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So, Ariah’s post on letting your values guide your cost of living, and not your income set of a stream of thoughts in the shower this morning. First of all I do agree with him. There’s a thought that came to my mind, and so be patient as I follow my tangent oriented brain down a couple of corridors.

I value art and good design, it is not my top priority, but all other things being equal (and other priorities met to some satisfaction) I will pay more money for better design and better art in whatever I’m purchasing. Thinking about this and how it fits in with the idea behind Ariah’s post, my brain started going down another avenue. A thought that I’ve heard people express, which is similar (but not the same) as the one I’ve just expressed, is that they buy certain objects is that they use/wear/drive these particular objects as a way to express themself. I wonder if this is true/possible (and if I’m overusing slashes).

Can a persons purchases of mass-produced objects be truly a means of self expression, or is this just part of an advertiser-created culture that says that we are defined by what we do (or do not) purchase? Also, part of what Ariah’s post says is that our values, one way or another, are expressed (non-exclusively) through our purchasing decisions. If I may extend that statement in saying that our values and our personalities are expressed through our purchasing decisions, how do we draw the line between having our purchases reflect our values and having our purchases define our values?

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My New Moleskine, originally uploaded by toad1981.

So I haven’t done many sketches in a while. I’m hoping to change that so here’s my newest moleskine, decorated with the stickers that come with it, and all taped over (roughly) with packing tape. In the meantime, I’m really open to ideas for a series of sketches. If you have a cool idea for a series of sketches, post it in the comments. If it catches my imagination, I’ll do it.

1) Drive my own car to the opening night of Mission Impossible 3 on my birthday.

1a) Hopefully have that car be a 2007 Toyota Yaris Sedan (red or black).

As long as I’m being introspective (and posting up a storm). Here are two things that I’ve heard said that people have meant sarcastically but have stuck in my mind and ministered to me.

Wearing a cross is the equivalent of walking around with a mini electric chair around your neck. Usually I’ve heard this said to make fun of Christians who wear crosses, or other visible signs of faith. This statement makes me want to wear a cross (and actually I’m thinking of restarting my collection). There is something powerful of taking a symbol of shame and turning it into a symbol of glory. The cross as a symbol of execution talks simultaneously talks about my deserved fate that I escaped, and what had to be done for me to escape it. It’s like almost being killed and carrying around the bullet that was shot at you and the object you had in your pocket that stopped it. It’s a reminder that our lives, both eternal and temporal, are only here because of the actions of someone else.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I usually hear this (from more than one person if someone is wondering). As sort of a codeword talking about the church and how traditional it is. But lately it’s something that has been coming to my mind in a lot of situations. And my mind has put extra emphasis on the word all. Again it’s humbling to think that every blessing comes from God. The fact that I was able to catch the right bus this morning and get to my meeting on time. That’s a blessing, and it’s one that God has granted. It’s also one that I don’t deserve (see the section above). So praise God from whom ALL blessings flow. I also like the imagery that God is connecting us to him through the mundane. Blessings flow from the very substance of God and in the same way that people can be connected to God when they are blessed by a song or a word, it’s the same way we can be connected to God when we are blessed by light traffic, a friendly email, or by every breath we take. Every blessing is an opportunity for us to praise God from whom all blessings flow.

When I was seven, I moved from Trinidad to Jamaica. In a lot of ways I’ve never felt completely Jamaican. I was probably just old enough that a lot of my deeper, more subtle thought processes were set just enough that I was speaking a second language when I was not at home.

For a very long time, at home with my family was really the only place I felt like I was being myself. I couldn’t be my semi-trinidadian, rock-music loving, comic book reading, cricket hating, nerd self at school, and definitely not at church, which for pretty much all my time there, has been a socially and (surprisingly) theologically foreign territory to me. I’m not sure how the latter happened. I suspect that my mother had more influence on my theology than on anyone else even though as a child we rarely had explicit discussions on theology.

Being at Macalester, here in Minnesota has been interesting in this respect. It has been a huge shaper in who I am, it has also served to highlight that there is definitely a strong Caribbean part of my heritage while simultaneously highlighting how I’m different from the average Jamaican male that was at Macalester. Though I will say, my time at Macalester was probably one of the closest to speaking my heart language than anything else.

That leaves me here, currently attending an African American baptist church. Which, while a lot of things about baptist theology, and African American culture speak to me, also shows me that though I am of African descent, I am not African American (on a tangent: this is why I will only use the phrase African American if I’m speaking of something that is both, otherwise I will use the word black, or speak of something being African diasporic. I also get miffed when people use the phrase African American when they are not speaking of just America. February is Black History Month, of African Heritage month, not African-American Heritage month). My current church also shows me how much of my theology, and my style of interaction with God comes from the Pentecostal church I grew up in.

That’s why sometimes I feel like I’ve been speaking trade language for my entire life. And also why I am also an advocate of all people exploring their ethnic heritage and cultural history. It’s not about putting ourselves in boxes marked white, black, hispanic, etc. It’s about understanding the influences that your ancestors, through your parents and your community, have had on you, acknowledging those influences alongside the other things that have influenced your life, and understanding that God has given you all of that as a gift.

The pastor at my current church gave a sermon recently, I can’t remember what the sermon was about overall, but a line stuck in my head. It was to the effect of “Remember that God has done for you things that he has not done for anyone else”. It’s an easy thing to say on an individual basis. God has given you your specific parents, your specific siblings, your specific trials and your specific salvations that put you where you are. If you take a step back, then you realize that this means that God has done things for your family that he has not done for any other families. This idea easily extrapolates to groups, ethnicities and entire cultures. If we choose to not recognize the gifts that our cultures are, then how big of a step is it to not recognize the Giver of the gifts.

Ok, so this post has gone on for a while, and took a turn that I didn’t expect it to take. But that’s sort of the explanation of why I feel like I’ve spoken trade language since seven. I blame you Ariah. It gets hard here sometimes, because my family is not as easily accessible as they would be in Jamaica. But I have people with whom I share particular vocabularies of my heart language, and a good phonecard. For now that is enough.

I just found out that George Lucas’s middle name is Walton.

Therefore, the next time somebody mentions anything about George W. my responce will be “Lucas?”

I feel like I’ve been speaking trade language for most of my life, or at least from age seven upwards.

So, for a lot of yesterday evening I felt really dirty and disgusted and for a while I could not figure out why. Until I realized that while I was at the comic store, I browsed through American Virgin, and when at home I watched the Firefly episode called Mrs Reynolds. In both these stories, characters used sex as a weapon, and that disgusted me.

I’m actually quite surprised by my reaction, and the violence of it. I’m often saddened, sometimes angered, but I’m rarely disgusted, and particularly at that level. I guess that turning something that sacred, something meant to join people together, into something meant to destroy just hit the wrong kind of nerve.

Wind plays with my legs
I can feel my pants again
No long underwear

I showed this to my Junior High Class at church last night. It went over very well. I think it was a combination of a good movie, improved strategy, the presence of a second teacher and most of all, God being there.

There’s a lot of things in that move that talk about the issues of otherness, growing up and all that sort of stuff.

My critique is that I didn’t do as great a job as I could have of bringing the point home, but the good thing about it is that next week as we watch the final third of the movie, there will be another chance to bring home all the points (and there are many).