Advent and Zombies

What do you call it when a person dies right before they become a zombie? You know, that part right after they've breathed their last (human) breath and before they resuscitate and you have to take a pitch fork or shot gun to them. For one brief moment the (bitten or scratched) pre-zombie corpse is allowed rest, to die, and be dead. Is there a word for that moment?

Strange question for a post about Advent? We'll see.

Zombies are all the rage. If you have a Netflix account you can stream limitless hours of zombie movies and shows, many of which are made in garages but others made with esteemed actors or networks known for good writing.

If you're a Jane Austen fan you may be completely dissatisfied or (maybe) elated to know that Pride and Prejudice was given new life (pun intended) when in 2009 Seth Grahame-Smith interwove zombies into the Bennett family's story. Continuing with the Lit nerd theme, maybe you'd enjoy a zombie Haiku:

My rigor mortis
is mainly why I'm slower
and the severed foot.

Needless to say, the zombie craze is an epidemic (so punny) of vast proportions, but mostly in 1st world countries like the USA, Europe, & Japan. Why?

Like all monsters, zombies reveal our culture's deepest fears. And what do 1st world countries have to be afraid of? Do you think it's a coincidence that people often hide out in malls in zombie movies and throngs of zombies push through the glass doors to wade through merchandise to get to their prey?

On the-day-after-the-day we celebrate being thankful and content with what we have, Thanksgiving, we celebrate another holiday known as Black Friday. Of course Thanksgiving is a holiday, while Black Friday more akin to a religious experience.

Religion comes from a word that originally meant "binding" which brings to mind practices of discipline. Like all religions, a good "Black Fridayist" must have disciplines which shape people's imaginations (thus making them spiritual disciplines akin). Beginning weeks in advance as well throughout the evening of Thanksgiving (I'm thinking we should rename this day to Black Friday Eve), families spend hours reading the holy scripture: ads. Then they must expose themselves to the bitter cold elements, stand in long lines, and prioritize possessions more than people (sometimes to the point of pepper spraying or stepping on someone's face).

Of course there are other people, who turn a smug nose to those that participate in the holy feast day that pushes the market into the black. But they (me?) are no different than the shoppers. Sure one is up at the crack of dawn (or midnight) shopping while the other remains in the warmth of their bed, nevertheless they/we are the same. We are all trapped (possessed?) in this economic system of consumption. No one's more guilty then another, it's just some have the comfort of being able to afford what they want with or without Black Friday sales.

Much like a zombie stuck in a catatonic state of unquenchable hunger for flesh, we are raised by our televisions and omnipresent ad agencies to consume mindlessly with a never ending hunger for more: more stuff, more bandwidth, more entertainment, more gadgets, more cars, more houses, more decorations and lights, more of just about everything.

I'm as guilty as the person who slept outside Best Buy for 30 hours to get a deal. We all are for no one can escape the ubiquity of consumer culture.

Advent is a reminder that our hope in God's-coming-to-us isn't hope simply for the afterlife, an escape to heaven. Advent hope recognizes that in Jesus heaven is breaking into earth. In God's incarnation these two realities, heaven and earth coalesce or collide.

These two infinitely-apart spaces are being intimately intertwined. Never the same, never separate.

At hand, but not in hand.

The good news of Jesus is more than "getting to heaven when we die," it's "getting heaven into us" before we die...heaven, the place where God's will is done on earth and in us. With God's reign or will or heaven breaking into our midst, the "schemas/forms' of the world are passing away" as Paul states in 1 Cor. 7:31. Passing away. Fading.

Maybe this is what that moment in zombie movies is called when one moves or passes or fades into the walking dead. But in Jesus we find the exact inverse, so that it is us who is awakening from our media induced sleep (another word used for death) into life lived in the fullness.

May we find in this Advent season our stress fading and our hunger for more passing while we ourselves become signs of heaven on earth.

Everything is OK

Interesting indirect communication, I liked it.

And the man was very happy

For the Ooze Viral Bloggers, I am reviewing "Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess" by Will Samson. Though only 1/3 of the way through (I just began it yesterday), the parts that have stuck out the most to me is Samson's introductions to the each chapter with a midrash-like paragraph on Jesus and the "rich young ruler." I'll be posting my review in the days to come, but here's a few of the said paragraphs:

One day Jesus was walking down Main Street on his way out of town, and a rich and influential lawyer came up to hima nd asked: "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
And Jesus replied, "Give what you can to the synagogue. Ten percent is a good rule of thumb, but whatever you do, don't be a legalist about it. And make sure you have enough left over to contribute to the economy. You know, 'Give to Caesar...'"
And the man went away very happy, because that was exactly what he was already doing..

..."what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
And Jesus replied, "Become a better you. Awaken to your life's purpose. Be a good person. Eat what I eat. And vote right."
And the man went away very happy, because that sounded exactly like the kind of life he had been seeking.

...
And Jesus replied, "Great question! I've never thought of that before. Give me time to get back to you on that one."
And the man was pleased, because he really wasn't ready for any big changes at thi point in his life.

