UPDATE: Pornography, Authenticity, and Site Changes

    

    WEBSITE CHANGES

In the ongoing site reconstruction (reconstitution?) here, I've decided to include updates as part of my regular blog posts. I've resisted doing this in the past due to the plethora of blog/sites seemingly enamored with a daily confessional style of daft and uninteresting posts. ("I went to the market today. It was so busy there. And then I bought some bananas.") I didn't want that type of website, and so I resolved that I would only post articles, long thoughtful pieces worth the time it took to read them. Now, I don't edit in the same manner as I do when I'm sending an article out, as some of you grammarians have noticed, but I still work to be as thoughtful and diligent as I can. The purpose of a site like this is an exchange of ideas, and it's designed to provoke your imagination, push you to think about things in a new way, and encourage you along the way.

    That said, I've decided to post a bit more frequently, and so what I'll be doing is essentially a split. I'll still be writing my frightfully long articles that cause you to pull your hair out and yell at me through the computer, but I'll also be including what I'll call "UPDATE Days," which will be written as short pieces. Some of these will be actual updates about what's coming along the chute on this site, and some will be ideas that I've been working through, but do not want to spend two thousand words on, and other days it may simply be an article or video I found while cruising that I thought you'd enjoy. The difference will be noted in the title, where you'll find UPDATE (I know, it's original) and if you're away for a while and want to search through the archives on this site, you'll be able to find the actual articles more easily. The UPDATES will not have Digg buttons on them, and I won't be promoting them along the various social networks (like Facebook) like I normally do. They'll be here however, for those of you with a bit of time to kill. As well, I'll be adding one movie/TV/book review per week. Just check the Review pages for updates.

    It's been a remarkable month of growth here, as this site has expanded and continues to break five year records seemingly with ease. It's been humbling to receive so many kind words from you who grace this site with your presence and valuable time. My life has settled into something of a pattern, and with God's gracious blessings I now have a lot of time to read and write, more than I've ever been able to for such an extended period of time. I can't promise that you'll always agree with me (I'm not looking for consensus here, I'm looking to stir your imagination) but I promise that I will do best to be as fair as possible, and as honest as a person can be. (Which is to say, only slightly dishonest.) I will never align with a political party, though I do have some politicians I enjoy, despite their faults. (President Obama, for example) What I won't promise is that I'll be completely 'authentic' (mainly because I don't know what that means, see the next section for more on this), although I'll never be a (willing) shill.

    Again, thank you all for your readership. If you have an idea for a new "section" for this site, please let me know and I will take it into consideration. Life is difficult sometimes, but it gets better when we continue to ask ourselves hard questions about whom we are and why we're here. Hopefully, this site can help you along the path.

    Blessings,

    Steve

***

    Pornography

    I've written on a number of controversial topics in the past, and when I decided this past Sunday which topics I would approach this week, I didn't think much about it. Honestly, what does 'controversy' even mean to a writer? If you're not willing to write about the hard things, what's the point? That said, the research for my next article, along with the collection of ideas and research, has been disturbing. I actually had to stop for a while this morning because I didn't like where it was taking me. Specifically, not only discussing pornography and its relationship to religion, but the pairing of the two and the effect on the public, the common misconceptions and myths when it comes to sex.

    I was raised in a traditionally conservative home, which meant that information about sex was essentially non-existent. As I moved into the evangelical church in my late teens, the information changed, but the message was the same, and despite the best efforts by a few, it was largely destructive. What has bothered me this week is the striking relationship between pornography and religion. I won't say more until the article is done. (By the weekend, most likely) I expect that this article will upset a number of people, and I understand, in so much that it upsets me (although perhaps for different reasons) and I'm writing it. Hopefully, you'll feel the freedom to comment, whether you agree or not.

***

 

    AUTHENTICITY

    "Authenticity is like authourity or charisma: if you have to tell people you have it, then you probably don't."

    -Andrew Potter, The Authenticity Hoax

    In my current reading of The Authenticity Hoax, which feels like a follow up to Potter's previous best seller The Rebel Sell (a tremendous read), I've been forced to work through a number of pet ideas, favourites of mine that I've held through the years, especially in regards to "authenticity" and transparency. Potter is a good thinker, but what I love most is that he challenges a number of contemporary ideas and forces you to re-digest them. Is our quest for authenticity nothing more than status seeking? Isn't that what we're really witnessing in the local/organic food movement? (For example) What I like best is Potter's drive to push us towards something better than authenticity. He pushes us to an honest appraisal of ourselves. I've seen this continually through the years, in people who refuse to look in the mirror, refuse to get counseling, and refuse to admit their human. (And therefore, a screw up) The consequences are always bad, and we end up worse then when we started the journey, because not only do we not know who we are, we don't like ourselves very much either.

    I'm sure I'll be posting a full article on this in the future, but I'm reminded again how good it is to read against the grain. We all have blind spots. Sign a book out of the library by an author you wouldn't normally read, and wade through some of it. (I'm not stating you need to read, say, Ann Coulter, however.) Although I haven't finished Hoax, I highly recommend it.

***

    (For those of you who didn't see this on my Facebook this week) I was reading some fantasy book reviews and found this on one of the websites. It was (unintentionally) hilarious, especially when I read it out loud. Thought you might get a kick out of it.

    -Steve

 

 

    

The Reason People Hate Church… And Americans

Her left eye was still a bit swollen, and there was a blankness to her gaze that I'd seen before. I was standing outside the church, waiting for the last of the kids to be picked up following our park outing when I saw her. Rita (not her real name) flashed me a fragile smile, and timidly asked me where Anthony was waiting.

"He's inside with Joe. They're horsing around in the fellowship hall."

