Dare to be a Daniel

Ishmael is an awesome, awesome book. Wait, I'm having de ja vu here. Didn't I just say that about some other book? Les Mis, wasn't it? Ok, Les Miserables is still wickedly good, but in the volatile, cutthroat world of Jacob's books, the rising star is Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I'm only about 100 pages in so far, but it promises to be a major event in my life. Probably, I will not be a Christian after reading this book. Ok, that's not true. But, dang, this book is crazy cool.
You know that thing that happens sometimes, when you enter a room full of people and suddenly you see this girl who you've never seen before, and then your eyes lock, and it's like she's shooting tractor beams from her retinas to your soul and you think "This is it"? You know that feeling, when all the questions you've ever asked are answered in a moment by the look in her eyes, and before you've even heard her name you know in the very depths of your heart that you will love this girl, and her alone, every moment for the rest of your life? You know what I'm talking about here?
Ok, it's never actually happened to me. Yet. But I saw it in a movie once. Anyway, this is a little like what I felt when I started reading this book. Well, that's not really true either. Forgive me, I am, at times, a shameless exaggerater. But the book looks to be good.

[Total change of topic.] I had a conversation the other day, with a friend who used to do retail at a super-high end store. She told me about some of the people who'd come in and the stuff they'd buy. $500 scarves, that sort of thing. It makes me want to vomit. Or scream at someone. Or... burn the place down, take these people hostage, and leave them stranded in Haiti for a few weeks. Does anyone mind if I swear? No one? Good, just checking. There's something about people who will spend more on clothes in one day than most people on earth will ever own that make me want to join a screaming death-metal band, or maybe a terrorist group. Fuck.
(This is where I calm down a bit. To those who were deeply offended by my language, I send my regrets. It is my belief that swearing is sometimes the only appropriate thing to do. But I'm probably wrong.) So after I calmed down a bit from my initial fury, I became introspective. Am I really justified in feeling anger towards such wastefulness, such negligence? I think so, as long as I don't actually go on a killing spree. Is there so much difference between a mother neglecting her child and some rich jerk ignoring the people dying all around him, spending so much on his own petty amusement? Well, maybe. Maybe he doesn't deserve to die, but he is definitely wrong. Horribly wrong. Next question: am I so different? I don't want to be a hypocrite. My rage against injustice would be a mockery if it ignored my own evil. But I also don't want to beat myself up for some imaginary sin. So it's like this: I wear old shoes and ripped jeans and free camp T-shirts. I'm thrifty by nature but I'm not miserly. I give. I try to give more and more. Does the very fact that I live in the western world make me guilty? Does the very fact that I am a participant (to whatever degree) in a culture that destroys it's environment, it's enemies, and it's own members make me guilty? There's this idea out there, in all areas of morality, that if you're pretty good, that's good enough. I can only assume that those who hold this view have not really thought it through - that they're simply interested in feeling justified, rather that truly being justified. But what am I called to? I am, (they tell me) justified through Christ. I don't need to attain perfection, because I have already been made positionally perfect. But I should be striving for perfection, so as not to make a mockery of Christ's sacrifice. Something along those lines. What does this mean practically? How far do I take this? Let me tell you about Greg.
I met Greg on a missions trip, in a sort of coffee shop for Christian street people. Greg was a middle aged, gentle man who radiated this bittersweet happiness, as if he was smiling, even when he wasn't, and as if he had just recently been crying. He was amiable, reasonably groomed, dressed a bit poorly, but not dirty. He seemed real and vulnerable, you could feel him asking with his eyes for an exchange of love, and it was hard to tell if he was giving or talking. He was a tortured soul, pressed but not crushed. I liked him.
Greg was confused. He really wanted to follow God's will, to the exclusion of all else, but he wasn't sure what God wanted from him. He said the world kept tempting him, laying at his feet all kinds of wealth and power. He never had trouble finding good, well paying jobs, but he had trouble keeping them. The world, it seemed, was perpetually laid at his feet, and this scared him. He wouldn't go to work some days. His boss was fed up with this, he'd told Greg he was fired. That was yesterday. Greg had been on his work today, to apologize and ask for his job back. (He was sure he'd get it. That was the way the world worked with him.) Instead, he'd found himself in this coffee shop. Maybe God had brought him here. (He said repeatedly how good it was to be in the fellowship of Christians again, by which he meant his friends at the shop - an assortment of silent, brooding bums, and bearded, windbag preachers, and one irritating old lady who asked him how he was doing, but didn't really listen to the answer and spoke in strings of Christian cliches. He used the cliches too, but he sounded like he believed them. He sounded like he really enjoyed the company of these people, just because they were Christians. It was weird.) Greg asked us (my friend and I) what God wanted him to do. How good did God expect him to be? He tried, he really did, but he was always falling short. I suggested that if he was looking for a standard, he might try Matthew 5:48. Greg flicked pages in his Bible. "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Greg didn't like that much. God can't really expect that from him. It's too much. But he must expect something.

