Heresy of the Month

A Novel Idea

OK, the title of this post is extremely lame.  I'll give you that.  However, my daughter, Grace, and I have decided to write a novel together!  We are going to take on this challenge  as part of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), celebrated throughout the world in the month of November.  We figure that some people spend time with their kids doing projects, camping, building models, or taking up some kind of crafty hobby.  Grace and I like to golf together in the summer, but it is getting far too cold in Northern Wisconsin to do that.  Not to mention, we are both far too cynical to scrapbook (still working on that in me, but healing only goes so far).  So, what's left?  We will write a novel in a month!

How do we take this on?  Well, we have to write a full first draft of a novel of at least 50,000 words.  The emphasis is on "first draft".  It will be incredibly fun, because we can just go crazy and write.  Grace has a whole journal filled with character sheets and plot ideas.  We've made the decision to have her keep those for future novels of her own.  We want our novel for NaNoWriMo to be "ours", all fresh and brand new.  We will create new characters and see where they go!

Not only will it be fun to spend time with Grace, but she is also an extremely creative and brilliant child.  She has known since the age of 4 that she wants to be an author as an adult.  Both of my other kids have been fairly normal in that department.  Maggie, for example, wants to be a professional roller skater, cheerleader, and brain surgeon, all at the same time.  That is normal kid stuff.  I wanted to be a fighter pilot, astronaut, astronomer, and hitman.  Kids bounce from idea to idea.  Not Grace.  She has always known, and has stated boldly, that this is what she wants for her life.  She has tinkered with fashion design, visual art, acting, and other things, but she has known from the start that those would not rise above the level of hobby.  It will be exciting to see what comes out of that mind, when we sit down to write.  I wish, as an adult, that I would possess her level of focus and drive.

Grace wrote a short story for class this past week.  I think it's really good!  I did not steer it in any way, other than to do a line edit for grammar and punctuation.  I made a couple of small, structural suggestions, but she ignored most of my offerings.  She was bound and determined to write HER story.  So, I got her permission to share it with you.  Remember, as you read it, that she is 12.  It's not that I think my readers would be mean to my daughter.  I think it makes the story all the more remarkable!  When I was 12, my areas of focus were: trying to grow armpit hair (to look more manly in the locker room) and girls.  I wasn't writing stories like this.  So here it is:

♦ The Curse♦

by Grace Sergott

     The man rushed home through the woods, smelling the sickly sweet smell of blood in the air. Then, suddenly, there was an ear-piercing shriek. "It's probably just those kids playing by the mountain again," the man thought lazily to himself, "I'm too tired to check on them now."

     The next day, the same man walked through the dirt and leaves to the place where he heard the screaming. There he saw it - the skull. That was all that was left of the girl now. The man picked up the skull with his bare hands and examined the cold, rock hard surface. On the skull, behind where the right ear had been was a darker, diamond-shaped spot. The man walked over to the place where the other skulls sat in order.

      Yes, this had happened before. Three other times actually. The man placed the skull down and started to walk away. Then he smelled blood in the air. He realized that it was his own blood being drawn out of the heel of his foot, in the same shape as the mark on the skull. The man tried to run, only to realize that he couldn't move anymore. He started fattening and fattening and turning more circular. He slowly started to turn to stone starting from the tips of the toes up. His last thought was, "The Curse." Then he was dead.

      Everyone in town knew what happened. They all wondered, "Who will be the next skull?" Well, now six years have passed since then. Considering that the curse has been happening every 3 years, it means that there has been another skull. In fact, she was my mother, Elsabeth Claranette Miller. The man in the beginning was my grandpa. I don't remember his name anymore.

      My sister and I are named after our mom...in a way. My Grandmother on my dad's side was named Lynn, and my maternal grandmother's name was Belle. Well, my mom wanted something original for our names, so she crossed them. My older sister is Clarabelle Lily Miller, and I am Lynnette Elsabeth Miller. My sister and I share a house. Our dad doesn't live with us anymore. He travels a lot. The curse has killed a lot of the members of my family: Mom, grandpa, and an older brother, whom I never met in person. My mom was a skull, my grandpa was a rock, and my brother was a rock too.

