FUNK

Things very often smell funky to me. My mom says that when I was a little girl, I would walk around with my nose scrunched up, and if something bothered my sense of smell, I would freak. That was my heightened sense. I still get grossed out by rank smells, but I’ve ignored one for too long – my own smell.

It’s not because I use the natural crystal deodorant. I’m talking about me – the stench of sin that runs rampant within me.

Sometimes it takes a funk time for me to come back to the real reality. Sometimes I have to get away because there are way too many distractions that pull my attention away from where it should be.

The idea of cool is disgusting to me. I hate it just as much as I hate cancer. And I hate it even more because it leeches on to insecure people like me because I’m sure I have 972 undealt-with issues.

I hate that within the American culture there’s this thing about being cool or being uncool. You either have it or you don’t. We can try to pretend and say that it’s not within the ‘Christian’ circles, but we’d all be big fat liars. It’s there, and it’s disgusting. It’s everywhere. I get caught up in the hype too, and when I pull myself away and evaluate my own behavior, I get sick. It smells.

I remember moving back and forth from one place to the other when I was younger and particularly in middle school. In 7th grade I finally got fed up with eating with the nerds, so I changed everything about myself that I could and tip-toed my way in with the cool crowd. Pretty soon I made the cheer squad in one school (but not even into the squad another because I was knew and everything was based on popularity), I was elected to be the captain. I was now ‘in.’ What a joke.

My glory days ended there when we moved away. I ‘found’ Jesus in the new place and thought things would be different with that crowd. I mean those were the people that never gossiped and accepted everyone for who they were, right? It appeared that way at first, but I soon learned differently. Things weren’t very different at all. I didn’t know the ‘Christian’ lingo, and that made me very uncool. I didn’t know the cool ‘Christian’ bands (and when I learned them, I didn’t care for many of them), and that made me really uncool. I couldn’t afford to wear the fashionable clothes, and that made me uber uncool.

I laugh now. I bring all of that up not because I hang on to it in a bitter kind of way. I hang on to it so that I won’t do that to people. I should be way too old to even care about that stuff, but you know what? When I look around and think about college or even post-college experiences, I’ve been that person. I have at times been too cool to hang out with such and such. That’s pretty sad. It’s selfish, prideful, immature, and all those other dirty things.

I may not have always done it directly, but I didn’t stop it when I saw it happening and had the power to say something.

Spending money for pointless social reasons and on fashion is the most uncool thing ever. It’s selfish and wrong and shows where our beliefs are. What I mean is that if we believe that we are supposed to give back and change the world somehow, we would do something about it. Talking about it does nothing.

I knew a dude that believed what Jesus taught about the poor and the hungry. He used to feed the homeless and would hang out with them. I talked about it and even offered to help, but how many times was I out there? Yeah.

I was too busy trying to move up the corporate ladder for what? Money, prestige. What? I didn’t believe all of Jesus teachings because if I did, I don’t think I would’ve been able to spend as much as I did on a pair of heels, a pair of jeans, or as much time doing pointless things.

A friend of mine recently said that we should do away with the Olympics just once. The billions of dollars could be used to end starvation in at least 5 cities right? Something like that. I love the Olympics. Unfortunately, I recently read an article about how up to 80% of Olympic runners dope (not to mention every other sport). I was completely disappointed with the figures…but that’s for another blog. In spite of that, I still love the Olympics and don’t believe we should punish the crazy efforts athletes put into the endless training (even if some or most are doping). I’m sure we could cut away some of the $$, but don’t cancel the games altogether. Many of the athletes do quite a bit for humanitarian causes.

My friend has a great point, though. What I do believe we should look at is us, more specifically the American culture. How about the celebrity awards shows that spend millions on their shows and extravagant parties. Not to mention the ‘goodie purses’ they receive that are worth like $50,000+. Are you kidding me? These are the people who can afford that stuff. It’s ridiculous.

There are people who are actually doing something, and that’s God. What I mean is that we think we have to say a specific prayer to know God. I was taught that. (I was always scared on mission trips that I was going to forget one part of the prayer someone was supposed to repeat after me and that they wouldn’t really experience salvation.) Again, are you kidding me? God is not in rituals taught by man. God IS in what the Bible says is pure religion – to visit orphans and widows and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

I’m glad that there are people taking that seriously. I want to be one of them. And I’m not saying that I believe that just because someone is a do-gooder that they know God. They may, they may not. Just like you and I may or may not.

God is not in our attempts at cool music or cool fashion. God is not in our aims of cool churches with cool music, a cool youth group and cool people. Why? Because it’s not truth. All of those things are “Satan’s tools to get people to be passionate about…meaningless…things” and worthless idols (Donald Miller).

God is in feeding the hungry, taking care of the widow and the orphan…whether it is done by a ‘Christian’ or not. (The whole labeling things ‘Christian’ and why I don’t do labels is for another blog).

So why all this today?

Because I need to change. I need to get back to that place of really believing what Jesus taught.

And by the way, I consider so many things uber cool in the nerdiest way because I’m the biggest nerd ever. And I love it.