Monday, January 19, 2004
(6:31 AM) | Anonymous:
God's Gonna Do What He's Gonna Do
Within the movie pumpkin, which I just saw, there's a scene where Christina Ricci's perfect boyfriend is attempting to copulate when she breaks off to say she wants to talk. When he finally gives in and asks what, her character, who is the perfect-life sorority girl forced to confront the fact that life isn't perfect in the form of her growing love (yeah..that kind of love) for a mentally retarded boy, says something akin to: "I have some issues with the Greek System. I mean..it seems to be set up simply to help some people feel better than others. You have those who don't get in at all, and even if you make it in, there's the good sororities, and the bad ones..and there's really no reason at all for any of it, especially not on a public college campus payed for by tax dollars!"
Seriously, Christinna Ricci, what the heck? What IS going on? It's not just sorority/fraternity lives, but that seems a good jumping off point. Is there any good reason for such things? I ask in honesty, having had no affiliation with them. I'm honestly not some loser who couldn't get in rebelling against the system, I just don't understand why we have to take every possible opportunity to make certain people, the SAME certain people every time, feel good about themselves, while others have to feel bad. And then to top it off, we take those "good" people and determine the best of the best with crappy little competitions and inter-greek feuding and what not. Sure, you gain an instant family, as long as you are exactly like them and probably would have found your way to similar people in normal dorm life anyway. In addition, you gain instant enemies with "rivals". Seriously..this makes about as much sense as Major League Baseball determining home-field advantage in the world series by whoever wins the FREAKING ALL-STAR GAME. How hard is it to just simply give it to whomever has the best record rather than a random, meaningless game? Same level of stupidity here folks.
But, if it was just that level of making college life hell for already self-conscious girls and guys, that'd be fine..I'm sure after several weeks of being upset, they'll eventually find a niche and be okay. Hopefully. But it's not just that. This level of stupid competition has to sink to every level of our veins. Why do we have to have parties? They certainly weren't in the constitution, and were actually a great worry of founders. So, suddenly we have the republicans and democrats, and any new policy enacted by the democrats is good, our president from our party can do no wrong. Instantly we grow to hate everyone of the other party. And why? Is the party system really that necessary? Couldn't people just vote their minds and be judged on the basis of that? Why do we have to divide the freaking governance of millions of lives INTO TEAMS!? At the beginning of the Woody Allen movie, Bananas, Howard Cosell gives the play-by-play of a presidential assasination in the fictional San Marcos. That's not far off - as a registered democrat now, I can't deny that part of me wants Bush to fail, part of me wants the Iraqi body count to hit 10,000, part of me wants every other nation in the world to hate mine. Why? Because that seemingly will help my team with the game. This is sickeningly disgusting to realize in myself, yet even more disturbing is that this isn't a revolutionary insight - it's simply acknowledged fact by everyone everywhere.
I'm not about to say that kids need to stop keeping score in sports or anything like that - let's face it, as much as I am making myself feel sick to say it, sports, in the end, is supposed to be a stupid inane form of entertainment. Nobody really feels worse about themselves if their team loses except kickers who miss field goals or similar goats. It's a proper place for this kind of stuff because it simply doesn't matter - it's not a person's life, it's not thousands of people dying or individuals with families losing their jobs. It just seems like there's enough reasons in the world to hate others, why do we have to choose up teams to isolate rich from poor, pretty from ugly, left from right, north from south..and every other aggressively antagonistic pairing in the world? To that extent, why do we have to divide up Christians and Non-Christians? Wouldn't it be easier to love if we just went on the basis that we, ourselves, are trying to follow Christ, and stop worrying about what team everyone else is on? I mean..is there a good reason for us to so strictly divide people spiritually in our heads? Do we really hate the idea of everyone going to heaven so badly that we have to repeat to ourselves at least 3 times a week that some people will not, and how to identify them? It's not about reaching the lost, it's about reaching EVERYONE WHO IS NOT ME.
Do I really have to go to church to hear that gays, smokers, pre-marital sex havers, selfish, prideful, thieving, and basically everyone else is going to hell and why? Why can't I go to church to hear about the personage of Christ? Isn't the challenge of trying someway, somehow to live like He did hard enough, and moreso, at least interesting enough to inspire a fraction of as many sermons as sermons.org's financial lessons and easily copy-able "devotionals" do? If half the pastors in the US can get their sermons off websites like the above and read them verbatim, why the heck not just read the sermon on the mount? I have no clue what the requirements for heaven and hell are, and such people may very well be heading to hell, I just don't know. But is it so evil that I hope all can be saved, and live my life accordingly, rather than going through categorizing good from bad all day long? Dare I start to hope? I mean..really, in the end, to paraphrase southern gospel group The Martins, God's gonna do what he's gonna do - the fact that I identify certain lifestyles as wrong has no bearing on what happens - but maybe the fact that I love everyone possible with every ounce of my being can make someone else's life a smidgen better.
Seriously, is this so hard? It seems common sensical, it seems basic that we don't need to divide everyone up into easy categories as if they were some sort of 5th grade science project.
Maybe I'm missing the point of everything. Christ did say he came to bring a sword, not peace..