     I wake up in a groggy blur from my early morning nightmares. I thump down the stairs, still all dazed, and start to make breakfast. First the pancakes and the sausage. Now the coffee. Then there is a rustling noise. I glance towards the ceiling. No, not Clara. I look into the hall and let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding. Just the mail. I shuffle over in my furry moccasins and my bathrobe, clutching my coffee mug in my hands. I grab the mail then walk back into the kitchen to sit down and read it. I flip through the assorted papers: Yellow Charlotte News, junk postcards from dad, the x-rays, more stupid postcards from dad...I almost spit out my coffee. The x-rays! (My sister and I had gotten scanned to check if either of us were cursed.)

     Grrr. I promised her that I wouldn't open them without her!  I start up the stairs to wake her up, when I realize that I had a perfectly good baseball bat by the broomstick.(No, I am not planning to hit her with the bat; that would be mean.) I set my coffee down on the hard wooden table and get the bat. I raise the hard metal surface to the ceiling above my head and start hitting the wooden beams with the bat. Thump, thump, thump!!! I only stop, when I hear Clara rustling around in her bed. She comes thundering down the stairs, her black hair looking like a birds nest, her bright blue eyes looking wild. She looks crazy for a second, then, realizing its only me, calms down.

      "What is it?" she demands.

      "X-rays. Couldn't wait any longer." I reply calmly.

      "Oh well then you could of just said so," she mumbles.

     We sit down and start to eat. I take a bite of the sausages, the hot juice from the meat squirting out from under my tongue. I watch as she carefully open the envelope, her hands shaking violently, as she does it. Clara slips the papers out, glances at them, then bursts into tears. I snatch the x-rays from her hands and look at our skulls. Yes, we are both cursed. And, yes, the next skull time is soon. I flip my black hair back into a messy ponytail and look into her blotchy eyes with my piercing blue ones.

     "Cheer up," I say, "it will be all right."

     I say this knowing, deep in my beating heart, that it won't be okay. The rest of the day goes by in a blur. After our dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, we clean up and get ready for bed. Clara, who is still in shock and hasn't said a word since seeing the x-rays, climbs into bed quietly and goes to sleep.

     "Tomorrow is Halloween," I thought to myself.

      I wake up in cold sweat from another nightmare. I get up and do the same routine as every other day. I get the morning paper, make breakfast and coffee, and then wake up Clara. She still isn't talking. The day basically goes the same as the day before, until the evening, when we have trick or treating. In case you're wondering, we decided to trick or treat, because we feel this our last chance together. I tie my red silk cape around my neck and pop in my plastic fangs. To complete my costume, I tie my hair back with a red ribbon. Clara and I are both going as vampires for Halloween. She gracefully walked down the stairs looking like my mirror image. She walks over quietly and ties her hair back just like mine.

     "Things will never be the same, will they?" she asks quietly.

     "No, I don't think so. Let's make this moment last." I respond.

     After walking around in the cold for what seemed like hours, I turn to Clara to ask if she wants to go home. She isn't there. "where could she be?" I think to myself. Then I see her. Walking away from the houses and towards the mountain. I drop my bag of candy and go after her.

      I run frantically through the woods after her. Suddenly I smell the bittersweet, copper smell of blood in the air. A bloodcurdling scream pierces the night. I run faster. I am so close, now, that I can hear the trickling of the water in the creek by the mountain. I see her. There is a mark getting engraved onto the palm of her hand. The mark... Oh no! I need to stop this! I make a split-second decision and run for her. I leap at her and push her into the creek, plummeting into the creek after her. Splash! I grab onto her and start letting the current carry us away.

      We are almost back to the village now, so I climb out with her in my soaking wet arms. I see her open her eyes and gaze blurrily into mine for a second. Then, she is gone. Her whole body disappears.

      "My sister, the last victim of The Curse."  Suddenly an overwhelming sadness overcomes me, as if there is a black hole in my heart vacuuming all of the happiness out of my life. I find a rock and mark the place where she died. I am so cold, drenched from head to toe. All of my efforts were for nothing.