Rita wasn't a member of our church, but she brought her oldest to some of our youth events from time to time. She was a thin woman in her mid-thirties, with a delicate face and long stringy blonde hair, which she continually straightened and patted without realizing it. Her stance was closed, her gaze nearly always centered on the floor in front of her, and the few times I'd heard her laugh, had been quiet and strangled, as if she was afraid to make too much noise. I'd spoken to a couple of her friends, who'd confirmed my suspicions about her abusive husband.

She went inside and picked up her son, but left without engaging anyone else. She rubbed her son's head affectionately as she put him into the car, and gave me a quiet wave before settling into the front seat and slowly pulling out of the driveway. I could feel my eyes starting to water, and I took a deep breath when one of my helpers called me inside for some help. I turned slowly, thinking about Rita, and the life of terror she lived. Her husband was, by all accounts, a Christian. I doubted it, but he went to church each week and paid his tithes and sang the songs. When I'd asked one of the other parents about Rita, she'd told me that Rita's pastor believed that any woman who left her husband, even if she was being beaten, had committed a great sin. And that the Bible commanded a woman stay in such a situation.

It was such a great lie, I thought, that God would want His children to be exposed to that type of torment. And yet, I'd seen it in some of my extended family as well, this idea that abused women were somehow sinning if they left their marriage. It was so outrageous as to almost be unbelievable, and yet, its proponents were not only still around, but in some cases, gathering even more adherents.

It's been nearly fifteen years since I last spoke to Rita. Nothing has changed. So called Christian leaders like John Piper laugh (disgustingly) over the idea of a woman staying in an abusive situation. And when someone asks a woman like Rita why she remains in such a terrible situation, her answer is simple: 'I'm a Christian. I want to honour God. My church doesn't believe in divorce.'

***

Along the crumbling towers of the old downtown, between the boarded up buildings on one side, and the filth that lines the sidewalks, is a single door that is washed clean and unmarked. The stairs lead upward and open into a large room with a number of couches and a few tables that is again marked by its cleanliness. Sister Mary Jo (not her real name) is wearing washed jeans and an old blue sweater. Her hair is short and curly, and there is a depth to her gaze that grabs you almost immediately. I'd discovered the place by accident, after speaking to some of my kids, and she's agreed to see me, though she asks that I don't disclose anything about her name and location. She has the blessing from her local parish to work here, but she doesn't get many volunteers.

"Who wants to work here?" She tells me with a smile. Her hands gesture towards the world outside the building. "I have a couple of volunteers, but I do most of this on my own."

'Most of this' means the work she feels God has called her to, which is helping young prostitutes get off the street and either into a school or a regular job. Many of the girls are abused, she says, and so it's not a simple thing for them to adjust to the 'norms' of society. A lot of them hold a great deal of anger, and their habits are self-destructive. Think of it this way, she says, most of them do not really have a reason to live. Their life has been hell from the time they were little.

I don't ask to see the rest of the place, because she's been clear about the boundaries. "Seeing a man in the safe shelter would not help them very much" was how she put it. We talk for another ten minutes or so. Sister Mary Jo is a formidable woman with an unusually deep compassion and faith. I ask her how she can maintain her faith in the face of such evil, day after day.

"If I didn't believe that we would all have to account for our actions, I would have ended my life years ago." She says it so matter-of-factly, I'm momentarily stunned. I check my watch and realize it's time for me to go. I ask her one last question before I head out.

"Why do you do it? This… work?"

"I'm a Christian. This is what we're supposed to be doing."

She says it with such conviction I swallow and suddenly feel a wave of self-directed questions.

So, what are you doing, Steve?

There are no answers forthcoming however, as I've had problems attending church for the past five years with any consistency. I think about it throughout the next day, and write about it in my journal before deciding I can't answer the question. That, I'm afraid, will take a few years yet.

***

As much as I've been able to ascertain in my (hobby) readings and study of neurology the past decade, the best analogy I've heard is the one that compares our brain to a jungle. That the competition to sort through the incredible flow of information and agree upon an idea, which will then be expressed as a thought or statement, is as fierce as it is complex. What most often tips the scales, in terms of what we remember and how we experience something, is the strength of the emotion that goes along with it. In fact, emotional 'tags', provide the greatest amount of weight in how we categorize things neurologically. And to that end, our brain categorizes EVERYTHING. We do it because we must. It would be impossible to catalogue all the information we receive and actually accomplish anything if we were unable to label it. This is, of course, the origins of stereotypes. And more negatively, speaks to racism and misogyny, although those issues are slightly more complex in that they deal with other issues which include selfishness and the prevailing need within a person to feel unique.

Back in my business days (which lasted one year, a 94% cumulative average, and extreme fatigue from boredom), I still remember my marketing professor telling us that for a business a negative experience was worth nine people. That is, if someone had a bad experience with a store or business, they would in turn tell nine people of that experience. And since word of mouth is the best form of advertising for any company, it was crucial that the customer be appeased.

Neurologically, it was also sound advice. The negative emotional tag is hard to escape, in that it leaves a great imprint on how we feel about things and how we, in turn, cognitively label them. We all remember our bad experiences, don't we? It's part of the storytelling process when we talk to our friends and family. (It's usually started by a statement like "Can you believe…?") Negative framing is a powerful tool, and in terms of our experience, a negative experience always outweighs a positive one. (Which is why one positive comment is not equal to one negative comment, for those of you out there, who like me, used to insist on being 'fair'.)

I Hate Church

'Church', as my friend and scholar, Mark Groleau, tweeted recently, is not a 'thing'. It is a group of approximately one billion individuals around the world from a variety of cultures. All of these individuals purport to follow the teachings of what was once a small Jewish sect, a sect that believed the Rabbi, Yeshua, to be their anointed Messiah.

That's what the church is.

