Food, Inc.

Yes, I know it's a liberal film that doesn't quite tell the whole story. 

But still.  I saw the movie today for the second time in my Human Geography class.  And something occurred to me.  The first time I saw it, I don't really think it sunk in (which might've had something to do with who I was watching it with....). ;)  But in all seriousness, now that I've decided to be vegan (at least for a short while), my decision is being reinforced by things like that.

If you've never seen the movie, you should.  Even if you're not a proponent of animal rights, you still should know what you're eating and where it comes from.  Let's be honest - we ought to know what we're putting in our bodies, but we don't anymore.  It's a well-done movie that, although slightly biased, says a lot of important things.  And after watching it again today, I wouldn't be surprised if I just stayed Vegan.  I've recently become incredibly convicted about being a responsible consumer - environmentally, personally, geographically, socially... in every way possible.  In the food I buy, in the companies I actively or passively support, in the clothes I wear, in the things I say and do... I think it's so important to understand the consequences of our actions.

But what, you ask, can one individual possibly do about issues like global child labor?!  Yes, it's daunting.  I'll be the first to admit that.  I'm often overwhelmed by it, actually.  It's a constant struggle for me to remember that I am not God and that I can only do so much.  But I recently read an article for my Moral Philosophy class that suggested that cruelty persists because people still believe that individuals cannot make a difference.  And so I will, as an individual, stand up and do my part.  It will be small.  But you say, if I don't buy it/eat it/do it, certainly someone else will, right?!  Wrong!  What if 1 million of the 300 million people we have living in the United States decided to stop buying clothes that were made in sweatshops?  That could mean that those 1,000,000 people live in 1,000,000 different communities around the country, who have never met one another and who will never meet one another, and maybe they are even the ONLY people in their communities to do such a thing.  Does that mean that those 1,000,000 people aren't making a difference just because they FEEL isolated?  No!  Being alone in something should not prevent you from standing up for something you know is right - in fact, it should invigorate you!  This is what I seek to do - not just with this, but with every aspect of my life. 

So don't be surprised if I stay vegan.  Because right now, to me, it looks like there are a lot of good reasons for being vegan, and only 3 good reasons for not being vegan:  meat tastes good, laziness, and ignorance. (Ask me again in a month, I might have changed my tune... ;))

On the Nature of [Wo]Man (as [s]He Writes Essays and Watches TV)

 For my moral philosophy class, we have to write an essay on morality (go figure).  It's on the movie Crimes and Misdemeanors, and we have been challenged to decide whether the main character, Judah, behaves in a moral way or not.  (For those of you who haven't seen the movie, the main character Judah hires a hit-man to kill his mistress to cover up the affair and the knowledge she has of his embezzlement of money in his company, and is never caught for the act.  The murder is instead pinned on a homeless man who was arrested for other break-ins and subsequent murders in the area.  After all, "what's one more murder on his record?").  Furthermore, we must also decide if he is a moral person.  It's a challenging subject, not because I don't know what I think about the subject, but because I don't know how to articulate it in an academically acceptable way (especially on this campus). 

As a Christian, my view of morality, of right and wrong, is entirely dependent on God.  It wasn't always that way - I used to be a moral relativist (if you're interested, see some of my oldest posts...).  I still occasionally find myself sympathizing with relativism and the ideas associated with it, especially when I'm confronted with a situation like this one.  I believe firmly, with every ounce of my heart and soul and head, that God exists.  I believe that there is an absolute moral right and wrong.  But I don't know how to academically, philosophically prove that.  So I'm stuck in this conundrum - I believe what I believe, but on a philosophical level I have no idea how to prove it. 

In the process of trying to decide how to appropriately articulate myself, I decided to take a little brain-break, and watch some TV.  I've heard from a few people recently about this TV show (sort of set up like Candid Camera, if anybody remembers that show), called "What Would You Do?".  It basically sets up awkward situations in real life with hidden cameras and actors, to examine how people react.  Some of their set-ups include a waiter harassing a gay couple with children, a racist store manager asking a black woman to leave an up-scale NYC store because she "can't trust people like [her]", and placing a (fake) baby inside a closed up car on a hot summer day on the street with a recording of crying noises.  They set up hidden cameras to view the situation, and afterward often talk to people about why they reacted (or didn't react) the way they did. 

It occurred to me while watching this that people who stand up for the "right thing" are often angry and upset during a confrontation, and relieved when they discover that it's actually a set-up.  On the other hand, the people who don't react (but who noticed the situation) are almost always ashamed, apologetic, and make "politically correct" excuses.  It occurs to me that even with touchy subjects such as racism and gay couples, most people are simply afraid of standing up for what they know is the right thing.  Some people even flip-flopped on the subjects - when talking to other customers or the people who are perpetuating these acts, they agree (or at the very least acquiesce) to their point of view.  But as soon as they find out it's a set up, they immediately correct their position and proclaim how wrong it is. 

