Belonging, Apple, and Christianity

Like I said before, the movie Dolphin Tale spoke to me on a number of levels and I was thinking about the third one.  Belonging.  The kid in the movie is a bit of a social outcast (at least they try and portray that) kept to himself, seeing no reason to interact with anybody.  Once he gets involved with this dolphin, something he cared about, he all of a sudden is interacting with others, a bit shy at first, but once he feels like he belongs his life changes.  Man isn't that the truth.

I think people will do pretty much anything to feel like they belong.  I know that this isn't groundbreaking news. It's what fads are based on.  It's what Apple is based on.  I mean it's no secret that people who are "Apple people" are hardcore for it.  I find that many people that are hardcore Apple people think that they are part of a small group of  people who really "know" where it's at.  They come across a little elitist in my opinion.  It's like all they can talk about is how great their Mac is and how they can't believe you haven't switched over from your archaic PC lifestyle.  (If you own a Mac and are not like this then never mind what I am saying.  Mac people who know PC people like this, switch the context around.  There are PC people who are the same way.  There are people who love their Toyota the same way too.)  Some of them seem to even act like they don't care about status and that they are even part of a revolution at the grassroots level.  Last time I checked though, grassroots didn't involve purchasing something 3 times the price of another product, thereby limiting the people who can even buy it.  The only people who can afford Mac's are not grassroots, everyday people.  They are people with well paying jobs who try to pretend that they are not interested in purchasing expensive things.  People who love their Mac's feel like they are part of a select group of people who know the best way to live using technology available.  They feel like they belong to something.  Some kind of movement, that, if you are not in this movement, then you must be a bit dull because it has taken you so long to join in.  Maybe I'm just bitter because I still use a Dell that works just fine right now when I would really like to go for a Mac. (That's probably the reason, because I think I would really like one.)   I feel like I would become an elitist just like the rest of em though and I don't want to do that.  I feel like I like belonging to the group who complains about the people who talk about their Mac's all the time. (to be honest though, my family has an Iphone, Ipod touch, and Ipod nano(old school version), Ipod shuffle (REALLY old school stick version)  Anyway, I think all of us know people that talk about something in their life like it is the greatest thing ever and all the rest is just second best. To be honest I do this myself with some products I really like.  Either way, you either belong to the one group with or you belong to the group without. 

I am a Christian. I make no bones about it.  The thing that I was just wondering about tonight was what if I look like a Mac user to people who still have questions about what "this Christianity thing" is about.  I am sure that there are many preconceptions about me just because I say I am a Christian.  I wonder if people look at me and go, "He's part of that elitist group who think they know how to live life using the spirituality available right now."  Hmmmm.  I think that sometimes it might come across that way to people.  Not just me but all Christians.  That we're all a little on the jerk side.  It probably rubs people the wrong way that we feel like we have found something important that is the truth.  As soon as people think that you think that you have found the truth, thereby telling them that they do not have truth, it can get tense.  It's like me not being able to afford a Mac and having some hipster tell me that there is nothing that can come close to it and if you don't have one and are a "PC person" then you are really just spinning your wheels.  You feel like saying, "Look you inconsiderate jerk, some of us don't make the money it takes to buy one of those, and you rubbing it in my face just makes me more annoyed at you.  It certainly does not make me want to buy a Mac. In fact, there is more than one way to live life and I am doing fine with the way I am doing it now." The PC user may say this even though they wish there was a way that they could purchase a Mac, but they are just so in debt that they feel there is no way to do it.  They've made some bad purchases and their credit is maxed.

Everyone is searching for belonging, and at the core of Christianity is the hope of being accepted.  Accepted by a Creator of all things.  Now if you don't believe in God, you find this stupid.  I wonder if some people who are atheists sometimes choose atheism because even though they would like to have hope in something, they look at the way people of various religious belief around the world, and how they conduct themselves and they just think, "even if I did think there may be something out there, I would not want to work it into any of those paradigms, it just can't be like that.  Therefore it's better for me to make a choice to not believe at all." I am not going to try and apologize for Christian beliefs right now.