...
And Jesus replied, "Don't marry someone of the same gender, and don't allow someone you have gotten pregnant to have an abortion."
And the man went away very hapy, because he was already doing these things.

There is a War Going on for Your Mind

A Culture of Anti-Materialism

The problem with our culture of consumerism is that it leans toward the power of docetism. Consumerism is never the drive to gather and store up our goods, it is the drive to replace our current goods with something else. Consumerism in essence denies material reality by always pointing beyond the product toward images and the insatiable desire to be clean, fresh, new, healthy, young, bold, smart, funny or whatever else we are told we are lacking.

Hear Rowan Williams', Archbishop of Canterbury's words (go here to listen or read in full):

'..... far from being a materialist culture, we are a culture that is resentful about material reality, hungry for anything and everything that distances us from the constraints of being a physical animal subject to temporal processes, to uncontrollable changes and to sheer accident.''

The economics of consumption are based on a belief in progress. Thus, for example, when our country and world face the first shrinking global market since WWII, we must realize that this is inevitable and necessary. Do you really believe that we can create a market that will be ever increasing, ever profitable, ever growing?

There seems to be an ontology based on the myth of progress that produces the epistemology that says we can overcome aging, dying, sickness, disease, poverty, etc. Sure these are all well and noble pursuits (obviously some more than others), but reality doesn't seem to work this way. We must work toward solutions to the above mentioned problems, not by trying to defy the reality of the world and ecological economics, but by living faithfully within the means given to us on this planet. An ever expanding market is unsustainable. Rising tides raises all boats, good for the boat owners, and drowns all boat builders.

For every summer there must be a winter, for every birth a death. The market must shrink, it must go up and down in ways that are meaningful. Shrinking is part of the ontology of earth, the seasons, the tide, the ebb and flow. Markets, governments, and people die to make room for new ones.

Other notables from Rowan Williams "Ethics, Economics, and Global Justice:"

We are delivered or converted not simply by resolving in a vacuum to be less greedy, but by understanding what it is to live as an organism which grows and changes and thus is involved in risk. We change because our minds or mindsets are changed and steered away from certain powerful but toxic myths. ...the state that promises maximised choice and minimal risk, is in serious danger of encouraging people to forget two fundamentals of economic reality – scarcity as an inexorable truth about a materially limited world, and concrete productivity and added value as the condition for increasing purchasing power or liberty, and thus sustaining any kind of market. The tension between these two things is, of course, at the heart of economic theory, and imbalance in economic reality arises when one or the other dominates for too long, producing an unhealthily controlled economy (scarcity-driven) or an unhealthily hyperactive and ill-regulated economy (based on the simple expansion of purchasing power). But forget that tension and what happens is not stability but plain confusion and fantasy. We have woken up belatedly to the results of behaving as though scarcity could be indefinitely deferred: the ecological crisis makes this painfully clear. Implied in what has just been said is a recognition of the dangers of 'growth' as an unexamined good. Growth out of poverty, growth towards a degree of intelligent control of one's circumstances, growth towards maturity of perception and sympathy – all these are manifestly good and ethically serious goals, and, as has already been suggested, there are ways of conducting our economic business that could honour and promote these. A goal of growth simply as an indefinite expansion of purchasing power is either vacuous or malign – malign to the extent that it inevitably implies the diminution of the capacity of others in a world of limited resource. Remember the significance of scarcity and vulnerability in shaping a sense of what ethical behaviour looks like.

Patience, trust and the acceptance of a world of real limitation are all hard work; yet the only liberation that is truly worth while is the liberation to be where we are and who we are as human beings, to be anchored in the reality that is properly ours. Other less serious and less risky enterprises may appear to promise a power that exceeds our limitations – but it is at the expense of truth, and so, ultimately at the expense of human life itself. Perhaps the very heart of the current challenge is the invitation to discover a little more deeply what is involved in human freedom – not the illusory freedom of some fantasy of control.

Lent & Globalization

Lent is a refreshing time, refreshing in the sense that we are driven back, reminded, and disciplined toward that which gives us life: God. Traditionally, Christians practice a certain discipline that removes one activity, not because it is necessarily "bad," but because that activity or thing distracts us from the real source of abundant life. Fasting gives us time to feast, as WWJE (What Would Jesus Eat) reminds us here and here,

Lent always awakens my imagination. What can or do I need to fast from? What would be meaningful? What can I focus or feast on: prayer, Bible memorization, service? Much of my thought as of late as been on economics, consumerism, and globalization. Today I thought, "what would it look like to fast from globalization, and what would I feast on?"

In case your unsure what that -ization word means, here's Gerald Daly's definition that sums it up well: globalization "is characterized by the concentration of economic control in multinational firms and financial institutions, worldwide networks of production, exchange, communication and knowldge, transnational capital, and a freer flow of labor, goods, services, and information."

