I want a mohawk ...
These are the thoughts I wrote at a mission trip / work camp last week
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I want a piercing ... or a mohawk ... or really long hair ... I want to do something visible, concrete, and in your face to declare my rejection of Christendom. Something that makes baby bombing parents worried I am going to corrupt their kids ... because to be really honest I do. I want to corrupt their self-obsessed, ego-centric pursuit of feeling good by serving others. I am sick of it. I am sick of just preaching get happy sermons. I am tired of treating the devil only as the source of anything not fun in your life while ignoring the face of the devil when you shake the hand of a Wal-Mart greeter. I am tired of fixing someones home year after year, I want to be fixing the things that cause poverty or at least be working in my own life each week to help reduce it in my neighborhood. I am tired of empty promises ... just get right with God and you will have complete peace. Just get right with God and you will have your miracle or your victory ... just get right with God and you will be happy. All of these are not promises from God they are sales pitches ... marketing slogans ... buy tag body spray get women ... buy our church(Jesus) and get peace. No! A clear reading of the life of the saints, or the life of the disciples, of the life of Jesus is that they were often confused, lonely, frustrated, tired, in periods of dark and desperation, The way of the cross is not about happiness, religious experience, feeling high or good, none of that BS. The way of the cross is about changing things. It is a pronouncement of a new order, and new way of living, a new king and authority, new systems, new cultures.
I was told tonight that our camp leaders were philosophically opposed to doing something that might disturb people in worship. No offense to our leaders, who I really believe love their Jesus and want to be a blessing to others; but if you are not willing to disturb people in worship, you have gutted half the bible and abandoned your willingness to be a prophetic voice. If your central message to a room full of Christians on a mission trip is: you need to be saved ... you have lost your chance to speak like Elijah. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, James, or Paul, or Jesus. Do you think the church or Corinth, Ephesus, or Thesollanica enjoyed reading Paul's letters? Or did it disturb some of them? This is one area where I miss the courage of preachers in the Black tradition. There is a willingness to challenge and confront.
Perhaps Dreads are the answer ... I just want way to announce I am getting out of this corrupt generation ... to convey that I am not like that ... and I want to get into a community so I can live my life with that same conviction.
posted by Nate Custer at 12:01 PM
9 Comments:
Yay for body piercings and alternative looks! I have thought a LOT about piercing, since I have been in multiple situations where my piercings were in some way offensive or began some sort of drama. In one way, it's kind of silly, but in another way, it can bring up some really interesting conversations.
Here are two of my posts about body piercing in my life:
http://spectordanpictures.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_spectordanpictures_archive.html
and
http://spectordan.blogspot.com/2006/06/industrial.html
Nate
I dont know how I ran across this blog Maybe it was from here. It is much on the same lines that you have shared here. I think he shares some great ideas as well.
Thanks for being so brave to make this statement out loud. It is inspiring.
I'm really disappointed that you would publicly post this blog where your youth are free to see it. It is hard to serve in the vacinity that we served last week. I was there with you, I had struggles in my group but it comes down to serving God or not. I enjoyed getting to know you last week, but seeing this blog just makes me disappointed.
"Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master they stand or fall." The leaders that I knew at UM ARMY, including myself, had been praying about this trip and these kids for weeks and months in advanced. If there is one thing that I am sure of it is that their hearts were for these kids- I can’t say the same for you and that just makes me sad.
When I first read this blog I thought it must have been the writings of one of our lost, disgruntle kids, to find out this was a leader is devastating. If you do feel this way, why were you there? Why even put yourself out there as a leader when you have these resentful feelings in your heart about the program itself. If you don’t believe in it, don’t do it.
If you want to be anti-establishment then do your own thing, don’t put yourself out there as a leader and role model for these kids when you can’t fulfill that. There is nothing wrong with having spiritual struggles and doubts and everything that you wrote about I’m sure is just an honest breakdown of how you feel right now but that is not the way to express it. Put it in your diary, write it down on a pad of paper, don’t publish it to the world while you still remain in a place of leadership for youth.