It is a group of people, and at the latest count, constitutes approximately 15% of the world's population. What forms our opinion on the 'church', then, will arise out of our own experience. (The 'church' is not a thing like say, a banana. I know that sounds obvious, but it is how most people think of it.) Like any label, it's completely subjective. The problem is in giving a single identifier (like 'church') to one billion people is ridiculous. The label is so massive as to have almost no meaning, but it seems to be the only one we have, so there it is.

I have a number of friends who are atheists and agnostics, and when I ask them why they hate the church, I've noticed that a disproportionate number of them have had bad experiences with Christians (like Rita's asshole husband) or various 'church' rulings. I understand that. I understand it because it was my own position for so many years. And dealing with jerks like John Piper, who has clearly never dealt with the destructiveness of his own ideas and yet receives a ridiculous amount of positive attention from Seminary students throughout North America, makes it even harder.

And yet, John Piper does not represent the church. Neither does Rita's husband. Or, for that matter, does Sister Mary Jo. In one sense, they represent the perception of what many people will label 'the church', and that can feel to those in ministry like an awesome responsibility. It also leads to protecting our reputation and not wanting to say anything for fear of 'bad-presenting' the 'church.' It leads, in other words, to politicking.

So can we finally end this debate? You don't hate 'the church.' (Not any more than you hate 'Americans'. You may not like their policies, but there are a number of terrific people living in the U.S., and a number of jerks, just as there is in Canada or anywhere else.) To say that you hate or dislike a billion people is rooted in the pain of our experiences, and the tendency for us to believe what we already believe. Psychologists call this a Confirmation Bias, the tendency for people to favour their preconceptions, regardless of whether something is true or not.

Take Home

There's a small town near the Canadian-American border called Niagara-on-the-Lake. It is scenic and quite beautiful, with its cobbled downtown streets and quaint shops. It is also snobbish and rich. I worked for a summer at one of the hotels there, serving as a waiter. Our clientele were mostly wealthy people from around the world (NOTL has a great reputation). As a waiter, my favourite people to serve were Americans, and it wasn't close. They were far and away the most generous, and their tables tended to be fun. The worst people group to serve was the Brits. Snobby, particular, and cheap, cheap, cheap. And yet, not all British people are cheap, are they? And not all Americans are generous. But that was my experience. In labeling them, however, I do a great disservice to everyone else in those groups whose only reason for inclusion is birthplace.

What are your preconceived biases? What people groups have you labeled and then dismissed, simply because of your experiences? For people who have experienced trauma, like abused women and children, to consider returning to an environment (like a church) that was so destructive is not always a healthy option. But what about the rest of us? Those of us who simply disagree with an idiot pastor or jerky politician. What will our road be? My hope is that you will not remain closed to possibilities in the future, simply because of your past experience. Too many people shut down possibilities in their life without examining their decision. And in so doing, cut themselves off from something great in the future. Many of us have and hold great darkness from our past, and we're afraid to look at it, afraid at what we'll find. But when we live in fear, we let others rule us by manipulating that fear. They can say things like "The church" or "Women" or "Gays" and know exactly what kind of response they will get from us. My prayer this week is that you will not allow your past experiences to dictate your future, and that whatever labels that you do use, you'll become more willing to examine them and what they mean. In so doing, my hope is that you'll find the freedom God holds out for all of us, and that no experience or label will keep you from his best for you.

-Steve

Site Additions

Hey everyone,

I've made a few additions to the site here. As some of you may have noticed, I've started attaching a "Digg" sign at the bottom of most of my posts. Digg.com is a site that gathers together interesting/provocative/funny articles by allowing its members to "Digg" an article on the internet and submit it to the site. The more an an article is "Dugg", the more attention it receives. If you like something you read here, feel free to Digg it. Digg does require membership, but it's not only free, it links with Facebook. It's literally a two click process. Anyway, it's a cool site and I encourage you to check it out.

As well, on the bottom you'll notice other "share" buttons, which include Facebook and Twitter. If you're on either of those sites, click if you like an article (or despise it and think I'm a great idiot and want the world to know).

Finally, I've added some "quick reaction" buttons at the bottom of each post. As much as I try to encourage comments, most people don't like to wade into discussions. For many people, it's scary to expose yourself that way. All I can tell you is that while I will defend my work, I do consider your comments, and my mind HAS been changed about certain things. It's how we grow. I also promise never to ridicule someone who has taken the time to leave a comment here. If it still makes you uneasy however, you can now click one of the five reaction buttons.

I'm helping some friends move this morning, but I'll be back later today, and something will be posted either tonight or tomorrow. Don't be afraid to send me some more topic choices. And yes, I'll be writing about sex this week, but that won't be my post today. I'd give you a teaser, but I'm still debating between a couple of topics.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone.

Steve

PS I will have another review up this week as well.

Same Ol’ Same Ol’

I'm sitting in my regular spot, tucked in the corner near the entrance of my local Starbucks. The music is far too loud and blares from the speaker above me. Some days it's difficult to write, especially if I'm working on my novel, as I find the music intrusive. I've never complained. Today is no different. I watch the masses pass by, as always impressed by how Starbucks has managed to market itself to so many different types. Business people, students, cops, factory workers, single moms. The list is endless. The people however, are largely the same ones I see every morning when I come. They come for their morning coffee, much like they'll probably visit the same place for lunch, and take the same route home from work. People are creatures of habit, and in a world that is constantly changing, there's something tremendously reassuring about visiting the same places and having the same associations. Unfortunately, in an increasingly open market of possibilities, there's a tendency to hold a bit too tightly to our daily routines. The real problem however, is not our routines or where we get our coffee, but the self talk that accompanies it. So today then, the challenge is simple. Listen to your self-talk. What are you saying about yourself when you get up in the morning? What are you saying about your life? What are you saying about your relationship, and about people in general?

