What good can another blog do?

Well to be honest, probably not much. I have my doubts about the efficacy of the internet as a tool for connecting people (he said on his blog).

The other day while getting my tires replaced I read an article about Yelp.com in Inc. magazine (it was on the coffee table) about a bookstore owner and a prospective customer getting into a physical altercation based on the customer's comments left on the Yelp.com rating site. Not being a small business owner, but working for a small business and having read reviews both positive and negative about the place where I work, I understand how things get emotional quickly. And in case you didn't catch the title of my blog, I'm planning on discussing things even more emotional than work and money--religion, culture, and basic beliefs about the nature of life, the universe, and everything!

But despite plenty of bad examples of people using the pseudo-anonymity of the internet to bring out the worst in people, I have to believe that these tools have the potential, at least, to be used for good.

For me, this stems from the belief that every person, no matter how mean or depraved, no matter if they agree with my deeply held beliefs or not, is made in the image of a good and loving God. God's fingerprints are in the fabric of our DNA, and whether or not we choose to recognize God as the origin of the good in people, God is glorified in His creation, perhaps most stunningly and impressively in his crowning achievement--people. This is of course, if we have eyes to see.

Are we mean? Sure. Are we selfish? Yes. But as a Christian, I have to choose to love people the way I want to be loved, and I know that I want people to see the good in me and ignore the bad. Or if they point out the bad, because they know I can do better, to do it in a way that doesn't ignore the good.

When I'm talking about stuff on this site I want to make the public commitment, one which despite my best efforts I probably won't keep all the time, to always talk about people as people--nothing more and nothing less, and to not treat them like mere ideas or concepts to be picked apart, used, and consumed.

This is hard, because for 27 years, I've been discipled by a culture of consumerism. I grew up in the world of TV, Internet, Video Games, Cell Phones, magazines and shows completely devoted to the discussion of what to buy, what not to wear, and how to have a good time. Everything about this culture tells me "it's all about me." I can have it my way. We even have sites like Yelp.com in which everyone can enjoy the elevated status of a food or fashion critic for the small price of their opinion, and blogs where for the effort of setting up an email address I can express myself to as many people as I can convince that I am interesting enough to consume. I have great parents that taught me a lot about what really matters in life, and I've been fortunate enough to benefit from the influence of Jesus' rebel gang on earth--the Church--but we all live in this sea of commercial enterprise and interact with each other through things like blogs, skype, facebook and cell phones--media which change the way we actually communicate and therefore relate to one another--often without us even recognizing it. Consumerism is our culture, and to claim to be unaffected by its basic assumptions and worldview is at best uniformed, and at worst naive or proud.

The name of this blog is an attempt at honesty. I am, at heart, a consumer. Most of what I do is use stuff. I contribute little. I'm really selfish, I often entertain delusions of grandeur, I'm proud and I act out of that pride. I have opinions about everything and I think my opinions are really important. Important enough to argue or blog about. But since I was 14, when I prayed a simple prayer of repentance in a youth volunteer's Cadillac, I find another force mysteriously at work in my life. Through no merit or power of my own, I find the desire to be thankful for the things I am blessed with, and to share those blessings with others. Sometimes I even find the power to act on those desires. In fact sometimes I even find myself hating the desire for frivolous pleasure, those desires being replaced with a sincere love and willingness to suffer for other people.

In the symbol of communion, which Jesus left for his disciples, whatever the specific controversial theological meaning of the ordinance, Christians claim to consume the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Early Christian church meetings, by all accounts Biblical and extra-biblical, were centered around this practice. It has often been used as a boundary marker for those who are either in or out of communion with Christ and his church. In this practice, the basic story of Jesus' life--his perfect sacrificial death, his resurrection, and the new community he founded is told. As part of this community, I have experienced first hand that Jesus is not dead, and that he is really the only thing that satisfies my deepest desires. The more I taste of his goodness, the more I want. This desire--unlike so many others--does not cause me to become what I hate, but somehow changes me for the better. In fact it is not the desire but the Person of God himself somehow mysteriously at work in my soul and my body making me into someone I could never become through the force of my limited rational or emotional mind. In fact I find that it is not even me living, but this Jesus person living within me. In this way I strive to be a consumer of Christ.