A Call For Beasts To Teach Men

I’m back! Now I didn’t see any comments in the box from my last post, but I am just assuming that people are too shy to post or they were too paralyzed by my hilarity to mechanically type a comment onto the screen. I prefer the latter, but if the former is the case, I so encourage you to leave something just so I know you visited. If I am merely talking to myself, then perhaps it was worth it.

I worked a few days at Pretzel Gourmet, went to dinner and a movie with Roland and Erica, and got to talk to a few people from Grove City in the past week. Other than that, I’m doing some reading at the moment. I’m in the middle of three books, which seems like a daunting task (okay it is), but I’m managing quite well. Since they’re all nonfiction books, it makes things a bit easier. The first book I started is by my favorite author, G.K. Chesterton, entitled The Everlasting Man. Most Chesterton fans argue that it is his greatest apologetic, so I figured I’d give it a shot. The second book is by my second favorite author and philosophic mentor, Wendell Berry, called Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community. The title sums up the book. Before you write it off (pun certainly intended) as a boring book, it really brings up a lot of good points (so far) about America’s educational and economic systems. If you want to read an absolutely thrilling piece from the book, click here and tell me what you think.

I had a lot of time at the store today to write, and I wrote a lot more than I anticipated I would. I’ve decided to post what I wrote here. If these were meant to be true essays, I would have polished them more than I had; therefore, I intend the following to be more of a discussion spark than a definitive point on an issue. It is open to criticism, but this is something that was just floating in my mind today.

A Call For Beasts To Teach Men

It’s a shame how people write off the old. They are not the waste of space the country makes them out to be. They only seem that way because we make them like so. When someone hits age 60, the only jobs we offer them are small-scale janitorial work or greeters at Wal-Mart. We hide them from the places they really ought to be: the public.

Why? They simply have more wisdom and knowledge than we do; and in our turbulent times, we could certainly use their assistance. Despite man’s cry that that was their generation and this is ours, man is still man and there are many things our elderly population knows that touch on the foundational aspects of mankind. They worship the same God, struggle with the same earthly sins, have fought for their beliefs (something less common today), know what it means to work for a living and a life, manage a household, love a wife, children and land, and have learned the importance of being thrifty and perhaps even frugal, especially in turbulent times.

No dishwasher, television, Internet connection, XBOX 360, Hummer, birth control pill, pleasure-increasing condom, cyclone vacuum or robot has changed man’s essential responsibilities. Technology and time have not changed man, but merely culture. Man will always have to love. Man will always have to fight for what he deems right. Man will always, as it always has, fall short of the glory of God. Man will always live on land, whether rural or urban, no matter how many feet in the air. Man will always have a finite sum of money. If one denies any of these, he is not a man and truly the one that is a waste of space; for he might as well be the beast, living purely for self and always consuming, and locked up on a cage.

This is what we have done to our old people. We have dubbed them beasts and claimed that they ought to be in cages (“homes”) because all they do is consume. We have trampled upon the responsibilities of man in our culture today in favor of pleasure, money, and ceaseless, bitter competition. We live for our selfish desires and deny humanity’s responsibilities. We have locked up the true men to let the beasts run wild.

This is not to say that the entire elderly population is righteous and the rest of us condemned as fulfilling our role as humans, but our view of the elderly as a hindrance on society and the youth as the truly wise shines a bright light upon our culture. The youth have not experienced what our elderly have; it’s time we reverse our current presupposition and have the former learn from the latter.

Our youth need to learn what it means to live a responsible life, and who better that those who have spent their lives living it (or not living it and dealing with the consequences) to teach them. It’s time we let the “beasts” out of their cages. The elderly ought not to be secluded from mainstream society or reduced to a lower class. They may no longer contribute to the economy (or, for some, the Economy), but what they possess collectively is something far more valuable: wisdom and a history of lives, however they lived them.

Release them. Let them visit schools. Allow them to be active in parks, malls and markets. Moreover, listen to them; they have plenty to talk about. They know more about what it takes to tame the true beast: us.

A Thought On Wal-Mart

For a store that has “everything,” Wal-Mart lacks the canon, books that have wrestled with the human condition and have stood the test of time. Rather, they sell what will make them the most money: bestsellers and romance novels.

Fools and Whores and Sad Highs

The band Augustana is more accurate that they perhaps envisioned when they penned, “We’re nothing more than fools and whores and sad highs. We’re living in a wasteland.”

Against Bratz

Walking down the aisles of the toy section of a department store, I discovered a lot about our present culture. The girls’ play doll section struck me in particular. Now enough has been said about Barbie regarding the near impossibility of a human female having her body proportions and how she has become increasingly immodest over the years. While Barbie has endured her share of attacks, it was a new breed of doll that most disturbed me.

The line of dolls, Bratz, is larger and thicker than its archetypal thin counterpart. Bratz are mostly dark-haired and have fuller lips than the blonde, thin-lipped Barbie. But what makes a Brat a Bratz is its attire, or the lack thereof. Every miniature Angelina Jolie look-alike wears clothes one would expect to see in a red light district. From short skirts to halter tops to leather high-healed boots, Bratz pack the attitude of a whore on her way to a night’s work.