It's surprising, but a lot of people don't realize how angry they are, how much they're sacrificing to protect their routines, to avoid listening to their self-talk. And they do it by burying it in "social code." ("How are you?" "Can't complain, no one will listen anyway.") I've heard people say that this type of thinking somehow implies maturity, that work is well, work, and that 'sucking it up' is the way an 'real' adult faces life. Bull. Yes, there are times when you have to do things you don't like, times when you have to put aside your own dreams and passions to serve people around you. However, if your life consists mostly of 'sucking it up', then you are being used and you need to change something. If you don't, you're on the path to becoming one of those bitter people who never have a kind word for anyone and do nothing but complain.

They key here, is not to blame someone else for the reason your life is dull and gray, because you've probably spent too much time conceding control of your life to others already. Take responsibility for yourself, and start by asking some hard questions. If there was one thing you could change about you or your life, what would it be? What do you hear in the few minutes before you fall asleep at night, or when you're stuck in traffic? Or have you so trained yourself that you don't hear anything at all?

I spent six years working at a job that was slowly eroding my soul. It wasn't the young people I was working with, they were redemptive part of my job. Most of the people I worked with, however, tended to be complainers, always griping about how they were getting screwed one way or another. After a couple of years, I was complaining too. It was hard to be hopeful and optimistic in such a toxic environment. Pushed by my friends, I went back to grad school, took a job making 9$/hour with supervisors too young to order a beer at a restaurant, and grabbed a tiny room in a house with nine other people. Leaving aside the fact that I met wife here, it was still the best thing I could have done. These days, I still miss the young people, still miss my old city, but everything has changed now. My friends encouraged me to challenge myself, and the results have been life changing.

There's no excuse for being miserable. I know that some of us are stuck, that we've made decisions that we regret and now must bear that responsibility. It doesn't mean however, that it must control our life. Listen to your self talk and change it. Plan for the future. Give yourself something to work towards. Whatever you do, don't take the easy way out. Listen to your heart, and follow it. Trust me, you won't regret it…

-Steve

LeBron, Reality TV, and What It Means To You

I still remember the first time I watched the show. It was the second season, and after the furor of its first year I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I was with Jim, already an avid fan, who explained the rules to me as we sat on my living room couch.

"Every week someone gets voted off the island. They form two teams, and they're given tasks, and they have a competition every three days. The winning team gets immunity, and someone from the losing team goes home, unless they win the individual challenge."

"That's it?" I said. "THAT'S the show?"

He nodded eagerly.

"Oh yeah, but it's SO much more. People trick one another, they form alliances and break them, they betray one another, lie to one another. And the winner gets a million bucks."

We watched the show in relative silence, although from time to time Jim would make a comment. He'd already picked his favourite. The show was well produced, and though I hated to admit it, well conceived. The competitions each week were the spine of the show, but its heart was the side interviews and the inevitable human drama. It was like watching war or politics, but on a micro level. It was absorbing and disturbing. The show – or competition – seemed to bring out the worst in people and hold it up like a shiny light. More than honour or humility or compassion, what people loved the most, was a winner. However it happened. Easier to rewrite tales of philanthropy once you'd achieved that status, than try to do things the "right" way.

The show, of course, was Survivor, and the year was 2001. Despite the backlash from the writing community, and those who considered it a passing phenomenon, Survivor would serve as the leaping point to something we hadn't seen before. Reality television exploded, with some copycats more successful (The Amazing Race) than others (Temptation Island). Along with the sweeping changes in technology, the millennium would usher in something new to our culture, especially in how we defined ourselves. It was a new narrative. It wasn't the words that had changed so much, but the book itself. The ramifications would be enormous.

***
I sat in the library staring silently at the screen before glancing over at the girl next to me. She was Indian, and with an MCAT study guide in front of her, looked to be about twenty four.

"How's the studying going?" I asked, needing a break.

"It's tiring." She said, smiling.

"My wife wrote it in her second year. I can't imagine." I said.

"What are you working on?" She asked, leaning past her cubicle.

"I'm working on a piece about LeBron James. His decision. The whole one hour special he did." She looked at me as if I was speaking Greek.

"You know, last week. Le Bron James, the NBA's biggest star, decided to leave his hometown and move to another city…" I let my voice trail at the sight of her face. She looked apologetic.

"No, I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about."

It was amazing how easily you could become enraptured by your own world, I thought. Of course she hadn't heard of LeBron. She was studying to go to medical school. What did she care about basketball? What difference did LeBron's decision, mean to her?

We chatted for a while longer and I turned back to my screen. Did the whole LeBron scenario really warrant any attention from people outside the sports world? What, in fact, did it mean at all?

***

Most of us don't see or feel the pull of culture. It flows in first one direction, and then another, like a winding stream. Some people try to fight it, and decide that they will swim upstream their entire lives. These are the traditionalists, the ones who believe everything was better thirty years ago, that all change is terrible, and that we should fight the stream to the bitter end while denouncing others who don't along the way. There are some who would prefer to leave the stream. To them, culture is nothing more than the winding waterway to destruction. More cities. More forests cut down. More corporations. More starving people. Like Rousseau, they view civilized culture as a construct against the purity of wholeness and organic life. They view indigenous tribes as living one with nature, and modern culture as living against nature. And they do everything they can to leave the current.

But culture is inescapable. You can't jam or contradict or walk against the stream, because eventually it catches up to you. Most of those traditionalists wading against the stream use a cell phone or a blackberry. The new ecotypes for whom the earth is to be gently shared use twitter and Facebook to organize their rallies for more organic food. It isn't hypocrisy, because the sincerity in both groups is welcome over the apathy in most. And what else is there? If we don't fight for something, why do we live?

