godthoughts.net

 Could John McCain have picked Tina Fey for his VP candidate?

The resemblances are just too coincidental….think about it….have you ever seen Sarah Palin and Tina Fey in the same place…No!  Who would have thought that Tina Fey had this secret life as the governor of Alaska, in between SNL gigs?  Wow.

  Yeah pretty clever with changing the eyeglasses and everything, but we can’t be fooled!

I never want to imply that, in creating order in our lives, consumption is doing something to us that we are not covertly responsible for.  We are not victims of consumption. Just as we make our media, our media make us. Again, commercialism is not making us behave against out “better judgment.”  Commercialism is our better judgment. Not only are we willing to consume, and not only does consuming make us happy, “getting and spending” is what gives our lives order and purpose. We have a deluding tendency to consider advertising, packaging, fashion, branding, and the rest of the movement of goods in the way we consider many other cultural sequences, like politics and religion, as somehow “out there” beyond our control. Not so.

Courtesy of James Twitchell, author of Lead Us Into Temptation:  The Triumph of American Materialism

Agree or disagree with Mr. Twitchell’s claim?

For this edition of The Big Quote, you actually get two for the price of one!  Both are from For Shame: The Loss of Common Decency in American Culture, by James Twitchell.

“If history is any guide, where a culture draws its invisible lines of shame, and how it communicates its rules of passages around certain events, are of central importance.  Have too few “thou shalt nots” in your moral ecology and society can become a jungle.  Have too many and you get a desert.  What is human history but a continual cycling between these extremes?  What explains cultural extinction but when the cycles go too far in either direction?  The Roman Empire saw a huge influx of shameless, decadent, and hedonistic behavior after the frugal ideals of the Roman Republic.”

And one closely related, that pretty much sums up his thesis:

“Shame is the public modesty that keeps secrets until the truth is ready to be understood and assimilated.  Thus shame is central to restraint, the beginnings of self-control, and the rise of a decent and fair society.”

Has “shame” been shamed out of current use?  Have we confused shame and embarrassment?  Is his thesis out of bounds or make sense….and have we become so sensitive to appropriate distaste with inappropriate behavior (”well dude, if it works for you, no problem”) that we no longer speak up when something is out of whack?  Or is most anything now “okay?”  Does shame have a place in our society anymore?

Time for some numbers that tell you more than you may want to know!

69% of Americans prefer eating hot dogs on a bun, while 15% prefer them naked with baked beans.

The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (yep, there really is one!. . . and their website has a great intro song on it.) advises that no one over 18 use ketchup on a hot dog.

$1.9 Billion.  The amount of money Americans spend on hot dogs at the supermarket annually.

1 in 4.  The odds that the pork in a pork hot dog orginated in Iowa.
Stats courtesy of July/August, 2008 issue of Fast Company

Courtesy of Christianity Today, August, 2008, 21% of self-described atheists say they believe in God. 13% of Christians who attend evangelical churches say God is more of an impersonal force than a person with whom people can have a relationship.

Courtesy of Fast Company, Sept, 2008 issue:
General Motors lost $38.7 Billion in 2007. Toyota made more than $16 Billion in the same year. Hmmm, could that be why I see more Toyotas on the road?

Foreign automakers produce about 55% of the cars sold in the USA.

In 1908, a gallon of gas cost around 18 cents.  When adjusted for inflation, that’s about $3.90.

Ford produced more than 15,000,000 Model T’s, which averaged 21 mpg.

Now rest in the knowledge you have gained and can impress your friends with. Or not.

I think I’m passionate about certain things.  But how would I know if I’m following the right passion or just spinning my wheels?   I may have a passion to be a world-class pianist, but I hate practicing the pianist, so pursuing that passion probably would lead to frustration.  Ingest this quote from Erwin McManus:

“If you love the discipline that brings greatness, then you are pursuing the right passion.  And even if that pursuit does not bring the result you want, then you have not wasted your life, because you’ve pursued your passions.”

 Thoughts?

Continuing in my commentary on Shopping for God, I find this quote:

“If you pay attention to the language, and the human potential movement from which it comes, you’ll soon see how the megachurch has revolutionized the church experience. It repositions the product and, by extension, the consumer.  Old-style church was meant to encourage soul-searching, introspection, private experience, inner contemplation. The old-style building, like the service, had plenty of space for solitary moments. 

The megachurch however, is a public place.  It’s for performance, moving around, milling about, seeing and hearing things. You could find an out-of-the-way place in it because the whole point is to be in the crowd.”

Do you agree?

Having attended a mega, visited many megas, and worked in a mega, I would agree with his description.  People like to be where the crowd is, (e.g., check out the abundance of malls and the crowds therein on any given day.  And so it is with churches, perhaps.  If I’m in a community, I want to go where most everyone else is going, because something obviously must be “happening” there.  You can be alone but still be around people…in a mega, you choose if you want to engage in social conversation, etc.  In a regular church, people come up to you typically, so you can’t be anonymous….although some people like that.