Kitsch, Cliché, Nostalgia, and Longing for Home

I suppose I was a romantic from my early youth. It might be difficult to convince my wife of that because so much of my expressions of love have changed, and perhaps not all for the better. We grew up one-hundred yards from my grandpa and grandma’s house on the family farm. I had two older sisters, and I was the baby. At ten years old I would receive a baby brother who I had prayed for at length, and then we would all get a sister two years after that—which was the plan because my ten years of playmate-lessness had taught my parents that it was better to have clusters of children. And then, the last two had been boys, and my older sisters were excited to see another girl in the family so it had to be a girl, and it was.

The farm was the most incredible place to grow up—and next to my grandparents! I was homeschooled; out of desperation my mom would turn me loose in the woods where I could act out every adventure from Daniel Boone to Little House on the Prairie. All of my friends were in school so I ran the woods alone during the day, and there was ample time for reflection. I loved the beauty of the country. I spent much time bird-watching, building forts, and visiting my grandmother’s house. She had stacks of bird, animal, and plant reference books, and Country and Reminisce Magazines. The Reader’s Digest, Animals of North America had an idyllic scene in the front pages of a stream with trout, mountains in the background, a still meadow, and every woodland creature and animal converging on the stream. I longed for that place and often imagined that was where we lived. I pored over the magazines with pictures of little perfect churches, covered bridges, and horse-drawn carriages. My dad told me stories of buying dynamite at the hardware store for blowing up stumps and expanding fields. The beauty and adventure from the past cemented my view that older
was better.

As a college student at Bethel I learned that believing older is better was a real factor in the roots of western culture from the Greeks and the Jewish people. The Greeks were living in a declining civilization so looking back was natural. For the Jewish people, Moses was the prized prophet who had written most of the Old Testament, and looking back to his leadership was natural. And then of course, you could trace all the people of the world back to Adam the son of God—a father who was and still is inarguably better.

Some of my first college papers at Bethel had a dominant color, red—occasionally for spelling (spell-check was pretty good by then) but usually for clichés. I didn’t know you could drop several letter grades for using old phrases, but Dr Dreyer was faithful to find any hint of cliché and stomp it out. They were not allowed. There was no explanation for why old phrases were not allowed, just the bright red, “cliché” and lower grades. I adjusted, and eventually I understood.

My art professor, Dale Johnson, taught me another word—kitsch—like a Barbie-doll or tinsel on a Christmas tree. It is the fake, overly sweet, commercialized products masquerading as art but violating the true purpose of it so that even good intentions can lead to the corruption of one’s soul. Kitsch is often used to conjure up Nostalgia—that fuzzy warm feeling of things being right because they are from your past. But it’s a hollow rightness. It’s the kind of thing that can make you feel good about something that is wrong or to despise something just because it is new. One person could have nostalgic feelings about eating lefse while another feels nostalgic about robbing banks. The feeling of nostalgia is not a good moral guide, but it feels like it is. That’s what makes it so dangerous.

For a long time I felt like everything that made me who I am was outlawed. I felt cold and cynical. Where could I go to warm up? Was the feeling of being cozy wrong? Was the longing for home, a place to belong, wrong? This world never stops changing. The better relationships you have, the harder it will be to say goodbye. This life offers just a taste of God and eternity with him. He does not change. We can see him if we look back, and we can see him if we look ahead. To trust in him is to look back to our creator and forward to home. It is a place of beauty, love, and belonging. I am thankful for the love Christ has shown me and for the hope he has given.

—reh

Service > Control

There is power in the blood of the Lamb to save, to serve, and to love, but not for control. The greatest serve all. Christians were so called by the world around them because their actions were identified with Jesus Christ—hospitality, love for the poor, service to their neighbors, and love for each other. Christ was in them. If people, whoever they claim to be, seek power to control the kingdoms of the world, why should they be called Christian?

“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

—Jesus the Christ

“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household…”

— Paul the Apostle

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the

cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

—Paul the Apostle

“For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”

—Author of Hebrews speaking of Abraham

Daniel, one of the most righteous people ever known to the world, was a great servant of it. By his service he had great power and influence. Though Daniel’s earthly king fell to insanity, Daniel preserved the kingdom for him. He handed it back intact after caring for it for seven years. Never once did he use his position for his own advantage, to impose his own preferences or even his own convictions. As a captive he was forced to learn religions not his own, and serve wicked kings alongside wicked servants. He did not seek to change the kings hearts or the hearts of the people through the power of control, but by the power of service. His faith became contagious, and the earthly kings often turned to worship the God of Daniel. The people of the land, more than once, heard of the great, powerful, and faithful God of Daniel. The context of Daniel’s testimony was his humble service. He knew he was serving the one true heavenly King of Kings.