The importance of an event like the LeBron "Decision" is that it signals a change in the narrative of our culture. Today, stars and celebrities still bemoan their lack of privacy, but they do so from their twitter accounts while they're at lunch somewhere. Technology and this new idea of "reality television" have extended far beyond the one hour shows ten years ago. It is the king not only reaching to the masses, but to each individual in those masses. It is new, it is powerful, and what it will mean for us as a culture is yet to be determined.

What's important is that it is noted. We need to recognize the changing of the stream and move with it, because it will change everything. It some ways, it already has. For parents, it certainly changes our kids' view of the world, doesn't it? They can get ideas directly from the twitter accounts of their favourite celebrities. Information floods our world. Anyone (in many countries, excepting China) can know anything at any time. Think about that. All I need is a computer and I can find out whatever I want to know… about anything. Who would have believed that fifty or even thirty years ago. This cultural shift changes everything from the way we relate to one another to the way our brain processes new information. And it certainly changes our narrative.

Years ago, my dad told me stories about his favourite players growing up. Now, he doesn't need to. I can logon and find out for myself. These days we have the ability to choose our narrative, as LeBron did. As we do, with blogs like this one. More and more, the emphasis is on the individual to choose their story and the stories they will follow. So the question remains. What story do you follow? And what story do you wish to create? More than ever before, we craft our own tales. My only prayer is that the story we choose to write, will be one that remembers why we're here in the first place. And that story, so far as I'm aware, is not about us.

-Steve

LeBron: The Story behind the Story (Part I)

The sun had not yet sunk to the horizon as I headed south down Highway 6. Every fifty kilometers or so I drove through another sleepy town, and with the windows down, listened to the summer hum of insects. This was the night LeBron made his decision. Alone on the highway, I tuned the radio to WGR out of Buffalo, listened to it cackle and then catch. I wasn't sure what to expect, but if I'd been betting, my money was that he would stay in Cleveland. I hoped not. Whether it was the Bulls or the Heat, it would give me something to look forward to in the upcoming season, seeing as how our star, Chris Bosh, had already twittered his way to Miami.

The land north of Guelph consisted mostly of farms, and in the last of the fading light I could see the dark shapes of horses and cows grazing along the rolling hills, the land's gentle syncopation a startling contrast from the hue and cry of Toronto. It was a welcome break. The ESPN announcers were still waiting for LeBron to make his appearance twenty minutes later as I approached Guelph. The station cackled with static and broke off just as LeBron started to make his announcement. I grimaced in frustration. I'm missing the moment! About three minutes later the station broke back just as LeBron said "I'll be taking my talents to South Beach." I pounded my steering wheel in jubilation, and hollered at nobody out the window. LeBron. Dwayne Wade. Chris Bosh. Now THAT would be a fun troika to watch. Maybe it would give the league something to celebrate aside than the Celtics and Lakers. What intrigued me even more than the decision, which in my mind had played out as a great drama, were two things. The first, of course, was what story were the sportswriters going to write. The second was what it meant for the general public. Many people didn't realize it, but both questions had implications for the culture, including the non-basketball/non-sports fan. LeBron was more than an athlete, he was a celebrity capable of rippling the culture. It was the ripples that interested me.

***

The Story Behind the Story

"I'm cheering for my story."

Ask most sports writers who they're cheering for when it comes to covering players and teams, and that's the response you'll get. As someone who has spent more time writing fiction than non-fiction, I can tell you that sports writing uses more narrative than any other part of the newspaper, and most of the best work has its roots in myth making. One need only look at baseball, the relationship between it and one of its prevalent themes of father and son. (Explored beautifully in Field of Dreams) More than mere accounts of games played between adults, sportswriting offers a peek into a different world, a world that is often more fantasy than reality, a world created to offer us help and hope in our everyday lives. (And yes, my cynical friends, to get our money) When we understand it this way, we realize that basketball is not merely a game, which is why LeBron's decision wasn't – according to the sportswriters – a basketball decision. Although he spoke of playing (which means working) with his friends, Wade and Bosh, and winning championships, which is the ultimate goal for his type of employment, nobody believed him. Why would they? Reading a cross section of literally hundreds of reactions throughout North America from sports writers across the country, the unfailing tone of the articles was disappointment. Disappointment with how LeBron handled the situation, disappointment with his apparent ego, disappointment that he had chosen "the easy way", disappointment that a two time MVP switched teams to "create an all-star team". The only place where the disappointment made any real sense was for Cleveland fans, some of whom were seen soon after burning his jersey in effigy.

From a 'realism' standpoint, the response to LeBron's decision (and everything it included, like the hour long special to announce it) is ridiculous. That people would burn an athlete's jersey reveals just how well the sports writers have done their job the past hundred years in creating a mythological narrative to encase athletes. Their exploits are told and retold, as it was surely done in civilizations past, as a story around a fire. The myth story behind LeBron -- hometown kid from a poor home, perhaps the greatest of all time, leading his beleaguered, working class city to its first championship in nearly forty years -- was a powerful one. For seven years LeBron worked to bring that myth to its telling finale, but fell short. Instead of buying into his own myth however, LeBron changed the rules, and opted out of the narrative to play with his friends for a better shot at a championship.

"Not a leader." "Cowardly." "LeBron blew it!"

