Living in a Junk Shop

"Junk" is such a harsh word. Few people think of junk as a positive description of anything. Ever drive by a junkyard? Piles of worn-out, rusty automobiles, shattered TV tubes, mounds of decomposing diapers. Not attractive. Even calling it a landfill only makes it sound slightly less appealing. We can cover it up with soil, puncture it with PVC piping and plant grass on it, but in the end its still a pile of junk.

We all create junk. Just think about your most recent meal. Mine was breakfast. As I deftly and almost mindlessly began heating the teapot and preparing my meal, I suddenly noticed that I kept moving back and forth between the counter and the trash can. One piece of trash for my empty Sweet-and-Low packet. One piece of trash for my instant oatmeal wrapper. Yet another piece of trash for my chamomile tea bag holder. Three pieces of trash, for a monastic breakfast. And I am just one person. Multiply that by three meals a day and over 280 million people in the United States alone and you begin to sense the ecological issue we face.

I grew up hearing the phrase, "God doesn't make junk," especially people. A profound theological point and certainly true in my opinion. We sang our little prepubescent hearts out for a whole week one Vacation Bible School musically making this point. Maybe its easier to remember or easier to see when you're twelve. God doesn't make junk and you've only had eight years or so to start screwing it up.

The San Francisco Chronicle carried a heart-wrenching article yesterday titled, "A homeless beauty and the beast, heroin" describing the tragic life of Rhonda Bye, a Washington state girl, her beauty confirmed by modeling jobs and her brains clear from her technical work on computers for a part-time employer. She dropped out of school, married young and tried cocaine. Cocaine led to a heroin and crack addiction. Her beauty withered. Her intelligence faded. She became yet another undesirable person under the freeway; one holding a cardboard sign emblazoned, "Dreamin of McDonalds," asking for another handout.

Looking at Rhonda's picture as a young girl, you realize that she's not any different from those other kids that were on that church stage, singing and knowing that "God doesn't make junk." Yet Rhonda chose to live as if her body was a junkyard. Take in the worn-out, rusty, shattered mounds of decomposing trash, one hit, one cube, one vial at a time.

We are no better. The trash we accept may be different, but the junkyard attitude is the same. Another order of fries, a cigarette, that third cocktail, add on the trash, just make sure we cover it all up with a little soil and some flowers. We convince ourselves that at worst we are living in a landfill and for that matter, its ours and we can do what we want with it, thank you very much.

Rhonda died of kidney failure this past Wednesday at age 39. If we're even half-listening, Rhonda wakes us up. Rhonda reminds us that we are not our own. Rhonda reminds us that we are only one or two strategic pieces of junk away from the path she trod.

How would we live if we still believe that God doesn't make junk? How would we live if we remembered that we occupy not a land fill of our own making but a temple to the LORD?

All joking aside... church fires?

Humble reader,

I must first address you before launching into my latest musings. Thank you for your patience. I confess that I have thought much more in the last three months than clearly I have written. For that I apologize. Now, without further ado...

On March 16, the New York Times reported an update concerning a string of nine church fires in Alabama. Three college students have been arrested in connection with setting these fires. While, I admit some amount of cynism, what struck me was not the fact that three young white men are charged with torching multiple small black churches. The article notes, with some surprise, that the accused came from good families (insert shock) but that hunting and copious amount of alcohol consumption was involved (insert tsk-tsk and shake of head). What struck me was their self-confessed reason, saying that they,

"'had done something stupid' and that they set fire to a church 'as a joke.'" (emphasis added)

I think we can let lie the standard "alcohol+hunting=stupid boys" diatribe. But how exactly do we get from complete stupidity to the offered explanation, which clearly one of the accused, thinks is somehow a rational reason for setting church fires. He is not saying, "We were so drunk that night we just got carried away," nor is he saying, "We were out there hunting and decided to start a fire to keep warm, and it got away from us." He is claiming that the impetus to burn down a place of holy worship, and a place of fellowship for a community of faith was a "joke."

A joke? On one hand, we could simply write these boys off as at best stupid and at worst insane. But what if we assumed that their reasoning really is that this is a 'joke'? How could someone rationalize such a position?

Humor is contextual. We all know that a joke can be gut-busting hilarious with one group of friends and a complete flop with a different group. Humor then is not just individual; it is also communal. While these young men must rightly be held personally responsible should the allegations be proved; we must also question ourselves. While these young men's families, friends and communities distance themselves from such violent and destructive acts, it is easy for us too to take a down-the-nose glance in their direction. However, if indeed this is a 'joke'; then we ourselves must search both internally and in our respective communities for the ways in which the shared context of our lives might unintentionally or otherwise be read not just as implicit permission of such acts. Even worse, what if the way we live sent the message that we would explode with out-loud, boisterous gales of laughter while the black church on the corner flamed, crackled and burned into the ground.

All joking aside... what if we were the ones who made the joke?