You aren’t suppose to be perfect as a leader, but you are called to be above reproach. I will keep you in my prayers, which you will probably count off as hypocritical ramblings to God, but I know my heart, and I know that the thing I want most for you is not that you wouldn’t write about those things, but that you could either find resolution in your heart and not feel that way, or that you would make a bold move and decide that perhaps you are no in a place in your life to lead kids.
*vicinity
Your thoughts here remind me of a song by Cake called 'Comfort Eagle." Also, didn't Jesus come... didn't God come to us on earth in the shape and form of the ordinary 'lost' people? He didn't come down in the shape of one of the religious leaders of the time.
Go for the mohawk! They are out of fashion so the statement will be mroe obvious. 12 years ago I had a mohawk and was judged by many for it. At one point I was even questioned by campus police in connection with a reported rape because they were looking for a guy with a mohawk.
I liked your writing; it has the kind of frustrated energy I feel everytime I listen to punk. Real Punk, not that Christian Ska/Punk BS. It's funny now that I have a conservative hair cut, wear a bow tie and go to church every Sunday (because I want to *gasp*) I still crank up the punk and scream lyrics while I cruise down the road. In that music I hear the true feelings of people.
Anyway, my recipe for a tall mohawk. Grow hair long, shave the sides. Use lots of aquanet. Stay away from open flames. Place a little Texas flag in the top if you are going out of State. Enjoy people's reactions and use it as an opportunity to talk to new people.
One thought immediately leaps to mind regarding this post: USE SPELLCHECK OR RISK SOUNDING LIKE AN IDIOT AND CAUSING OTHERS TO COMPLETELY DISCREDIT YOU AND THEREFORE NEGATING ANY EFFECT YOU COULD HOPE TO HAVE. This goes for the poster and for the comment by the first Anonymous.
"If your central message to a room full of Christians on a mission trip is: you need to be saved ... you have lost your chance to speak like Elijah."
- I agree with this. I agree with what he said about
"I want to corrupt their self-obsessed, ego-centric pursuit of feeling good by serving others. I am sick of it. I am sick of just preaching get happy sermons. I am tired of treating the devil only as the source of anything not fun in your life while ignoring the face of the devil when you shake the hand of a Wal-Mart greeter. I am tired of fixing someones home year after year, I want to be fixing the things that cause poverty or at least be working in my own life each week to help reduce it in my neighborhood."
- I think lots of people do this kind of stuff to feel better about themselves. Or because they get to go to Schlitterbahn during the trip, or something equally self-serving. On the flip-side, I know that there are people that genuinely want to help. And some people can't do anything more than fix up houses. That's their limit. Not everyone can be a crusader for the voiceless. Otherwise this would be a perfect world and that's not what this was promised to be.
As far as not disturbing people during worship...... It depends entirely on what his definition of "disturbing" is. I think, in situations like UMARMY, you can push the envelope a little. And I think that sermons should *always* make you think (although I doubt I could come up with something thought provoking on a weekly basis). But I don't think that people should be made uncomfortable just for the sake of shaking things up. That's not going to get your message across as effectively as you might hope. Sure, you'll reach some, but you'll likely alienate the rest. And that's not the point, in my opinion.
Nate, did I tell you I pierced my nose after Glorietta? I LOVE IT! Any hoo...I'm really writing here because I NEED YOU! Can you email me? I have been looking at that drupal.org site you sent me to a couple of months ago, but I'm no developer...I don't really understand it all. Drop me a line at dsrtrosy@hotmail.com if you have a minute.
And here's my actual post:
Now that I'm working in ministry--yes, in leadership with bodyart--I have a new perspective on criticism. Pastors will tell you that anonymous criticism is about equal to no criticism at all.
I appreciate that there are differing viewpoints on all things related to the emerging church movement and I am open to all of those viewpoints--yes, even those that I disagree with--IF the person who disagrees does it openly. I would encourage anonymous writers to at least create some sort of profile here so that their differing of opinions might be taken with some salt, even if it is only a grain.
And I would encourage those who disagree with Nate to acknowledge his boldness to criticize, if that's how it is taken, openly and in his own name.
As soon as this crazy hair is long enough to chop, off it goes to locks of love. Maybe the mohawk is next for me as well...but I don't think I will pierce anything else any time soon!
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