Those were the headlines the next day, and it seemed to me that most of the sports writers had made their decision. LeBron had gone from the hero to the villain, the greedy (though he took less money) and arrogant (his own show!) young superstar who preferred the rich, flashy night life of Miami to the good, hard working people of Cleveland. I understood their perspective. What choice did they have? They'd framed the story of the hometown hero for so long, spent so many years building a heroic narrative, there wasn't much else they could write, could they? It shocked me a bit how people accepted this verbatim, but sports have long since served as more than mere games in our culture. I remember the stories my dad used to tell me about the grace of Willie Mays and watching Mickey Mantle hit. Or how Roger Staubach would lead his Cowboys back from certain defeat. I remember how eagerly I read books and stories about my favourite athletes as a kid, how I'd get together with my friends and we'd all take turns being Ozzie Smith or Walter Payton or Larry Bird. In the shadow of these great narratives, of growing up and learning about life, the posters on my wall were about something bigger than the game or even my favourite player. They weren't true, necessarily, not in the strictest sense. But that didn't make them any less real or affecting, especially to a kid growing up in Welland, a small blue collar town just north of the American border.

So while I understand the "disappointment", most of it seems disingenuous to me. Sportswriters understand myth and story, and they do their jobs much the way anyone does their job. There's no mystique for them in the people they write about, although occasionally there is admiration. They're too close, for one thing. They see the humanity of the players, their selfishness and arrogance, their usual human foibles, on a regular basis. It's hard to hold someone up on a pedestal when you realize that they're a lot like you.

And yet, only a few mentioned, for example, that four years ago Kobe Bryant lost nearly all of his sponsors when he was accused of rape (later settling with his accuser) and lost in the first round of the playoffs to Phoenix. That narrative has long since changed again (aided mostly when Jerry West stole Pau Gasol and gave Bryant another stud to play with. Not that you'll hear anything about that, because Kobe "stayed" in L.A.) This season, the writers went with the "Kobe finds a way" narrative, including game seven when Bryant was nearly invisible for most of the fourth quarter.

While I still enjoy sports narrative and the occasional dabbling into myth (go John Feinstein) we need to realize that LeBron is not a villain. For an NBA superstar, he is remarkably well grounded and an unselfish player who puts his team first. Yes, he has an ego. So did Jordan. (As did Bird, Magic, Shaq, and Kobe) If Miami wins multiple championships, the LeBron narrative will change again, as it did for Bryant. As it always does. What it does however, is serve as a stark reminder to be careful in how we create our lives and build our own stories. Myth making is not merely for celebrities, but for us too. How we interpret the events of our culture are just as important as the events themselves. Does the LeBron decision truly impact our culture that much? Even for people who don't follow sports? I think it does, but I'll leave that for you to decide.

Stay tuned for Part II…

-Steve

One Myth that will Destroy Your Relationship: Part II

Rome, around 49 A.C.E.

Paul's letter to the Colossians is dated somewhere around 50 A.C.E., a couple of decades past the death of Jesus. In his letters we find the admonishment for men to be the spiritual leader in their homes, and for women to submit to their husbands. Children are to submit to their parents, and slaves to their masters. This 'family codex' is also found, in varying degrees, in his letters to Timothy and to the Ephesians. Rome was an advanced civilization, and for all that it is flogged as being a cruel empire, many of our modern ideals, such as democracy, find at least some of their basis in Roman society. Rome, unlike its neighbours to the East, believed in the equality of its citizens. And while there was still the sharp distinction between the rich and the poor, the concept of fairness had never before so permeated a great society. In the east, in countries like Egypt, caste ruled, and to whom you were born mattered more than your abilities or temperament. Rome's failing, in regards to its democracy, was in its patriarchal nature. (Unlike Egypt, where caste actually mattered more than sex) Its ideas about a republic mattered only if you were a man. Women had set roles. They were property. To be loved and cherished, yes, but as a woman you were not considered a full member of society. The concept of a woman with power was held only in the matriarchal nature of the home, and the mother's influence over her son or the wife's influence over her husband. (Caesar Augustus, in fact, created quite a stir by including his second wife, in some of his councils)

Back then, Christianity was still little more than a new Jewish sect, and highly misunderstood. Christians, those who claimed to follow the dead rabbi, Yeshua, were thought to be cannibals and worse. The Near East was a bubbling cauldron, for the Jews had never accepted Roman rule easily. Romans allowed people to worship whatever gods they wanted, Romans themselves held to a vast number of them, but some things were inviolate, the family code being one of them. They would not tolerate a new religion that sought to upset the balance of pax romana. Paul's inclusion of the 'family codex', according to many scholars, was as much to prevent the Romans (who saw the letters as they were passed from church to church) from persecuting this new religion as it was to instruct how families were to be construed.

Regardless, when Christianity was adopted as the state religion by Constantine, the family/slave codex remained in place. For nearly 1400 years, the idea of family, of slaves, and of a person's place in the world went without any great challenge. Three things happened however, that completely changed the way civilization was constructed. The first was the Protestant reformation, which was as political as it was religious. Martin Luther's idea that individuals did not need an intermediary between themselves and God was revelatory, and set in motion the concept of individualism something the world had never seen, at least, not in any great measure. It also signaled the continued fragmentation of Christendom, when the German church sided with Luther (or used him, depending on who you read) to establish their independence. As change swept across Europe, an important distinction between laws and customs was born. Feudalism and the old forms of governing shattered. Aided by the steady migration to cities, the ideals of Christian perfectionism were replaced by the dual forces of industrialization and capitalism. There is some argument as to when the Industrial Revolution began, but most historians' credit it to the textile innovations in the British textile industry in the 1760's. The Industrial Revolution changed everything, in that it replaced people with machines, and production increased so greatly it would lead to something else the world had never seen, the individual consumer. In the 1770's, the "fashion craze" made its first appearance (to the masses). In 1776, for example, the "in" color in London was something called couleur de noisette. Everyone who was anyone was wearing dove gray.