What? What do you want from me Son of God? I have this idea that God wants us to be striving for perfection, knowing we'll never get there, but giving it our best shot. But that's not really practical. How much do I have to do to be doing a pretty good job? My goal in this course, God, is 80%. Just tell me how much I have to do to die with Honors.
"Moderation in all things" is a good idea. It works in politics, it works in economics, it works in your personal life. I reasoned - back in High School, back before "all this happened" - that the only exception to this rule should be my devotion to God - that is, my pursuit of perfection. But I didn't really live like that. Maybe I thought I did, but I was lying to myself. There are always, always exceptions, things that are "holy" to me, that God can't touch. You may think this is silly, but one of my greatest fears is that some day I may become convicted that it is wrong to eat meat.
Ok, by this point I've finished reading Ishmael. (I've been writing this over a period of several days.) It makes me think about stuff I've never really thought about before. I think I need to start really, seriously looking at the world around me, the people around me, and somehow deciding how I need to live my life. I saw a sticker on a mailbox once that said "No flyers please - we care about our environment." I thought that was a bit silly. For some reason I made the assumption (probably a poor one) that these people were doing nothing to care for their environment except putting that sticker on their mailbox. If that assumption were true, they'd be pretty shallow, hypocritical people. Not accepting flyers does not make an ounce of difference to the environment. It doesn't even change the number of flyers that are printed. It's just a band-aid for your ego. The people who visit your house will see the sticker and think you care about the environment, but in reality, their approval is all you're looking for. I think I'm kind of like that. I tell myself I'm a person of conscience because I get angry at selfish, wasteful rich people, and because I myself don't spend lots of money on clothes. (In reality, this is due almost entirely to my personality, and not any kind of moral reasons. I'm like a vegetarian who doesn't like meat, but looks down on people who do.) I have a mild respect for people who make the effort to avoid waste and eat the right foods and whatever, and a vague and uneducated disapproval for those evil multi-national corporations. I sometimes give loonies to bums. I think about sponsoring a child - someday. I watch Michael Moore films. I ride the bus (though not by choice). I think good thoughts about people. I dislike George Bush. This is the extent of my social conscience.
Donald Miller talks about how we care more about "fashion" than morality. People will go to protests and stuff just to be there, to feel like they care about stuff. I think I'm like that. I hate the Liberal Party because everyone hates the Liberal Party. I like the Conservatives, because they're not the Liberals. Sometimes I wish I could be religiously conservative, and believe every word of the Bible and tell women to wear long skirts and headcoverings. Other times I wish I could be really liberal, and work out for myself what's right, and go to a church with a woman pastor, and believe that the only thing that matters is loving people. As a matter of principle, I will cheer against America at any sporting event. All these opinions are based on what seems cool to me, at the time. I wear faded jeans and dirty runners the way a rich woman might wear a $500 scarf. I have a fashionable disregard for fashion. I wear a veneer of morality, of compassion.
Which is not to say that I don't have some degree of compassion in my heart, or that every good thing I do is motivated by a desire to simply look good - to others or myself. (I think it's quite possible to pray like the Pharisees even in your own room, with the door shut. Hypocrisy exists even when the only person watching is ourselves. It's subtler, but no less destructive.) Anyway, it's only fair to mention that I am not pure evil. The purpose of all of this is not to beat myself up. But I'm trying to look seriously at myself, at my motivations and my inconsistencies, and expose some of the lies I tell myself. I'm afraid of where this might take me, if I do too good a job. For example, I'm afraid I might realize that I should be a vegetarian, for some kind of ethical reasons. I've never considered this before. I've never even considered considering it. But that's wrong, I know. Amazing that God could use Daniel Quinn to convict me of my hypocrisy. (I skimmed through his sight the other day - ishmael.com. He is a scary, scary guy, for someone who was raised as I was. Particularly freaky is this page here: www.ishmael.com/Books/TheHoly/introduction.cfm.)
So, I'm not sure where to go from here. Maybe I should do a bunch of research, so I don't buy unethical stuff, or something. Maybe I should just try to live my life, and think critically about my own prejudices and hypocrisies as they come up. The one thing I should definitely do right now is publish this post, because it's been a while.