else caught my eye.

On the large darkly tinted rear window were two bumper stickers. One on the left and one on the right. Both had black backgrounds with bold white letters. The sticker on the left declared, “I love Jesus.” The sticker on the right said, “I Love Tap Out,” which refers to the sport-phenomenon known as “cage fighting.”

Cage fighting is an extreme form of boxing, wrestling, and martial arts. The two combatants are literally put inside a cage and left to fight until one person is beaten helpless and must tap the floor to signal surrender. It is not uncommon for the fighters to break noses, require stitches, and be knocked unconscious. Unlike traditional boxing, the fighters may (indeed are encouraged to) strike one another while pinned to the mat. It is a spectator sport for those who lust for blood and violence.

And so you can imagine my surprise to see an “I Love Tap Out” sticker adjacent to an “I love Jesus” sticker. The two are incongruous. Try as I might, I cannot reconcile these two world views. They stand in stark contrast to one another—and the pairing of these two world views makes me sick.

FORGIVENESS

            The English playwright Oscar Wilde quipped, “Always forgive your enemies—nothing annoys them so much.”  Wilde was right, of course. Presumably, though, we don’t forgive someone for the sake of revenge, which is exactly what Wilde had in mind.                                                                         

No matter our intention, forgiveness is seldom an easy task. I suppose that’s why the world’s major religions put such an emphasis on practicing forgiveness. The “founders” of each religion or philosophy were wise enough to know that forgiveness does not come naturally and must be taught, reinforced, and taught again.                                                      

A jolting definition of forgiveness I heard came from Mark Twain who wrote, “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” Extending this metaphor, we might say that forgiveness is a form of love, the final form of love, according to the Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.                                                                            

But what exactly makes forgiveness so difficult? Why do most of us struggle to forgive people who have hurt us—or people who have hurt someone we love? Maybe it’s difficult to forgive because when we opt to forgive we opt out of blaming.                                                          

When we forgive someone, we refuse to blame the one responsible for the injury. This is not to say that we may not hold the person responsible for his or her actions. But, rather, when we forgive we excuse the offense done to us. And this is difficult precisely because when we excuse an offense we give up the power, indeed even the thought, of revenge.                                  

One of the reasons the world’s great religions underscore the importance of forgiveness is each religion understands that without forgiveness of offenses it is impossible to live a life imbued with love. The longer we harbor thoughts of revenge, the longer we seek to blame someone for hurting us, the longer we live in the grip of hate and bitterness.                                   

I recently read a story about a pastor in San Salvador who met an 11-year-old boy orphaned during El Salvador’s civil war. A few years earlier, the boy had been rescued after his family was killed right in front of him. Somehow, he alone had survived the attack.              

Since the time his family was murdered, the boy spent entire days totally withdrawn, sometimes never speaking a word. One day while the pastor was visiting the orphanage, the boy came to him and said, “Please pray for me, so that I can forgive the soldiers who killed my mother and brothers. I do not want to live with hatred in my heart.”                                                         

This 11-year-old boy was wise beyond his years. This boy somehow understood what hatred and bitterness could do to his heart.  He intuited what theologian Lewis B. Smedes once wrote: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Hunter Camp: In search of happiness | StAugustine.com

Hunter Camp: In search of happiness StAugustine.com