Capitalism proved to be a universal solvent, eating away at the social bonds between people in a given society as well as cultural barriers that once served to separate one society for another. In place of codes and doctrines, family or feudal ties, religious or caste codes, there was nothing left but the understanding of earned (not inherited) wealth that was available to all.

What does this have to do with gender roles? How does this affect my relationship?

Gender roles in our society are largely determined by our continuing commitment to pre-modern ideas, those that existed in both the time of Christendom, and before. This is true regardless of your religious affiliation. The idea that a man or a woman has a certain role to play was created in cultures where the roles were not only protected by custom, but by law. Whether you believe the apostle Paul was including a codex to protect the young sect from Roman persecution or not is irrelevant. How could Paul instruct equality, such as we understand it, in a time where women were neither allowed to engage in the political process or hold lands in their own name? And certainly the understanding that slavery is wrong is equally at play here, since it is included in the codex. And yet, while we have (largely) rejected slavery as immoral, we continue to define a woman's role by the same text of Scripture. And to do so now, in a culture that praises and promises individualism, we are destined to create havoc in relationships.

It is one of the greatest follies of our culture. From the time little girls and boys go to school, we define them by their own consequences, by what they do and what they become. And yet, when they enter into relationships as adults, we look to books regarding gender to better understand them! Why? Because we lack the surety of having our role dictated to us. Freedom is nice, but often it is easier to accept "my place" than to fight for a place of our own design. The other aspect, of course, is that men like the authourity that it gives them, which often makes their commitment to "individualism – equal rights for all" – less than enthusiastic.

Individualism is not perfect. I hate feeling as though everything I see is a commodity. That everything, including my faith and friends, are all for sale. Such is the destruction of capitalist individualism. However, it has brought some good things with it. And the greatest of these lie in our personal relationships. Why, for example, would we continue to choose "GENDER" as a dividing line on which to base our relational questions, when we have learned that INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY is a far better tool for getting to know our partner. And why do we insist on divisive language? "Different" is a word we use easily, but it is nearly always used pejoratively when it comes to relationships. Women and men are not different, people are different. So long as we think of our partner as being "different" simply because of their gender, we will continue to miss opportunities to get to know them better. (A great help is for both of you to take a personality test, which you can find here.)

There are some things that I'm not good at. Like cars. Yes, I'm male, but I've never quite understood the fascination with cars and trucks. My wife, however loves them. She's also more adept at fixing things around the house and understanding finances. Me? Well, I tend to be a good communicator, and I am inordinately empathetic. I am not less of a man, nor is my wife less of a woman, but by the standards set in most 'relational' books, we would fail most "relational" tests. And so I did, many times, and almost always because I insisted on identifying myself as a man, and not as an individual. Not as someone unique and special and loved by God, but as someone born with certain physical attributes. So long as we hold to the myth, long developed and still powerful, that men and women are different, we will continue to have difficulties in our relationships.

People are people. Change your language. Stop thinking in terms of gender. ("Oh, you know those boys!" or "You can't figure women!") Find out who your teammate is as an individual, and focus on those things. You'll notice the difference, and wonder why you hadn't seen it before.

-Steve

Authour's Note: I know that I am guilty of what historians call reductionism, but in light of the vast amount of material that I was wading through and the space on a site like this, I did the best I could. That said, the historical material is there to simply give you a better arc, a bridge, if you like, between ancient and modern culture and the role it still plays in how we determine gender roles.

One Myth that will Destroy your Relationship

Spring, 1989

The sun was high overhead and hot, and it beat down as I played with two of the dogs in the run area, the early spring heat mitigated only slightly by a light breeze blowing in off the canal. The dogs, both German Shepherd mixes, had their tongues out, but they looked over at me, ready for more. They didn't get to play very much, and even in the heat, they had a lot of energy. The slate gray building next to us, with its blue aluminum roof, had always evoked sadness for me. The Welland Humane Society was a place of suffering. Most of the animals would never find a home. Like the two dogs now sitting in the grass with me, people weren't interested in the adults and the mixed breeds. Purebreds, on the rare occasion when one was dropped off, would sometimes find a home. And puppies and kittens had a good chance of being adopted. But the adult female cat, with her ear slightly torn and raggedy fur, would not attract much attention. Neither would the eight year old Shepherd/Collie mix. Walking through their kennels, listening to their steady cries, was upsetting, so unlike my mother and sister (who I admired), I rarely came out to help. It was too painful.

I brought the dogs back inside and made sure they had water before locking them up again. The vet, Doc Paulson, was in the cat room, and I wandered over. He was checking a new group of kittens. He lifted the tail of each one and jotted something down on his clipboard.

"What are you doing, Doc?" I asked him.

"Checking to see which one is a boy and which is a girl."

I bent over behind his shoulder.

"How can you tell?"

"Well, just lift their tails. The boys look like they have a colon. The girls have a semi-colon."

I checked, and sure enough, it was the best way to describe it.

"What if they have an exclamation mark?" I said.

He looked at me and smiled slightly, but kept on with his examinations. I chuckled at my own wit, and decided to head home. Semi colon and colon, I thought. That was funny, and completely different from people. Girls were so different from guys, they were like another species. I'd heard that a number of times from both my peers and adults, but I'd experienced it the past year for the first time when Nat had broken up with me suddenly to date another guy. Just thinking about my ex-girlfriend soured my mood, and when I got home I immediately went to the two pictures of us that I'd kept. We were smiling and holding each other. I was a bit of a late bloomer, and at seventeen, Nat had been my first girlfriend. I was sure that we'd be together for a long time. I still didn't know what had happened. I looked at the sheet which I'd folded the pictures into, where I'd written my last good bye. I'm sure I will love again, but I will always miss you. I'd penned it in my scratching printing. I held the photos in my hand, feeling the catch in my throat, as my gaze drifted to the Richard Marx mixed tape I'd made for her sitting on my desk. I'd never had the chance to give it to her. Women? Who could understand women? They were so different, and, I thought, just a little bit cruel.