All this brings me to think that somewhere, deep down, everybody knows what is right and wrong.  Everybody knows, even beyond cultural norms, but to the depths of humanity what is right and wrong. 

So now I think I'll re-approach my essay with this in mind.  With a sense of community in mind, as well as the understanding that I can, just maybe, articulate the depth of my convictions given the right tools and mindset. 

Things I [didn't] Learn in Sunday School

The last 6 months have been absolutely indescribable for me.  For those of you who know me, you may be able to see, or hear about, some of the changes that have been going on in my life (both internal and external); and let me assure you, there have been A LOT of them.  I don't know how to describe it, or how it even happened, but suddenly I'm a completely different person.

One of the most significant things that different about me is that I have a newfound faith - something that's not entirely new, but definitely rediscovered, re-invented, redefined, and completely new from anything else in my life, ever.  And I'm discovering that I simply cannot get enough of God.  I've been going to church regularly (more than once a week, which for those of you who know me is a HUGE deal), I've been simply soaking myself in studying God's word and God's person, prayer, fellowship, meditation, and learning.  And from that, I'd like to share a few things that I've recently learned that I was never taught in 18 years of going to Sunday School:

• Acts 2:42-47 -- This is what a christian community should be about!  This is a church.
• God's material blessings to me and those around me is, in fact, a true BLESSING.  It's what we do with these blessings that matters - and God calls us to use our material blessings to help others, not shed our blessings to be with others.  There's a distinct and important difference, and it's something I struggle with. 
• Regarding Doubts:  "if you see through everything you see nothing.  The point of doubt isn't to see 'through' everything, but to see what's on the other side."
• God has blessed each of His followers with EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING that could be.  
• God's plan A was the church.  This was not His plan B or C or "collateral damage".  THIS is the plan. 
• Regarding Testimonies:  Most people emphasize the "how bad they were before God" part.  Shouldn't we be telling the story opposite; that is, shouldn't we be living radical, crazy lives AFTER we were transformed for Jesus?  Shouldn't that be the glorified part? The "wow" part?
• If a stranger were to walk into a church, they should look around at the people and say, "what on earth could bring every single one of these people here?  They are all so different - what could they possibly have in common?"
• Your life with God is like a bullseye, with God at the center.  People are all over, facing different directions, walking different directions, some are close to the center some are far out.  Obviously God cares about where we are in relation to Him, but more importantly, God cares which direction we are facing.  If we are in the center but facing out, looking back at where we came from, at all of the great things we've done, at all the hoops we've jumped through, we've completely missed the point.  God wants us to be facing him and walking forward, no matter where we are on the circle.  
• God has entrusted me with the Gospel, and it is my responsibility to share it. 
• We don't have to be perfect to come to God, but we do have to be ready to be perfected.
• Sometimes we grab a hold of an idea before God is done talking.  We need to let God finish His sentences.
• God wants to do something ORIGINAL in me.  Not something he's never done before -- something ORIGINAL.  As in, original to His plan.  Original to how He intended things to be.  Original - back to the origins.  
• Our spirituality is more important than our physicality.
• God often talks of His inheritance IN US.  WE are God's inheritance!
• God is BIG!!!! (This is maybe my favorite thing about God... every time it makes me fall in love all over again.)
• God calls us to do nothing to discredit His name... and that's a big task!
• Prophecy and the Bible is actually NOT up to interpretation - God had only one meaning and one purpose to His word.  (This is not to say that discussion should be squelched, or that His word isn't worth reading over again and again because there are many layers to things, but rather that each of those layers and facets to His word has only one true meaning as God intended.  It is up to us to figure out what that is.)
• This is all temporary.  The book of Revelations is my comfort many days.  

On Defining Myself

It is so strange the way my heartstings waltz with one another... I can be exhausted, hungry, lonely, (which I not really ever, but whatever...) PMS-ing, not feeling well, hurt, frustrated, angry, even grieving and my emotions are fairly constant. While I might be a bit moody, less touchy, needing time to myself for no apparent reason, or less motivated (even sometimes more self-centered), I'm good at being stable, containing whatever feeling it is to whatever in my life they are due and not allowing them to carry over. Even on 2 hours of sleep, should someone greet me with a friendly, "hey KP how are ya?" I'd in all likelihood reply with a "pretty good. tired, but good." And while I'd spend the day trying desperately to keep my eyes open, my attention focused, and slightly less willing to stand up for things that I know are going to require energy in large quantities, I'm still, overall, good.