      I took a minute to think of all the fun we had together; sipping hot cocoa by the fire in the middle of winter, having picnics on a bright summer day, jumping in leaf piles, laughing, and playing in the puddles left from the sheets and sheets of rain. Clara always believed that no matter how hard it poured or how bad things would get, it would always get sunny again. I am pretty sure I have found an exception. So much misery. I walk a couple feet, then collapse in sadness and in pain, waiting for my life to make sense again.

                         7 months later.....

     As I walk home along the gravel path, I take a deep breath, smelling the crisp scent of a bright spring day. It is May 1st, what would have been Clara's birthday. I celebrate in my home, by myself, for her. That night when I go to bed, I don't have any nightmares for the first time since Clara death. The next morning, I get up willingly, sensing another beautiful spring day. I walk through the town just desperate to be out of the house for once.

      As I walk home, I catch a flash of black hair running into the woods. Then, as I curiously follow the black silk with my piercing stare, I see that it is a person. The figure turned around to look at me, obviously wanting me to follow, with my same piercing cold-blue stare. I run after the mysterious girl, not even pausing to think that I may just be hallucinating. But something tells me that I'm not. She is real! She turns around to look at me again, this time with loving eyes. The only person who ever looked at me like that, the only person who I so desperately want to be here is...

     "Clara?" I choke out in complete shock.

     The girl nods with tears in her eyes, joyous tears, as she shows me the palm of her hand. There is a diamond-shaped scar there. It is my sister.

          THE END

 

I copied and pasted that exactly as written.  As I was reading it again, I noticed that she also ignored some of my punctuation and grammar corrections.  You know what?  I love that!  She actually argued with me on a few of them.  Her arguments were based on different stands like: "I don't care what the rule is.  I did it for effect!"

She was willing to fight me, so she will do just fine in the future, protecting the integrity of her work from the sometimes-destructive work of publishing editors.

What I love most is that she doesn't care that there are rules.  She will have to submit to some curbing, but I want her to keep that attitude.  She has an innate ability to communicate, and she is reckless and ambitious in that.  It's as if she has nothing to lose.  That makes her dangerous.  She has just enough vocabulary and communication ability to be a threat.  The rest, she is free to make up as she goes.  I love that about my girl!  I wish I had some of that hunger in my belly again.  I do feel like I'm getting that back, but I have been fairly suburban and pedestrian for quite some time, now.  I'm hoping that writing a novel with this little fireball will ignite a new fire in my belly.  After all, I have nothing to lose!

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Please feel free to leave a comment about Grace's story.  She would love that!  I'll have the author, herself, respond to you. :)  Also, tell the community here about some creative dreams you would love to pursue.  What has held you back?

If you are interested in jumping into NaNoWriMo and writing a whole novel in November, you can go to their website and sign up!  It's free!

Finally, NaNoWriMo is an effort of The Office of Letters and Light, a nonprofit organization that taps into the creative writing gifts of youth and adults all over the world.  Click on the link on the right to go to sponsor our novel writing and help kids find the joy of writing!

Counteracting the Karaoke Society

So, how do we follow Jesus in a Karaoke society?  Since I hate when writers and leaders present all of the problems without any solutions, I won't do that.  But it's not as simple as "The Four Steps to Bringing Creativity Back Into the World for Dummies".  I think our path to finding some possible solutions to this problem begins with understanding why we have the problem in the first place.