I guess I just want to say that I can understand where the people who think that Christianity is like Apple are right at times.  I guess  it would look like a club of people who act like they have the greatest product ever produced, in a religious sense.  Maybe they might seem a bit elitist to you.  Like a big country club.  They get together on Sundays and meet and sing about good things and try to put a positive spin on life, even when the world is falling apart.  That must seem sort of stupid.  People get dressed in their "Sunday Best" when much of the world is starving and has no clothing at all.  That seems stupid too.  You might know some people who say they go to a certain church on Sunday, but you see them throughout the rest of the week and they are just like you, or much of the time WORSE than you are.  How can Christianity claim to be the best product out there when I am getting by just fine (or better than fine in my opinion) on my own?

Well I am sorry that Christianity comes across like that when it was never meant to be a club.  It was meant for everybody, and made so that we could love everybody the best that could be done.  It has had a rough go of trying to figure out what to stand for and what to let go.  It seems to me that my faith has gotten more simple and more complex as I get older.  More simple in that it is about Jesus Christ and figuring out how to let people know that there is forgiveness in a seemingly unforgiving world.  All the rules that I thought I learned as a kid have fallen off or changed a bit.  That's the complex part.  In this changing world, I don't think that the Bible has changed, but our interpretations of what it says have changed at times.  I'm talking about  things like drinking as an example, something that when I was younger I thought very conservatively about, and now I will have a drink every now and then.  I still don't think it's a good idea to go get hammered, but I used  to think that God would be VERY upset with me if I even took a drink.  Alcohol is something that can get people into a lot of trouble though, so I'm not saying just have at 'er but I'm not saying we should go back to prohibition.  There are a lot of issues that polarize people in this world.  I wish we could talk about them, hear both sides. I don't know that I can have a definitive answer for some things.  Some of you may find that horrible, that I should have an answer for a question.  I'm just being honest I guess.  The one thing I do believe in definitively is that Christ can pay your debt.  It's weird to say out loud that you believe that the death of a human man on a Roman Cross 2000ish years ago (who was born of a virgin no less) can give cause for celebration because of the magnitude of forgiveness that this one act offers all humanity.  It does sound weird.  But, I think that basically all faiths sound really weird when you say them out loud.  I even think Atheism sounds weird.  That we just happened to come about, that the planet Earth just happens to be in exactly the right spot in the cosmos for us to have randomly have formed.  That a molecule called DNA was made and just happened to start replicating itself.  I know all the arguments for the start of time and all that and I sometimes wonder if God used that method to get us going, but can't you agree that it is pretty overwhelming, and a little weird?

The place where my Mac analogy falls apart is that I think that getting a Mac is expensive.  It costs you a lot of money.  Getting Christ doesn't cost a lot of money, but it does cost.  I think the thing it costs me the most is my pride.  To admit that I need something else to save me is really hard sometimes.  I don't like it, turning to, and having to submit to something else.  I mean, I do alright.  I do good things.  I make a difference in this world.  I guess that I just believe that at our darkest hours, during our hardest times (which all of us have) I have a need. I don't believe in God just because he can help me though, I do believe that, but I believe he can help us, as a human race, if we will submit our pride and wrongdoings, submit our debts as it were and trust in someone who has the capital to bail us out.  I don' know how he makes his living, but I know he has the ability to erase my debt.  I call Him up often, sometimes not often enough I think, and ask for understanding as to the outstanding balance for my account.  I think the Bible tells us that once we commit our lives to God, he pays the balance and it is always zero.  Hard for me to understand how someone could do this for me, but like I said, I don't quite understand His line of work.  I think that as I get older and continue to search and talk to Him, I will understand just a minute fraction of a trillionth of how He does his work, but it will be worth it.

I hope the if you are bitter at Christians that you can see that we really don't think we are better than anyone else.  We just happen to do jerkface things sometimes that may give you that impression.  The thing is, the essence of what we believe teaches that nobody is better than anyone else, we are just working hard at believing it, and sometimes we fail.  If you have been thinking about giving God a chance, or a second chance or third chance etc. don't let a Christian get in the way of God.  You can get to Him directly by the way.  Talk to Him, see what you think after.

Anyway, I hope you feel loved and have a sense of belonging in your life.  I'm trying to talk to God more about it myself, and I hope I didn't come across as a jerk in this blog today.