Bratz even come in baby edition! They are scaled up in size so its human playmate can cuddle with her easier, but they still wear the same sleazy itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini as its elder sisters. Bratz are plastic prostitutes sold to children.

So what’s the big deal? Children aspire to become like their playthings. Boys who go into with GI Joe wish that they will someday become a war hero. Girls who play with horses hope that some day they will be as magnificent as the animal they hold. Girls that play with Bratz cannot put them in roles as housewives, teachers, business leaders or politicians. Bratz are bad; they make their own rules and morals, defy parents and live in the moment. Bratz are whores and girls who spend leisure time with these dolls can do nothing but pretend to be a whore and immoral like they.

If the unknowing girl fails to recognize the doll as unacceptable, she will assume her attire (and suggested implications of that attire) is acceptable. Unless an adult tells her that Bratz are prostitutes, they girl will see nothing wrong with promiscuousness.

Do we really want to glorify prostitution to our children? What makes the Bratz so appealing in the first place? Is it because they are more lifelike? I doubt it. Most girls will not achieve the beauty of Angelina Jolie. It is either because they are not Barbie, or because of their dress. They are “trendier,” thus more provocative.

It appears as if the pattern of wearing this “trendier” style is now starting increasingly younger. Girls in high school exhibit fashion that only the most daring college students would wear. Middle school-aged girls, instead of going with friends to a movie, take trips to Victoria’s Secret. The world places such a high standing to beauty that it has started to have damaging effects. School-aged girls should not be concerning themselves this early with how they look compared to other girls. It inevitably turns into a competition to discover who can dress most like the scantily-clad models on European runways and Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs.

The Bratz attitude has got to go. Immodest dress is not acceptable and can only lead to trouble, especially for younger girls. If you’re ever considering buying your daughter a Bratz doll, don’t. Instead, buy her a good book and spend time together reading it in the evenings. You, instead of a prostitute, will then be her role model.

I must be making enough money to make Ted Turner turn green

Welcome welcome to the blog where everything is made up and nothing matters. Okay, I jest; everything is not made up and I like to think that at least some of this matters. I hope to keep up on this a little more than I did in January on break. I think what had made it so hard to keep up was the massive amount of words I poured into each one, which frankly, left me quite exhausted. I welcome you to pop a pack of Buttery Kettle Corn in the microwave and slip on your Easter Bunny slippers because this is sure to be a fun ride.

I want to give everyone an update, firstly, on my job situation both here and in Grove City. Unfortunately, both announcements are on about equal excitement levels, so I’ll go in alphabetical order. At Grove City next year, I will be working in the Curriculum Library, a very convoluted way of saying “The Education Library” at GCC. Yeah, how about that! And if you thought that was as crazy exciting as Barbaro breaking his leg at the start of the Preakness today, try this on for size. This summer, I’m working at the same old Pretzel Gourmet #133 in the Nittany Mall! Hooray! Now everyone can put on their Camelbacks and hike on out to that cozy little craphole in-between State College and Bellefonte and take advantage of me and my petite pretzel products. To those of you who know how painfully long I’ve worked at the PG, you probably think that I’ve officially lost everything or that I must be making enough money to make Ted Turner turn green, but alas, I’m a nostalgic guy who just loves cranking out pretzels to overweight State Collegians. So come visit me (unless you’re a stalker, then I work in the Kitchen & Bath section in Lowe’s Home Improvement on Vairo Boulevard. Yep)

Break of one day

I only spent about ten minutes writing what I did above before I was interrupted by some extreme fun with my good friends Nick & Kam. I feel like the ampersand (&) was appropriate because they really are like the other famous ampersands: Abbott & Costello, Kobe & Shaq, Ben & Jen (whoops), Will & Grace, Peanut Butter & Jelly. Yeah, they’re that tight. I had my first day of work today under a completely new staff. I only met one person today, my new manager Marie. Marie is quite a character, and I say that in the most complimentary way I can. She has a really deep, gruff voice (I assume from years of smoking) but she does not have one mean bone in her body. She and I spent the day getting to know each other, but she did most of the talking. She’s enthusiastic about what she’s doing at the PG, which is certainly hard to come by at the establishment, so I’m excited (or as excited as can be expected) to work behind the old counter again this summer.