I have been reading an excellent book by Edwin Friedman, titled: "A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix".  I highly recommend the book.  It has utterly revolutionized my thinking on leadership and authority.  In the book, Friedman talks about how there is a real problem in all leadership training throughout the world.  Leaders go through all kinds of training and read all kinds of leadership books.  When they face, what Friedman calls "sabotage", they fold and surrender their authority.  That sabotage is usually in the form of actual, conscious attempts by those being led to undermine the authority of the leader.  He says that the traditional methods of training fail, precisely because they are too linear.  The leader makes a decision.  This leads to certain consequences.  Either those being led will agree or disagree with the decision.  The leader then must move forward.  People will either fall in line or they won't.  Real life doesn't work that way, and it certainly isn't linear.  In the book, Friedman says that every decision is a defining of the leader.  When the leader makes that decision, s/he becomes more defined and stands out more from the crowd.  That changes the relational dynamic between leader and others.  This change causes tension and dissonance in the person being led, because change always does that.  So, every decision is met with sabotage.  The leader, who has been trained in only in causality in leadership, then sees all sabotage as a personal betrayal.  It usually comes from the people closest to the leader, because they have more to lose in the changing of the relational dynamic.  So, not wanting to have a friendship broken, the leader crawls back into his/her hole, licking wounds, and trying to decide if it's worth it to try to ever make a decision again.  According to Friedman, it is not about cause and effect.  It is about the organic presence of the leader.  It is about the willingness of the leader to always expect sabotage from those closest to themselves, and to deal with the core fear and uncertainty that the sabotage represents.  In so doing, the leader becomes more well-defined, the decision stands firm, and perhaps the relationship grows stronger through the displayed efforts toward intimacy.

I have not finished the book, yet, but I think the problem Friedman points out is the issue that is at the heart of the Karaoke society.  We don't want people to step out and be creative, because the dynamic changes.  If an actor is repeatedly making great films, s/he will remain in obscurity, because it makes the general public begin to want great performances all the time.  That means that no one will pay to see a film like Hangover 2 ever again.  There is a vested interest on the part of the entire culture to keep creativity and real art out of the limelight and in the margins.  Raised expectations would destroy our ability to be lazy and money-hungry in our art.  So we sabotage the creative ones who start defining themselves.  We want to keep the status quo.  Really creative people force us to no longer be satisfied with the status quo.  We start to long for something greater than ourselves.  We see that we, as the human race, have the potential for much, much more.

So, how do we resist the increasingly Karaoke culture?  How do we turn it around?  Our level of success in being counter-cultural, our level of creativity and intelligent accomplishment is directly proportional to our level of risk-tolerance.  God has created us to be who we are.  EXACTLY who we are.  God made me big, loud, and obnoxious.  I've said this before, but there is a destiny for me, designed by God, that which only a big, loud, and obnoxious guy like me can possibly be the one to accomplish it.  That means God wants me to be defined as me.  God likes me.  No matter how much the larger culture wants to limit me, because I don't fit the Karaoke mold, I was made for such a time as this.  I know that being me will bring some backlash.  I expect it, and I embrace it.  When it comes from people I love, I will embrace them.  I know there is so much more that God wants us to experience in this beautiful Creation, and I refuse to settle for only what the culture tells me I can have.  I never gave the culture permission to act as a gatekeeper for me.  So, why should I allow it do have that power?

The reason why we abdicate our personal power and authority to the cuture is out of fear.  We have an obsession, especially in this country, with safety.  We want to always be safe and secure, don't we?  We want to keep our children in a bubble, so that they never get hurt and never have to work really hard at anything.  They should have what they want, their dreams should come true (according to Disney), because they are entitled to it.  As long as they fit the Disney formula, they will get it.  We want to be absolutely, positively sure that we are 100% safe on every flight we take.  We want to anticipate and manage risk.  We want fire safety, toy safety, food safety, drug safety, gun safety, travel safety, financial security, prenuptual agreements (so that even our marriages have controlled risks), internet safety, and school safety.  We want to eliminate bullies (because our kids won't ever have to face bullies as adults, so why empower them to do so now?).  We want to blame McDonalds for the obesity of our children, to blame the schools for not raising them right, and to blame school lunch programs for our kids drinking 10 cans of soda a day.  We want heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer.  We want to always control the temperature, the conditions, and the people around us.  We want to never, ever face discomfort at any point in our lives.  And, furthermore, we don't want the inconvenience of having to pay taxes to make sure we have all of these comforts.  I have news for you and for every person living in the United States: None of us gets out of this thing alive.  I promise you, regardless of how many measures you take to protect yourself, this life is going to kill you.