Though perfect disciples of Christ see opportunity and the promise of position in this kingdom of dust, they laugh, for what is it to be king of the dead but a curse? All becomes dust in the hand reaching for control, but the hand reaching out to help, to serve, to save, to heal, to love, that is the very hand of Christ. Just as Paul, The Apostle, told the Philippians, although actually being God himself, Jesus did not use his God-power for his own advantage. Instead, he made himself the servant of servants.

                         —reh

   “Who, being in very nature[a] God,

      did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

   7 rather, he made himself nothing

      by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,

      being made in human likeness.

   8 And being found in appearance as a man,

      he humbled himself

      by becoming obedient to death—

          even death on a cross!”

                                               —  Philippians 2:7-8

Racism. Silence.

Ignorance, not hate, is the underlying cause of racism.  I was homeschooled through high school. My exposure to other races was mostly at Bible camp—a couple weeks a year. Although I attended primarily white colleges, I made casual friends with a couple black students, Judge and Ty, at Bethel.  Ty was randomly assigned as my roommate when I came back to campus for spring semester, after being abroad. He was nice. We got along fine and talked on occasion. He was pretty private, and he was gone a lot. He introduced me to Judge. I really liked Judge. He was charismatic, chill, funny—a very likeable guy.  I really thought we would become good friends. We ate lunches together, spent some time hanging out in the dorm. Talking was natural, but it slowed down because we didn’t really enjoy the same activities, music or movies. One conversation still stands out to me, though, and I wonder if our friendship would have progressed if I had responded differently.  I used to do a beatbox pretty well, even though I didn’t prefer rap music. It was a random tallent I picked up from a friend at camp. Judge and I were beatboxing together, and he asked about some rapper I’d never heard of, and I explained that I didn’t really know any rap music very well. He was surprised, “how did you get all the way to college without knowing at least some good rap music?” he asked. It was an obvious question to him. I wasn’t allowed to listen to rap or rock music as a kid. By the time I was in college I listened to mostly pop-christian music, and there wasn’t much rap available in that category. It just never pulled me in. I responded, “I guess rap wasn’t a big part of my culture; It’s a bigger deal in your culture.” He repeated, “my culture?” He looked troubled. I didn’t know what to say. I was very new to this. I didn’t feel the freedom to ask anything else or to distinguish between my culture and his—even though our background was clearly different. The easiest thing to do was to stay quiet. So I did. I had a lot of questions. But who could I ask? We still hung out.  I had decided to avoid any topic that would deal with our differences. I wanted him to like me, and I really wasn’t sure where the boundaries were. Discussions on race were mysterious. I was ignorant.

Ignorance is a common, boring sort of infection—effectively treated by the act of humble and hopeful inquisition. But many of us do not bother with it; it can be uncomfortable to try and find a starting point. Untreated, this infection can start to mature into an extremely contagious phase which is simply fear. Fear is the most contagious phase for it is often overlooked as a sin. Fear is a natural response to our drive for self preservation, but love and fear are mutually exclusive. Fear bypasses our rational mind to the point of action, and our powers of rationality are used afterwards to justify the actions that were motivated from fear. Though they were not premeditated, our actions change us, and the contrast between who we are and what we did unsettles us. We will either address the wrong outward actions and make provision to avoid them in the future or we will change on the inside so that who we are and what we do is harmonious. When moving this direction it is easier to change on the inside since the wrong action has already begun the work. Racism can flourish in this phase, and this is the most common type. In some, fear will find an environment that allows it to grow into hate, but this phase only flourishes in specific environments. It is easier to recognise hate as a sin, and many people will avoid people in this phase in order to maintain their appearance. That is why racism often flourishes more fully in the fear phase.

The best way to decrease racism is to increase effective communication between races. We need patience and grace in our communication. We need to foster discussion between races that allows people the freedom and room to grow, room to be wrong, room to make mistakes without being made into an example. We all need the freedom to grapple with the issues in the way that we know how. Instead we indulge a media who’s perpetual aim is to cause discord between races—making examples out of well meaning people. They allow no grace, no patience, no room to fail. The public humiliation of other people engaging in racial discussions silences thousands of people. It stops imperfect but productive communication before it can mature into shared meaning. Have you been quiet? Maybe your voice is missing. Perhaps more patient, humble, grace filled voices can flood the discussion and silence the destructive, arrogant, impatient, and polarizing practices of the media. It’s  a decision. Failure is a fact of moving forward. We must all fail before we succeed. I have decided to grapple with this issue the way that I know how. I will fail. I will move forward.

Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath,

but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Galations 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

1John 4:20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.