Friday, May 11, 2007

Pop culture poisons my soul…

I’ve been reflecting on what it really means follow Jesus and to be incarnational.
Though it’s true that Jesus became “one of us” and identified himself with most human experiences, He did not submit to the popular culture of His day. When I choose to live “missionally” in the community I live in, it’s not much a matter of becoming like the people around me in their values and lifestyle choices. Rather it’s a matter of living generously, freely and lovingly alongside people. Others don’t grow from simply seeing a mirror image of themselves, rather they grow through having a listening ear, genuine compassion and kindness. My life is a human life. Full of ups and downs, fears and dreams, mundane and amazing.

I find myself consistently poisoned by subconsciously believing & following pop culture.
Though I’ve never considered myself beautiful and often craved beauty in the popular sense, it has never been as much a struggle for me as now that my body is stretched and “marred” by experience, by use. Why do I struggle to view these scars as beautiful? It’s because I buy into the belief that outer “perfection” brings happiness. I buy into the belief that my husband needs a picture perfect model to make love to; that I need to smell like Paris Hilton rather than baby powder; that I should turn heads in the street.

I’ve been meditating on a phrase that John the Baptist said about Jesus:
“He must become greater & greater, I must become less & less.”
At the heart of popular culture is the opposite “I must become greater & greater, others must become less & less.” Maybe we cringe at the statement, but how often do our lives reflect the second phrase, not the first?

When I seek first my own happiness, happiness eludes me.
Maybe that’s why God said “seek first My kingdom”. It’s an upside down kingdom that elevates the innocent, inexperienced, poor, wretched, humble and despised.

As I thought about this I was shocked by how much western Christianity often reflects popular culture more than Christ. Oh it’s thinly veiled by pious words… “delight yourself in the Lord”…. IN ORDER TO GET “the desires of your heart”. When we reflect on how much Jesus “loves us & wants the best for us” at the expense of the other things that He said, we’re simply putting a fish sticker on a million dollar Mercedes. Jesus said “woe to the rich”. Yet we think Rich? Yeah – you’re going down Tom Cruise and forget that Jesus was speaking to people whose riches paled in comparison to ours.

Another curse of pop culture I think is choice. We can choose who we talk to, who we ignore, what job we do, whether we drive, ride or walk. We can choose to change partners every few years, upgrade our possessions regularly, travel to new countries.
Why I think it’s a curse is because we’ve forgotten the value of endurance, faithfulness, simplicity. A little while back Josh & I watched a simple movie about a Mongolian family… people who still live in tents, still raise what they need to live on, whose circle of influence extends as far as their family & a small community of people. Are they any less valuable in God’s sight? Are their achievements any less than ours?
I’ve been meditating on the often used expression “when Jesus was on the cross He had my face in His mind”. Slowly I’ve begun to question that. Where does it indicate this? Yes it’s true that Jesus is God & God is powerful enough to think of and maintain all the billions of human beings at all times. Yes it’s true that God has a deep love for each of His created beings. Yes it’s true that Jesus’ life, death & resurrection free us from being under a curse of not knowing God’s love. But was Jesus focused on ME as He died? Do any of the few words He spoke show that? He was still human, still focused on those around him, those who crucified him, his mother and His Father that He committed His Spirit to.

Perhaps we like to imagine Jesus’ final thoughts being about us as an individual. But considering the communal nature of God I find it far more likely that His thoughts weren’t about how great Melody’s life will be if I do this. Perhaps we need to explore further the fact that God loved the WORLD so much that he gave His only Son and spend less time substituting our own name in every verse that promises God’s love.