That's the truth!  You assume a certain amount of risk just getting up in the morning.  And, as I told the group last week, the idea of risk management is a myth.  It's fantasy.  As a matter of fact, look up risk management on Google.  You will see that almost every major published Economist has written a paper recently, saying that our current financial disaster is the direct result of the false belief that risk can be anticipated and managed.  It's a joke!  We're all screwed!!

Not really.  We just have to remember what Jesus always said to the disciples: "Do not be afraid".  We also have to remember that He hardly ever said, "Be really, really careful.  Be safe.  Manage risk."  I think he is quoted as saying that in the NWST (New Wall Street Translation), but maybe it was only in the notes of the Investors Devotional Bible version of that translation.  But, I digress.  The best part of what Jesus DID say (Do not be afraid), was that usually Jesus, himself, was the one who had caused the disciples to feel fear, tension, and anxiety in the first place!  Jesus was awesome at messing with their feelings of comfort.  As soon as they thought they were starting to get that this guy was really the Messiah, he started talking about dying on a cross.  He changed all of the rules of what being a Messiah meant!  When Peter corrected Jesus on that issue, Jesus called him Satan.  This was right after telling Peter that he would be building the Church on him.  Jesus was always causing cognitive and cultural dissonance, as Ken Wilson pointed out to us at the Vineyard National Conference.  Every encounter with Jesus results in our discomfort.  This is absolutely counter to the Karaoke culture's dogma of predictability, safety, and comfort above all else.

I remember, as a kid, playing with real Jarts,  the ones with the super-sharp, rusty, metal points on the end.  We used to all stand in a group and throw a jart straight up in the air over our heads.  The one who would win that game was the one who would run away last.  It was like a great game of chicken!  We had to see how long we could stand being under a deadly projectile plummeting directly toward our heads.  How awesome!  Being a kid was so much fun back then!  I have no idea why they made those illegal.  We would ride our bikes all over town in the summer, refusing to come home until our parents sent the police looking for us.  We would go into old, abandoned houses, making up ghost stories about the family that had lived there, until they were slaughtered by Jason or Freddy.  We would explore the forests near our house and scare teenagers who were making out there.  We would play baseball in the park for hours.  We would go swimming in the nearby lakes and rivers.  We played full-on tackle football without protective pads or headgear.  For that matter, we also played tackle basketball, tackle soccer, tackle fishing, tackle chess, etc.  We would climb all over the car on road trips, unrestrained by seat belts or car seats.  My brother and I went by ourselves to a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley, taking the bus and the "L", when I was only in middle school.  We were kings and queens of the world, and we ruled absolutely!  Then, we all got safe.

How do we fight a Karaoke society, I ask again?  We get unsafe.  We embrace the truth that Jesus wants us to feel tension.  All the time.  Jesus doesn't want us to be afraid, because fear freezes us.  But He also doesn't want us getting real comfortable.  He wants us to realize that many of the scriptures we use to comfort ourselves - like Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." - were actually written by people who were later stoned to death, crucified, set on fire, or fed to lions for loving Jesus and being called according to his purpose.

So what did Jesus mean, when he told us to "count the cost" of following him?  I think that is the     central question here, because how we answer that question will determine whether we go along with the Karaoke culture, or we live free.  I have heard it taught as a cost/benefit analysis, in order to determine to what level we will follow Jesus - much like setting up two lists of "pros" and "cons".  This has led to a lukewarmness and a safety in being a Christian.  Churches have thrown away social justice (taking care of the widows and the orphans), because it is far too radical, risky, and inconvenient.  Then, these fools and hypocrites call all social justice efforts "heresy", so that they can protect themselves from actually having to obey Jesus.  In their cost/benefit analysis, Jesus would never call us to stretch ourselves by parting with our riches.  He wants us to be rich and comfortable in our first-class accommodations for our journey to the Streets of Gold.  As a matter of fact, in our cost/benefit analysis, Jesus would never want us to suffer and die, so lets invent a secret Pre-Tribulation Rapture, where we all get rescued before we get inconvenienced or suffer in any way.  No, when these people count the cost of discipleship, there isn't any.  It's all victory, safety, and glory - as long as you fit the formula.