Break of two days

I really just need to post these every day as I do them, but then I fear that no one would read them if they didn’t match up to my usual standard, whatever that might be. There is a lot of stuff that I could talk about, but I will dismiss most of it that I deem unnecessary. For example, I could talk about going to Nacho Night with friends and how nice it was, but then everything I do starts to become newsworthy, when in reality, it is not. I want this to be a place where I can write what I want to write about without feeling obligated to write only about things that happen to me. I might want to tackle some tough issues at some point, and for that, I need to be beyond Nacho Nights and get-togethers. If something extravagant happens, then you’ll know about it; otherwise, just assume that I do indeed have a social life and I fill my time wisely. (I think that paragraph was just more for me. Erase it from your memory if you desire)

A Year at Grove City: A Review

Something I do want to talk about is my first full year at Grove City. A lot of people before I left told me that I would come back a changed person. Despite hearing this, I couldn’t fathom how much a place could change me. I was right; the place didn’t change me. Sure, being away from home and anything familiar was a different experience, but to say that it changed me as a person would be a lie. Nay, it was not the place, but the people. I apologize if this sounds cliché, but of the entire college experience, the people were what changed me the most. God blessed me with the most wonderful group of friends I could ask for. Living on a freshman hall is something I will never experience again! No one beforehand even hinted to the fact that above all the schoolwork and activities college has to offer freshman year, living on a hall with 37 guys for the first time of your life would be what would shape you the most. My RA’s, John and Andrew (Mom and Dad, respectively), truly were my parents away from home. Through the good and the bad of the year, their door was always open and it was amazing just being able to walk in and have a serious conversation about life and God no matter what the hour. They set the tone for our hall. Their mission was to unite our hall as a team, and they were mighty successful. We did everything as a hall, from meals to competitions to pranks to singing to girls from the inner quad, we were a team. Bible study every week gave us all the opportunity to see into the lives of each guy. Those testimonies were precious, every single one of them. Watching those guys tell us how God has touched their lives was one of the most amazing experiences this year.

Into the second semester, certain groups of people became closer, whether through fraternities (Omicron Xi!! Another fantastic group of solid Christian guys who have challenged me) or natural gravitation, but we were all still hallmates. I made some amazing friends and had some even more amazing conversations. I miss the conversations. I will miss those conversations the most. I won’t miss those specific conversations exactly, but the brand of conversation; the kind of conversation that forces you to dig deep down within yourself to put together a whimsical argument to which others are so eager to listen. Mindless conversation has it’s time for sure, but when it becomes habitually mindless, you have to question the relationship.

Beyond the hall, I met some amazing women of faith. Outside my family, I have seen very few women of mature faith in my life, or at least I haven’t been in regular contact with any. Before college, I hadn’t really thought about what the girls would be like at Grove City. I probably had the notion most people outside the college have: pastor kids who would rather eat worms than hold hands with a guy. Grove City girls go above and beyond that stereotype. As much as I loved living with men of faith at GCC, I gained some of my most valuable lessons from seeing and interacting with women of faith. They taught me that the purpose of seeking interaction with humans of the female gender does not have to be seeking a romantic relationship. Of most (if not all) of my past female friends, I have felt pressure at some point to take the step beyond friendship. I usually haven’t acted upon it, but there has always been a stupid thought in the back of my head that says, “She’s a girl, and you’re a guy, what’re you waiting for?” Guess what? You really can be friends with a girl. There doesn’t have to be that pressure. The pressure only exists because you let it. I think I always had in the back of my mind the idea that if I was friends with a girl and I was spending so much time with a girl, that I should expect some sort of relationship beyond friendship. What a crazy thought! If you stop expecting, you’ll stop feeling pressured and end up making crazy decisions. The key word here is expect; I’m not saying that one shouldn’t ever seek out romantic relationships (even with friends), but when friendship turns into an obligation to stress over relationship possibilities, it gets messy. I can’t say that I learned this the hard way, but rather the easy way. Outside the relationship revelations, the girls I’ve come to know and love dearly at GCC really have been amazing friends by the fullest extent of the definition (“A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts”) and I cannot thank them enough for their encouragement and inspiration. Now I hope my statements above haven’t officially been dubbed my philosophy of relationship-seeking, because it is not and is not meant to be something overanalyzed. It is, however, something I found worthwhile discussing.

Finally, the people behind the classes: the profs. Of all my classes, my Foundation of Education sequence was by far the most challenging in that it forced me to truly think about my philosophy of schools, education, people, and life. Dr. Edwards did a fantastic job at making us think about what we were reading and being able to come up with arguments to support our beliefs. True education is and will forever be between a soul and a soul, no matter how many computers you try to throw at it. It is my duty as a teacher to become a text-person for my students and lead them to live responsible lives. I could talk about education for hours on end (ask Erica), something I couldn’t have done intelligibly had it not been for Dr. Edwards and his class. The other professors were fantastic as well (Dr. Thompson really got me to like three-hour Calculus tests), and the challenging experience really made for a worthwhile year.

College was a spiritual roller coaster. It was wild in that I had so many experiences I had never had before. Who knew there were worship songs other than hymns?! Who knew that sharing the Gospel to inner-city delinquent children would give me a rush unlike any other? Who knew the true power of prayer? Who knew so many people so willing to talk about God spontaneously without it feeling awkward? God took me by surprise this year. He really challenged me to hang onto my seat and follow him. What a wild trip it has been; I can't wait to see how he uses me this summer!

There’s the college report. I would write more, but it’s 2:00 am and I need to sleep. Tune in soon for more updates. Until then, sucks to your assmar!