movie update. reflections on life in the wild vs society

my quick movie update.

the newest have included:
It Happened One Night - this one I found to be hilarious. A different kind of humor being a movie made decades ago, but very enjoyable.
Sunset Boulevard - a second viewing, a bit Citizen-Kane-ish mixed with Dickens.

I also watched for the first time Into the Wild. Now that is one incredible movie. Depressing and beautiful at the same time. Cinematography... amazing. I highly recommend it... a good movie to think about the lure of a simple life, away from society and all its ugly trappings of competition, money, materialism, consumerism, corporate ladder climbing, bureaucracy, image, familial expectations, and gluttony of everything cheap and worthless...
This simple life is found in solitude, simplicity, and being in the wild of nature...

and yet it's incomplete. The need for community is still there... man is not meant to be alone.

My goal is to live a life in community with others, to enjoy the shared experiences, while boycotting everything ugly that is (occasionally or often, I suppose it depends on your perspective and experience) found in society - the love of money, little regard for the effect our choices have on our world, and little regard for the fragility of the human soul... there needs to be more simplicity, communality, gentleness and love...

I watched this movie with a few friends, two of whom up my hippie cred by their presence around me... and a week ago, we built a compost bin for their yard together. Community + Earth Consciousness + Holy Spirit = Doing Good Things Together with the Love of Christ. YEA!

my ipod is dead.

After traveling with me for 2 solid years all over Eastern Europe, my refurbished by hp 20GB Apple iPod has finally called it quits... It was at least considerate to wait until after I got back from Belarus to die!

Of course now if I want to buy an iPod, I pretty much can't get one WITHOUT video or over 80GB and lots of snazzy things that frankly I don't care about... and I certainly can't avoid paying over 100 or 200 dollars.... yikes! Sometimes it's frustrating when you don't actually *want* the newer technology but are forced to take it and *pay* for it.

Same business marketing conspiracy exists in the food world. I found myself eating at restaurants a lot this summer. And in America, each portion in every restaurant, whether it be a nice sit down place or the local KFC, gives you TONS of food... way more than my stomach can handle at a time. My realization was this: by giving bigger portions they can charge you more for them. So even if you don't *want* that much food, you are forced to pay for it anyway... and then by proxy, you either eat it all and buy into the American way of life of overeating and overabundance, or you waste it which is pretty normal also in the American way of thinking and life, or you try to take it as leftovers, which half the time doesn't work out well... (some things just *don't* reheat well.)

The best solutions I've come up with are either
1) Share a meal with someone else!
or
2) Stop eating out and start cooking more!

I hope to be doing more of #1 but mostly focus on #2.

on contentment.

One of the most profound effects of inward simplicity is the rise of an amazing spirit of contentment… To live in contentment means we can opt out of the status race and the maddening pace that is its necessary partner. We can shout "No!" to the insanity which chants, "More, more, more!" We can rest contented in the gracious provision of God… Think of the misery that comes into our lives by our restless gnawing greed. We plunge ourselves into enormous debt and then take two and three jobs to stay afloat. We uproot our families with unnecessary moves just so we can have a more prestigious house. We grasp and grab and never have enough. And most destructive of all, our flashy cars and sports spectaculars and backyard pools have a way of crowding out much interest in civil rights or inner city poverty or the starved masses of India. Greed has a way of severing the cords of compassion… But we do not need to be imprisoned to avarice. We can be ushered into a life of peace and serenity. With Paul we can say, "If we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content." (1 Tim 6:8)

Contentment. An elusive concept for me. An elusive concept for the mentality of most Americans. Everyone wants to climb the ladder. Move into a better home, a better job, with a better income. But me? I’m not climbing. I reckon when I return to the States, I still may never start that ascent to the Elysian fields of coveted careers and professional prosperity. I suspect such bliss would elude just as it deludes. Yet what strikes me about this piece on contentment is the connection Foster makes between it and compassion. If we are never content in our own status and standard of living, how can we genuinely think of others? Doesn’t our own discontent, resulting in reaching and grasping in greed, numb us to the harsh realities that others face outside of our “Lexus cages”? Having our thoughts consumed with consumerism, our hearts grow cold to the heat others are facing. If consumerism eats us alive, it does so by only making us our own enemy through self-absorption and never-ending selfishness.
Contentment as an expression of inward simplicity, ushering in a beautiful serenity, is what I’d like to reach and grasp for. I would even be greedy for simplicity in my heart if I could be so, if only to increase the distance between me and the possible collapse and numbing of all compassion and tenderheartedness… without which, how can I be human?

lessons from the Old impart vision for life after the New.