Then, there are those of us who don't see "Counting the Cost" as a cost/benefit analysis at all.  I don't think Jesus intended for us to set up pros and cons.  I think he's saying that following him will actually cost us everything.  It will cost us our lives.  We may even have our lives end in painful and uncomfortable ways.  Whatever you cling to the most, even if it's your own faith and set of doctrine, will be the exact thing that you have to surrender first.  Is it risky?  Absolutely.  What he calls us to will stretch us to the point of breaking.  Is he safe?  Haven't you listened to a thing I've said?  Of course he is isn't safe!  But he's good!  He's the King, I tell you!  Following him will cost you everything, but it goes way beyond the petty sacrifice of our lives.  His Kingdom stands over and against this world, because it is so much greater, more beautiful, more powerful than I am or that my life is worth.  Don't you miss the adventure and quickening of your spirit when you discover something greater than yourself?  Something actually worth dying for?  I want to be inspired again.  I want to be free again.  I want to break the rules and stop trying to calculate risk.  Then, when I am attacked, I use that to bring others with me into this "greater thing" that God is doing.

Following Jesus in a Karaoke Society

I'm back.  Things have been crazy.  I am building a new blog site for Heresy of the Month.  I am going to transfer all of this over to the new site, when it is completed.  I started this blog with the intention of just writing some of my thoughts down, as I wrestle with some things for writing a book on discipleship and following Jesus.  It is mostly a "Following Jesus in a Consumer Society for Dummies" type of book, on which I include myself in the "Dummies" category.  It is a book for people who are looking for a way in, without having to adopt the heavy yoke of cultural Christianity.  In other words, it is a book for people who are not currently Christian, or who were at one time, but have found that designation to have more baggage than it was worth.

All that being said, I have not been very intentional about this blog, because I was just using it to start to formulate and chew on ideas for the book.  I wasn't going to promote it as a thing in itself.  Then the whole thing took on a life of its own.  I suddenly found myself getting many emails thanking me for the content and thoughtfulness of the posts.  That was really cool, but it was very unexpected.  Now, when I don't post for a while, I get lots of emails asking me for another one.  We have had a lot of new people come and visit the church because of the blog.  I have been approached by job recruiters for writing and editing positions.  Electronic and print publications have contacted me.  Don't worry, none of this is going to my head.  It just has all been a little overwhelming, and  I am excited about it at the same time.  So, I have realized that I need to ramp this up a bit, and make it more professional, focused, and "for real".  I have been spending a lot of writing time getting things set up to build a more versatile and interactive blog site.  I will (hopefully) unveil it in a couple of weeks.

All of this leads to my post for today.  I have been thinking a lot about creativity and passion lately.  My friend, TamaraOutLoud, wrote an incredible post (she always writes incredible posts) about her liberation as a nerd, entitled "Nerd Is the New Cool".  You should check it out.  Her writing is awesome!  1980's AWESOME!  But this post was right in the wheelhouse of what I've been thinking about.  I talked about this at my training a bit last week, but I didn't have time to develop it fully.

We live in a Karaoke Society.  There is a great Ted Talk from Malcolm McLaren that inspired me, called "Authentic Creativity vs. A Karaoke Society".  You should check it out.  It is a great lecture that serves as a plea for moving out of this carbon-copy type of approach, that is so prevalent in our world today.