But when I get restless (ok, I'm always restless), I can't control it. The mood swings are violent and unpredictable. One day can be good for no apparent reason and the next day miserable even though I was treated with all the due courtesies (plus some) that are "due". I'm well slept and well fed and not stressed, but even hour to hour, I can find myself feeling relatively good, and then like I want to crawl in a hole and die. I don't understand how that one emotion can tinker with every other one of my emotions, how that singular discontent in my life can lead to so much stress and anxiety and hunger and powerful, powerful things. Pulling that one heartstring makes all my other heartstings dance and leap like puppets in an uncoordinated, slightly violent and choppy rendition of an urban interpretive dance of a breaking heart. Like new, jagged earthen peaks rising from the ground to the heavens in a majestic salute to the raw, unabashed glory of these imperfect molten creations.

It is interesting that in nature such sights are full of awe and splendor and inspiration and overwhelming power and beauty. Yet in our own lives, in our own hearts and souls, we cannot accept these grand and imperfect mountain scenes, but rather we prefer the worn, loping hills of rolling grasses and grazing flocks. But how is it that those hills were formed? How can there be peaceful rolling hills if the weren't first giant, gaping, violent mountains. Do we get to pick which we want? Or must we begin with the land, the life we've been given, and should we choose to, wear down these restless mountains into rolling plains?

Much as i hate this feeling, these crazy mood swings and the violent peaks of my heart, I don't know that I want anything different. Which puts me in quite the conundrum - there's this blessing that feels like a curse, that creates discomfort and pain and hardship and man other things. It's difficult to reconcile the suffering it causes for me and more importantly for those around me with the joy and relief it can bring. It is Love that both drives me and hinders me, that causes as much pain as happiness and yet I cannot stop myself from loving - from loving EVERYONE. I try not to, i try to tell myself that sometimes it's not worth it, that I can't possibly meet and know and love all 7 billion people on this planet, so I may as well not try, but why not? Why should I put forth such effort to become someone other than the someone I was created to be? So what if I fall in Love too easily? So what if my heart yearns for things it may never have, if my hearts breaks more often than it becomes whole? What if I feel whole by being broken? What if my place in this world is to always be searching for my place? What do i do then? What do other people do with me? How do I wrestle with restlessness when the restlessness forces me into these patterns which I yearn for?

There are many things that I am, but few that truly define me - restlessness is, for me, at the core of why I am. Perhaps it yanks on my heartstings the way it does not because it is a string that is attached to the others, but because it IS my heart. It is the driving force that keeps me alive, that courses blood through my veins and resurrects my soul from the depths of apathy. And although very seriously doubt I will be able to come anywhere near meeting, knowing, and loving everyone, I do not think, even through all the discouragement that this will stop me from knowing and loving every person I meet. I do not know that I could ever stop without dying because this part of me simply IS. And when something simply is, there's no fighting it.

Perfect Imperfections

Before I was born, God scattered all the pieces of my heart to the wind, to the four corners of the earth. I was born already broken...

I must travel because that's where my heart is - out there, in the world with the people, floating with the wind across mountains and plains and deserts... a part of me is missing when I am here. And so, if I am to serve, if I am to give fully of myself, then I must travel. For it is only when I have found and gathered all the pieces to my heart that I can truly be whole, and that I can truly give of myself.

*** Somewhere, someday, I shall find my soul. And when I do, all the world shall be at peace.***

Musings Regarding Clouds and the Properties of Thoughts

This is an excerpt from something I wrote a few weeks ago, 35,000 feet in the air on an airplane.   

There is a strange conundrum involved with openmindedness - if your mind is too open, every thing, every value, every philosophical concept, every image and memory, all your reasons and your emotions and your logic will simply lift up and drift away (for thoughts are light, you see - lighter than air - they're what keep you from sinking to the depths of the earth). Suddenly, with your mind open, you'll have nothing left, your head will be an empty pool, left to dry in the desert sun. You'll be a hollow, echoing shell. 

So what, you ask, is the solution? Keep some things locked away in the closet of your soul. Figure out what it is that you must believe in, what your rules are, your non-negotiables, establish yourself to yourself, and then lock them away where no one can touch them or disturb them. Take them out - it's important to not let them collect dust - use them, exercise them, walk them or drive them or throw balls to them and watch them play fetch, but always always hold on to them, and always put them back. 