So, as I was pondering what it would look like to fast from the above, I thought...it's inescapable. I can't fast from globalization, it's not simply a personal choice but rather a national way of doing life. I could not buy any new consumer products and buy all my food local, but realistically this is not disengaging completely from globalization. All my past commodities, my car, the house I rent, the clothes I wear, the roads I drive on, the places I shop, the building I work in, everything has been produced my the grand narrative of globilization.

Driving this narrative is the myth of progress. With the crises of ecological disasters, global economic breakdown, exclusion of the poor, and the rise of conflicts because of resources we've seen that "progress" is unsustainable. Our markets, businesses, churches, communities, the "American Dream' is about sustaining the unsustainable all for the myth of progress.

As my Lenten reflection has lead me, the solution to globalized progress cannot simply leave behind the system, it's inescapable. Even my quest for a solution is driven by the narrative of progress..."what's next, how do we solve this problem?"

Maybe the recent economic meltdown is a reminder of how life actually works, not in progressive steps but in seasons, cyclical seasons of life and death, joy and pain, ups and downs. A civilization, a global village cannot exist on a story that does not embrace life through death, but rather does all that it can to ignore death, aging, and anything non-young.

My Lenten reflection leads me to think that solutions to globalization and a culture of progress cannot be as simple as "dumping" the system, but must provide real world answers in real world economics. This may mean compromising for the best possible solution at the time. Whatever it means, it means feasting on a God who invites us into seasons, Lent, Advent, Death, Resurrection. Truly the only way to live alternatively is to live within a different narrative, thus for Lent we should fast from progress and feast on reality.

Everything is Amazing yet Nobody is Happy

Comedy seems to one of the amazing ways of truthtelling.

Rohr & It's Just Emerging

If you are not already listening to the HomebrewedChristianity podcast, then you should subscribe today. These two guys, one a friend from my days as a Crusader at UMHB, interview on a regular basis important and wonderful Christian thinkers like Phyllis Tickle, Walter Brueggemann, John Dominic Crossan, Brian McLaren, Leron Shults, Richard Rohr, John Cobb, etc.

Recently, they interviewed Rohr on contemplation, activism and the emerging church. I enjoyed the interview and Rohr's articulation. There was one statement though that Rohr made that struck me wrong. In his reflection on the emerging church, he says:

"this mentality is emerging simultaneously, in many places...this tells me that this has to be the work of the Holy Spirit because there's no one angrily creating a reform or a schism or an attack, it's just emerging" (emphasis added).

The disconcerting tone here is the naivety Rohr interprets this movement of traditions being willing to listen and open up to one another to find truths within each one in the Christian tradition. The lack of a central authority or place does not equate into a inexplainable movement of the Spirit that just happend. Certainly we are struggling to articulate terms and concepts to understand the changes in our world: postmodern, globalization, etc, but there are sociological, philosophical, and economic predicates determining the human condition. His statements seem to create an unhealthy perspective that singles religious life separate from the culture and globalization.

Why harp on this? It's not because I do not like Rohr or the emerging church, but exactly the opposite. This all goes back to a post from a few weeks ago on the commoficiation of the church. With the fear that I too am going to be overly simplistic and narrow, I feel that the single strongest influences on the formation of our culture and thus spiritual communities/people are consumerism and commodity fetish. The results of this culture are both positive and negative. Much of the emerging church movement can be understood through these lenses of commidification.

I'll be following up on these ideas, but whatever the emerging church is, it can not simply be boiled down to a statement that it's just happening because of the Spirit.

Eucharistic Anticonsumption

If in consuming the Eucharist we become the body of Christ, then we are called, in turn, to offer ourselves to be consumed by the world. The Eucharist is wholly kenotic in its form. To consume the Eucharist is an act of anticonsumption, for here to consume is to be consumed, to be taken up into participation in something larger then the self, yet in a way in which the identity of the self is paradoxically secured.

-William Cavanaugh, Being Consumed.

Advent draws Nigh

Organic? Smorganic.

Along with "perfect storm," "waterboarding," "wordsmithing," and other such overused words, "organic" made an appearance on Lake Superior University's "2008 List of Banished Words."
Look I agree that being "green" and buying "organic" are good things, but come on, you can get organic t-shirts and shoes! Not that I don't think we should be taking steps toward making our lives more sustainable and healthier in the USA, heck Jesus' parents were green :)



Here's the problem I think. Being green, environmental, and even organic are ways in which we can hide behind the real problem, all the while assuaging our guilt. So what's the real problem? Consumerism: You want it? Buy it. Oh, but buy it green or organic, but still buy it.

That's why, along with my friend Adam, I'm excited about this:


You can watch a trailer and the heart of Rev. Billy on youtube.

Not that I don't struggle with stuff, technolust, and such, but until we are willing to honestly deal with the greater issue of consumerism then being organic and green are secondary issues that we'll use to make ourselves feel better.

If you've made it to the end, then maybe you'd be up for a challenge. Click and play "Consumer Consequences" and see if the life you are living would be sustainable if everyone lived the way you do. The results may shock, anger, or embarrass you, but hopefully engender sustainable change in your life.