You see, that is the exact problem.  No one creates anything new anymore.  No one dares to try something risky and innovative.  Take a look at the performing arts as an example.  Once the formula was created for contest reality television by the producers of Survivor, every network and every producer kept stamping out carbon copies of that show.  Then, suddenly, reality shows come out about New Jersey, and then every network and producer wants to make a show with white trash from Jersey.  Madonna shocked the world, when she burst on the scene in the 80s.  Now, Lady Gaga is an absolute copy of the formula that worked back then.  Even her riffs and chord progressions are exactly the same.  If you don't believe me, listen to her "Born This Way", and then listen to Madonna's "Express Yourself" - same themes, same melody, same everything.  I didn't like Madonna's music, and I like the Lady Gaga shock, glam rock copy even less.  With "Dark Knight", comic book movies have broken into the cultural imagination.  There are 6 comic book movies being released this year, with many more slated for next year.  The massive production costs and problems of the Spider-man Broadway musical have not stopped them from believing in the miracle of the comic book formula.  I'm not really complaining about the comic book thing, because I love them.  I will see every one of those movies.  But I am making a point about our refusal to try anything new.

These contest shows, reality shows, pop music, crime shows, the Disney Machine, World Series of Poker, Lindsay Lohan, and all of the other pop culture garbage that is fed to us and our children creates a completely unrealistic understanding of the world.  It destroys our priorities and core values.  It sedates and innoculates us, keeping us from wanting more.

Just examining the American Idol phenomenon, one can see some very telling symptoms of a damaged culture.  A person no longer has to work, struggle, suffer, pay their dues, fight for what they want, go through years of poverty, or commit to pursuing their dreams.  There is no risk.  After a 12-week show, you will either have a music career, or you won't.  The contestants are crying, many of them only 16 years old, and they speak of the intensity of this "journey".  It's not a journey at all, but a sprint.  I liken it to giving a magic pill to a toddler that will make him or her into an adult in only 12 weeks.  The growing pains are intense, but they reach adulthood so fast, that the pain is quickly forgotten.  It sends a message to our children that nothing good is worth work and sacrifice.  All good things should just drop on your lap.  The statistics that less than 2% of all aspiring actors, musicians, artists, writers, or athletes actually "make it" professionally still hold true.  The talent show formula sends the massage that it is much more like 50%-75% make it.  We quickly forget about the hundreds of thousands that didn't even get an audition.  We can all be rock stars!  There's lots of room!  You don't have to work or sacrifice!  We'll give it to you!  The fine print says, "...as long as you fit our formula."  People who take risks and are uniquely, authentically creative get eaten up by the pop culture machine.  You conform to the formula, or you go to the artistic trash heap.

World Series of Poker has shown us that millions can be made from playing cards.  I have seen MIT grads who go from poker tournament to poker tournament, focused on winning lots of money, their heart's ambition and dreams long since forgotten.  They could be curing cancer, creating sustainable fuels, or solving global food and water crises.  Instead, they are immersed in a culture of greed, drugs, sex, and gambling.

Brilliant, potential computer engineers are wasting away in their mom's basement, playing World of Warcraft or hacking into servers to steal identities as a way to fund their worthless lifestyle.  They could be transforming medical technology to help doctors more efficiently work to heal patients.  They could be getting married and loving their families into life, raising beautiful, powerful, creative kids who take risks to better humanity.

If you are going to write a book about politics, it had better fit with either the Fox News formula on the far right or the MSNBC formula on the far left.  The only other option is to go so satirical that you are hilarious, but the vast majority of the population cannot grasp your esoteric delivery.  Your point gets lost to the masses in your satire.  This is the Comedy Central formula.  Whatever the case, you must be controversial and shocking.  Don't be a creative person with thoughtful suggestions for moderate step-by-step change.  Instead, its finger-pointing and shocking, "sky-is-falling" rhetoric that sells books.  Huge, sweeping generalities and lazy stereotyping save time and allow for a book to be written in days instead of months.  Why research, when American Idol has shown us that a book deal should be handed to you, because "YOU DESERVE IT!"? 

"Obama is the Antichrist!"  "Bush was a power hungry war monger!"  "Gays want to get married, so they can take money from hard working Americans!  In fact, everyone (except corporations - they're nice) wants to take the money of hard-working Americans."  "The GOP wants to kill unions, so that they can start a Nazi State in America!"  The generalities and stereotyping comes from both sides.  No healthy dialogue, just shooting back and forth.