I know that the first to speak often sounds right until someone else offers another view. So putting these thoughts on a blog opens me up, in humility, to the thoughts of others.
Mel

7 Comments:

At 12:01 pm, May 11, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Melody you are one of the most beautiful women I know. It's strange how beauty has come to mean something so plastic, when real beauty is well, real. Who a person is in a wholistic way, not just their measurements. Plus you're insightful and have a gorgeous smile :)

 
At 5:19 pm, May 11, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey mel,
wow, great post! there's so much there to digest and think over. You're beauty is amazing (inside and out) for the record, you're gorgeous! As women I think we will always struggle to be content with our looks as the world is becoming increasingly more plastic and drivn by physical perfection, a horrible thing.

You're thoughts on the individual versus the whole were thought provoking aswell! I've always struggled with that idea, especially in a lot of books these days that do tend to focus on having your individual needs and wants met and things such as having a love affair with Christ. The he's in love with you and you should be in love with him, all of that. It's pop psyche that's popular in like couselling and things that the church has adopted to bring people in to the church - another means of attracting them.

I have no problem with people feeling special and needs being met etc but I agree with the communal thing. I find a lot of versus in the bible that are used, focusing on the individual, were actually spoken to a whole country, nation or tribe of people in the bible, not individuals as such. Interesting stuff.

Love to catch up sometime soon!
Love Amy.
xoxxo

 
At 8:38 pm, May 11, 2007, Blogger emma said...

cool blog girl. love what u said at the end to. about so much of what is said in the bible is communal. God is more communal than we think. coz we are so individualistic these days and thats what is everywhere, all about you stuf... we read the bible thru individualistic eyes and not communal eyes.

was talking to my house mate the other day about this stuf actually and how the church even takes teaching and promises out of the old testament and makes them individulualistic or even to the church today when it actually has nothing to do with us/church. its for israel. and we should be looking at it for us today to see Gods character and who He is. thats what that stuf is there for. not for what we can claim and what lovey dovey stuf the Lord is saying to us.

all very interesting. good to hear your thoughts mel. hope chay is doing great. please dont listen to the world/devil's lies and think you are not beautiful coz you are stunning and i think your husband has a phenomenal woman of God!!

 
At 10:07 am, May 12, 2007, Blogger Grubb said...

Distorted Beauty

hey, just a real interesting thing to look at about distorted beauty.

amy xo

 
At 8:49 am, May 17, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

girl, you are beautiful... in every sense of the word. i like what you write and have to say, that too is beautiful. You and Josh- even with his funny ear and tat- are the most beautiful family i know, and it's a real blessing, in every sense of the word, to be able to know you guys, and spend time with you.

keep up the blogging.

 
At 4:13 pm, May 17, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

... sorry for my over-use of commas.

did you know that Gustave Flaubert spent a whole Saturday sweating over whether or not to include a comma in a sentence of his novel,'Madame Bovary' only to spend all day on the very next Sunday replacing it with a semi-colon!

just a little piece of small talk...

 
At 8:35 pm, May 28, 2007, Blogger Tim Jeffries said...

Hi Mel, lovely to see you posting!

I've got a couple of thoughts. I think others grow through more than just a listening ear, genuine compassion and kindness. There are many in the world who would agree with you that these are fine values, but Jesus stood for much more than these. And ultimately these are not enough for the kind of inner transformation that we need and God desires to see. Of course I know you know this but I thought it was something that needed to be stated explicitly, otherwise we can find ourselves in a place that is really no different to any other 'nice' person who isn't following Jesus but seeking to help others.

My fear of Josh and my wife will keep me from commenting on your beauty, but I will say that smelling like baby powder is heaps better than smelling like Paris 'freakin' Hilton. :-D

Great comment on seeking our own happiness and the kingdom of God. I think that's exactly why God said to seek his kingdom first. He knows that his kingdom is best for us and will ultimately bring a deep joy that is far better than our fleeting worldly happiness.

Your comment about our perception of who is rich is spot on. We were speaking about our wealth in relation to the rest of the world the other night at church and someone quoted the statistic that if you own a car you are in the top 2% of wealth in the world and that if you have running water you are in the top 20%. Many of us have 2 cars and couldn't even imagine living without running water!

Again lovely to read your well written words. God Bless.

 

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