And when someone challenges you, when somebody, somehow, damages or disables one of those prized possessions, or when you suddenly discover that the sky is actually green rather than blue, when you find (or when someone abruptly points it out to you) that you were wrong, that there's an error or a fallacy, exchange the thought. Take the old one out, throw it away let it float in your brain with a question mark, re-gift it to someone else, or drop it off on the street corner. But never ever let that closet find itself empty. Never put everything out with question marks all at once. For if you don't have anything locked away, if you don't have anything you don't unquestionably believe in (even if you might be wrong), you can't think. And if you can't think, you can't exist. And once you lose your existence, how do you regain it?

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Clouds are such unique and invigorating forces of nature - they appear soft, cushion-y, wispy things of fantasy, of dreams, of heaven and imagination. They appear as distant rescuers, promises of greener, more fruitful tomorrows. They appear as funny shapes, as shade on warm days, as gloom, as anger, as relief. They can be ominous, looming things, promises of danger and fear and destruction. They begin as invisible droplets, building and moving and building and moving offering everything and nothing to those below. Growing exactly where God intended into grand and enormous, marvelous beings with a depth and a width and a purpose and a personality. And then, exactly at God's design, they drop when and where and exactly how much they're supposed to. The clouds cry their lamentations to the heavens and the earth and Hades, and mourn the passing of time, the loss of a loved one, the turbulence movement brings. And then they disappear, lingering no longer than necessary, no longer than they are supposed to, and move on. The shadows linger a moment longer, and then those too, are gone. The only memory of the cloud is that the grass smiles and stands a bit straighter, dressed in it's best, most colorful outfit. 

Perhaps we should be more like clouds

Truthfully Relative

So I had a thought the other day. If you believe that truth is absolute, then you inadvertently believe in God. God can't exist without absolute truth, and neither can absoluteness (in anything, but particularly in truth) exist without God. Not necessarily God in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word, but somehow, there has to be a higher power - if anything is to be absolute.

And, if you believe that truth is relative, then you do not necessarily believe in a higher power. Without said God, relativity is the rule.

Allow me to briefly provide an illustrative example. Lets say that two people are in court testifying about the of a particular third person. Now, Person A insists (and truly, genuinely believes) that they saw Person B Person C (who was found in an alleyway without any additional witnesses and minimal corroborating evidence). But Person B passionately insists (and believes) that they did NOT Person C. Who is correct? Is each persons truth relative to their position, point of view, and other factors? Or is there one correct truth regardless of what Persons A and B believe? If you agree with the latter, then somehow, someway, there must be some higher power to differentiate. It doesn't even have to be a spirit - it could simply be time, or existence. But somehow, there is something greater. If, however, you believe the former, then there is no need for a God/higher power, because nobody needs to differentiate, and therefore each person is his own God.

Which brings me to the dilemma - Can you believe that truth is relative, and still believe in God?

Life

A recent series of events (some bigger than others) has led me to a new conclusion - Death is really nothing. And I mean that in a variety of ways. Death is something that we can't control, nor is it something we look forward too, and since we can't look back on it, it ultimately doesn't matter. Death should mean nothing.

But it does. In so many ways it defines who we are, who we become, and how we live our lives. Because it is such an overwhelming thing, to humans, we either ignore it completely, or are completely consumed by it.

But why? Why should we let our death define our life? There's no point. Number one, it just creates negative energy that is useless. In general, most people can't control when or how they die. Obviously, trying to skateboard across the highway or cliff dive into a shallow pool is not a good decision, and will probably increase your chances of death. But most people are rational enough not to do something like that. So, for example, lets say you are walking down the street, and are afraid that someone is going to jump out and mug you. You don't have any control over that, and if it is going to happen, it's going to happen regardless of whether you are afraid or not. So why worry? (Just a disclaimer - I'm not saying don't be aware of your surroundings.)

Also, my new theory is that regardless of what you believe about the afterlife - whether you are athiest or christian or hindu or muslim, I think something happens. According to Newton's laws, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. And, I would argue that there is something that creates life that is more than just neurons firing in your brain. If that were so, people wouldn't have personalities, quirks, and the human race wouldn't be where we are today. So, there must be something else out there. Some energy, some human force that makes us who we are. Something, be it a spirit or a ghost or just some amorphous blob of existence, that cannot be destroyed. It can change forms, but won't ever cease to exist. And that is how I have recently come to the conclusion that there is either, 1) an afterlife (in the judeo-chrisitan sense of the word), or 2) reincarnation. Maybe not reincarnation in full, maybe personalities splice and different traits go to different people, but something else. Beyond that, I don't know. But theres something.

And that brings us comfort. So now, the question becomes, why do you believe what you do? And do you really believe it?