If you want to sell a book about faith, it needs to be extremely controversial or extremely safe.  As we've seen with Rob Bell, you don't even need to publish the book to have people comment and fight over it, building unbelievable momentum and word-of-mouth marketing.  The book really wasn't that controversial, if you read it.  He didn't deny Hell or any of the other heresies of which he was accused.  I have never seen such incredible evidence of this Pop Culture domination as I saw in that whole fiasco.  I hope they do a study on it sometime, because it is a fascinating reflection of how religious leaders, like John Piper and others, have sold their souls to the consumerist, formulaic approach of culture.  Without even reading the book themselves (reflecting the lack of research and laziness I pointed out earlier), they opened fire on Rob Bell, helping him sell millions of copies more than he would have sold in the first place.  Bell's publisher is brilliant, releasing only the most controversial questions of the book.  The book, itself, was anti-climactic and boring, compared to the hype.  Those subscribing to the conservative, Christian formula created the perfect storm.  They continued to NOT read the book, for fear of being led astray, and they continued to publicly fire arrows at Bell, drumming up more interest in the book.  I have never before seen a situation where an author would want a particular group to keep not reading his book and to continue to critique it.  The earthquake in Japan and the Assassination of Bin Laden finally took the air out of those tires.  On the safe side, you can write a formulaic fluff book.  One of the best-selling books of all time, "Purpose Driven Life", fits in this category.  Warren is going in a great direction early in the book, seemingly going deep into who we are in God, only to resurface quickly, turning the book into an infomercial for his other "Purpose Driven" materials.  Osteen's "Your Best Life Now" is the perfect American Idol book.  It says that God wants to just pour out your destiny on you right now!  He came to give you life to the full right now!  It can all fall in your lap right now!  Absolute fluff.  It denies the reality of the vast majority of the population who have to work, sacrifice, and struggle for many years, for whom the movement toward our destiny is, in fact, a journey.

Look, here's my point (and, I believe, McLaren's point in his lecture), the Karaoke society celebrates the uncreative and the stupid.  We laugh at the girls from Jersey, and we think all people from Jersey are like that.  It's easier to make that assumption than to go and get to KNOW people from Jersey.  Eventually, the reality begins to reflect the fantasy.  People in Jersey begin to act and become like the people from Jerseylicious.  We are told by the culture how to behave.  We are given, and we accept, our identity, as it is given to us by the culture.  Will and Grace taught gay men how they should behave.  I know some gay men who are not conscious of their clothing and looks.  They work hard and enjoy sports.  But, now they not only have to battle with their sexual identity, but they also have to go through a cultural identity crisis.  As an Evangelical pastor, I am told by the larger culture that I should be unabashedly Republican.  I should fear and resent postmodernism.  I should be judgmental and publicly rebuke those who disagree with me.  I should never speak, unless I am 100% sure I am right.  I cannot think creatively.  Instead, I should parrot what everyone before me has said.  Ugh.

It is dangerous to take the risk and be creative.  If you stick your head out from the masses to be authentic and really you, you will immediately be met with sabotage.  We are supposed to remain stupid, because "Stupid is Cool".  We are supposed to sound incredibly clever (in 140 characters or less), while still remaining stupid.  If you have to work for something, it is not worth doing.  It is not meant to be.  It should be handed to you, like a winning lottery ticket, or it's not real.  I loved the Justin Bieber movie, and I am now a big fan of the Bieber.  I saw a kid who refused to join the Disney or Nickelodeon machine.  He literally rode around on a bus from radio station to radio station, playing his guitar for DJs and singing, just to finally get his shot.  He was fearless, dedicated, and driven.  One could argue that he has a carbon-copy sound, but at least his dream wasn't handed to him.

I have learned that the magic pill approach is detrimental to real health and character development.  If our whole life is a pop song, and the need for a "good hook to sell singles" is our focus, where is the authenticity?  Where do we find real creativity?  How can we be healthy, complete people with our identity in following Jesus?  I will do more on this in the next post, but I would love your thoughts.  Am I overstating it?  Is it true that our society tries to dictate our identity to us, or are we truly free to allow God to shape our future destiny?  How do we follow Jesus in a karaoke society?