“The lessons of the manna were clear: trust God implicitly, no hoarding permitted, and – most pointed of all – no greed allowed. There were to be equal portions for all. The reason for equal portions is so practical: it eliminates the occasion for covetousness, jealousy, and division. And it is this principle of equality that Paul stresses so vigorously. What should the principle mean for us today? Inequity in the Christian fellowship is so blatant as to need no demonstration. Millions of our Christian brothers and sisters in Asia, Africa, and Latin America barely escape starvation – many do not escape – not to mention their lack of health care and education. Dare we sit back in our comfort and ease, debating the color of our padded pews, while this scandal exists? No, of course we must do something. But the real difficulty is exactly how to respond to the problem… For those who do not feel total divestiture is right for them, I offer three suggestions. First, we could establish as a budget policy a goal of giving as much to others as we spend on ourselves… Second, we could develop an ongoing relationship with an economically poor church… Third, we could set aside one special year as a Jubilee, in which we try to give all we possibly can to a particular work.”

Equality. Commonality. Again, we return to our theme of shared life. Foster suggests, dreams, sends out a clarion call for shared life beyond our home, beyond our closest friends and families, beyond our small groups and churches, beyond our countries… He speaks of bringing equality and shared life with those around this globe.
I remember being in a seminar on the New Testament in college. One student, an atheist, stated that he didn’t see anyone he knew following Jesus’ call to give up everything he owned to follow Him, the call Jesus made to one rich young ruler. He suggested that if he ever DID see a professed Christian doing this, giving up all their possessions, all their money, everything… to follow Jesus…. he might start to believe. Of course I can’t address this person’s heart or evaluate the truthfulness or likelihood of his claim. And of course we can talk about the danger of extremes, but I tend to want to push the envelope… Foster suggests it may indeed be God’s call on a few to live a life of poverty. That perhaps some churches might decide on total divestiture. But perhaps that is not the call of everyone. I am not sure that the followers of Jesus we see throughout the New Testament all lived lives of poverty, or truly did as that young ruler was asked to do, to give up everything they owned… all their riches, all their possessions, their entire livelihood. But isn’t it interesting that we want to justify our decisions rather than consider the possibilities that maybe we need to be a little more “extreme” in our following of Christ? When this classmate of mine made this statement, he was sitting nearby to myself. It was unmistakable to me that he looked in my direction, curious perhaps if I would say something as a response. (Everyone knew I was a believer.)
But I couldn’t. I had nothing to say. Because I thought, maybe he’s right. Maybe he has a point. Maybe believers are not giving up what we should give up. Maybe we are not living the lives we should live. It may not be poverty we are called to, a Franciscan-like life. But perhaps I have been too content with the status quo. Perhaps the entire Christian world has been too content with our wealth, our buildings, our stuff, our things. Perhaps “things” have dulled our hearts and minds.
So let’s consider, how to awaken to the extreme call for shared life, sacrifice, community spanning across borders and oceans… How can we live in a way, corporately, to share with our brothers and sisters in this world? Foster gives a few suggestions, which I find interesting. Because the problem is not in the fact of an inequality in earnings/money/income. The problem is the stewardship of those earnings.

risking legalism.

"Is it any wonder that we struggle and strain in an attempt to express exterior simplicity? Unquestionably, this enterprise is fraught with many pitfalls and dangers. But we must not shrink back from our task. We must risk the danger of legalism, because to refuse establishes a legalism in defense of the status quo. Until we become specific we have not spoken the word of truth that liberates."

The existing states of affairs should never be settled upon. This side of heaven, we must strive for something more. But what is this more? Often times, it seems to me, the more is about less. In wanting more than the status quo, I want a changed world, a changed self, a changed reality… I want less possessions and more significance, less to do and more time to savor, less damage and more healing, less superficiality and more depth, less commercialism and more creativity, less pride and more humility, less baggage and more freedom, less finger-pointing and more forgiveness, less apathy and more love.
Foster here talks about the less, the external simplicity, caring not for what the world tells you is success, happiness, or peaceful life, all wrapped in packages of dollar bills. But as he says at the end of this paragraph, we must be specific. Some may call is legalistic, but sometimes you need the rules, the discipline, before you can find your freedom to live without them. Sometimes it might be most beneficial to deny oneself as a rule, very specifically, in order to retrain how we think, act, and react to the world around us.