There's no food in these drawers.

So the past 4-5 days I played bass for a high school retreat, had strange conversation with my dad, and quietly analyzed my world. It was an average weekend, but lately I've been thinking alot and I know that's dangerous, thinking about how retreats and youth ministry works. Thinking about life and social interaction. Just plain thinking about things I've read, and things that I live through. Stuff that I don't understand.

So there's this book that I really liked. So much so that I'm still digesting it. Which is a weird concept by the way. How come when I read something I don't just "get it" immediately? Why does it take time to understand? And when will we quantify that dimension too?

Well either way I can't define the whole book in a few sentences, but what confused me the most is how we wrestle with love and value. We want both of these and we can only find true love and value in God but yet at the same time we were built for community. And that's the paradigm that I really struggle with. How do those two worlds co-exist? It makes complete sense yet is so undefined.

What I saw lately is how totally accurate this book is, or at least the part I saw in the book. The fact is that we all long for affection and value. We're willing to do anything to get it to, frankly it's all we care about (We being humanity here). So I saw this in the group dynamic. I went to a retreat full of high school students. You know, High school, the awkward time in life that doesn't make sense... Well these students were all so scared to bring attention to themselves. It was erie. They were too scared to laugh at jokes. They wouldn't laugh until they knew that it was ok to laugh. That laughing out loud wouldn't single them out against the jury of thier peers. They withheld thier laughter. Don't they do that in prison? They were like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I wanted to just scream at the top of my lungs. Just scream. I don't even know what I would scream.

So I wondered what if it was just the church that was like this, that would be a total crime. Then I went to a "motion city soundtrack" concert. My goodness. Everyone dressed ridiculously the same. I wanted to vomit. No creativity, no identity, no idividualism, and an unhealthy form of community. The worst part is I felt people breathing down my neck for having a regular haircut and a regular t-shirt. I had not bought into this ploy to market myself as one who was safe and worthy of affection through my attire. Then the concert started. It seemed so strange. It was as if someone announced a code beforehand. "Article 1: We the 'emo/rocker' kids are taking a stand, we don't want to be accepted by everyone, just each other. But in order to mark our kind we will wear black, and big neon shoes, oh and no more cutting your hair like everyone else that's perposturous. We must identify ourselves. This is the only way to be safe people!" It just that they weren't subtle at all.

All these things are so strange. I don't know what to do with them. It seems like analyzing this concept is like walking through the forest at night. I mean my mind is going somewhere but I don't know how to find a way out.


"Imagine how much a man's life would be changed if he trusted that he was loved by God? He could interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really." (177)