7/23/09

A child learns early there is a fashionable and an unfashionable in the world, an ugly and a pretty, a valued and an unvalued. Where this system comes from, God only knows, but it is rarely questioned, and though completely illogical and agreed upon by everyone as evil, it remains in play, commanding our emotions as a possession. It isn't something taught in us by our parents; it is something that comes naturally, as though a radioactive kind of tragedy happened, screwing up our souls. Adulterated or policed, the system can grow to something more civilized, but no less dominant as a drive of nature.

Some people get the worst of it, its true. You grow up being told that all people are created equal, but they aren't. Some people are born into better homes than others, and some people look better than others, and some people are smarter and some people run faster.

I get this feeling sometimes that after the world ends, when God destroys all our buildings and our flags, we will wish we had seen everybody as equal, that we had eaten dinner with prostitutes, held them in our arms, opened up spare rooms for them and loved them and learned from them. [When I was young] I didn't know any of these things. I didn't know it didn't matter what a person looked like, how much money they made or whether or not they were cool. I didn't know that cool was a myth and that one person was just as beautiful and meaningful as another. Like I said, it felt important to climb the social ladder, it felt important to defend our identities, it felt as though we were saving our own lives.

[d. miller]

3 comments:

Sarah Alaoui said...

brilliant post. very representative of the seemingly black/white world we live in today. great blog.

Unknown said...

This is awesome. Cuts to the core of you. Causes one to think a little harder about what it is he/she is thinking so hardly about.

Lonestar said...

Another interesting post haha. You mention God. By that I assume you believe in a man named Jesus because of some of the authors you note, so I'll comment accordingly.

Yes, it is amazing how this black/white thinking has been instilled in us from when we were children. Right vs. Wrong. Good vs. Bad. What to do and what not to do. Who to be friends with and who to stay away from. This moralistic thinking...it's wrong.

That was Adam & Eve's cosmic declaration of independence. Satan led them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Good and evil is morality, so in essence they ate from the "Morality" or "Law" tree. As humans, we were not reserved for making these distinctions, which can only come from God. The system we thought we wanted was too high and divine for us; it was inoperable. Jesus broke the system, fulfilled the Law, and freed us from the black and white. He gave us life again.

Ironically, the vast majority of churches preach "morality," using Jesus as a footnote. What defines a good Christian from bad. Who to stay away from. What to do and what not to do. The church has regressed and put the onus on us instead of on Him. Christianity is no different from any other religion when it comes to morality. That's just being religious. The only thing that is different is Jesus.