Spring, 1996

The email sat on the screen in front of me, and I stared at it uncomprehendingly. Normally I liked getting email, it was one of the coolest new things about the whole technology thing. No more stamps or long letters or waiting for a reply. You simply clicked SEND and it showed up in someone else's mail box. This email, however, made my throat clench and my eyes well up. It was my third year of Bible College, and I'd already started my ministry. I'd pastored for two years and was speaking to crowds and conventions around the province. I hadn't "made it" yet, but I was making progress. God had great plans for me. Well, for me and *Diane. At least, that's what I'd thought. I stared at the email. How could Diane be breaking up with me? We were supposed to be together forever. Isn't that what it meant when you told people that you loved one another? I could feel all the energy drain from my limbs, and I sat there for a long time before the sobs started coming, slowly at first, but faster until I was weeping into my pillow.

The next day I was distraught. I knew that we'd been having some issues, knew that I wasn't perfect, but there had to be something for me to do. I thought about all the movies I'd watched where the couple had broken up, only to be reunited in the end. Yes. That's what I would do. I would win her back, woo her and court her the way a man was supposed to love a woman. Clearly, I'd failed somewhere. Women were different than men, I needed to remember that. I skipped my morning class and headed to the campus bookstore, where I found a treasure. It was an older book, but I'd heard the authour's name before. Gary Smalley. If Only He Knew. As I read through the small, but dense, text, I realized just how little I knew about women. They weren't just different, they WERE another species. According to Smalley, they responded to things in a manner that was completely foreign to men. I took out my red pen and underlined all the things about women that I had never really known. (Which was a lot) Of course Diane had broken up with me, I thought! I gritted my teeth, and sent a long email back to her. I'd screwed up. I listed fifty two things from the book (that I needed to change) and waited anxiously to hear back. A week passed. Then another. Yet another, and still no word from the love of my life. I was a wreck, and I shuffled through my days, despondent and broken. I thought about my professors, who'd all agreed with Smalley, that men needed to be the spiritual leader in their relationships. All my professors but one. Ron, who was stout and balding, insisted that he and his wife were equal leaders, whatever that meant. We all kind of laughed at him, but he was a nice guy, and we didn't give him grief about his unbiblical view. No, the others were right. I had not been a strong spiritual leader in our relationship. And now, I was paying the freight.

Finally, after about a month, I received an email from my love. I could feel my heart thundering in my chest as I scanned it, and just as quickly, felt my stomach dive. It was polite and short. She asked how I was doing and about my family. There was nothing in her email about my revelations from Smalley's book. There was nothing about our future. There was, it seemed, no future at all for our relationship. The tears came quickly this time, but I didn't try to hold them back. I'd failed to be the man, according to Smalley and my professors, so how could I hope that she could feel right as my woman? If there was one thing I'd learned, it was that the differences between men and women were legion, but if a man did not take charge of his relationship, well, that was the greatest crime of them all. As the months passed I thought about the email, thought about how different women were from men, and wondered, mostly, how they could be so cruel.

Spring, 2010

They sit on my shelves still, and even here, in the quiet library I've started to call home, I can see them if I close my eyes. Battle of the Sexes. Strong Men, Weak Men. His Needs, Her Needs. Lovebusters. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Men, Women, and Relationships. How to be a Real Man. Even the first relationship book I bought back when I was twenty two, If Only He Knew, as still there, marked with my scrabbly red pen. For nearly a decade I read every book I could get my hands on in trying to understand the opposite sex. I had good motivation. After my break up with Diane, I convinced another girl to marry me, only to watch that dissolve as well. Something was missing in my understanding of women, I knew that, I just didn't know what it was. And so I read, listened to sermons and talks on relationships. None of them helped very much. At least, not until after I was divorced. There had to be a secret, a key to relationships, something I could do to change things. I didn't like being single very much. It was okay, but I was never much of a 'player'. And I liked women well enough, I just didn't understand them. I was dogged though, because I knew that if I didn't figure them out, I was destined to be single (or in a bad relationship) for the rest of my life.

The library is quiet this morning. There is the quiet clicking from the front desk, and a murmured conversation in the corner. Mostly though, it is the hum of the air conditioner reverberating through the shelves and desks, along with the faint smell of books I love so much. The revelation about relationships did not come in a single moment for me, but it was processed over time. The reading helped, but not the way I imagine it would. The more I read, the more I realized that the books I was reading were inherently wrong. They all talked about the differences between men and women, as if these differences were cast in stone. Yes, men and women were physiologically different, that much I understood. But whether it was John Gray or Gary Smalley, there seemed to be a presumption of personality as well. Men were like this. Women were like that. Sometimes, when I'd read the sections about men, I wouldn't be able to identify with them at all. In fact, there were a number of ways in which I identified with the women, at least as they were described in the books. Some of the books did give some nuggets, such as the one that talked about our "emotional bank account", which has helped me enormously through the years.

But by and large the relational books all made the same mistake. They all held to the premise that men and women were different, and in so doing promulgated the greatest and most destructive myth of them all: That if you wanted your marriage to work, you needed to understand the opposite SEX before you could have a healthy relationship.

The widespread nature of this casually accepted myth was not only powerful, but held sway over the hearts and minds of a culture that should know better. The reasons for that however, were easily explained. Unfortunately, they were often disregarded, especially by those who had built their lives (and relationships) on a wrong ideal, and were loath to admit otherwise. To understand it better though, we needed to go back a ways, to previous civilizations.

-Steve (Go up to see Part II)

Still Not Sure What happened

Hey everyone,

Well, at least one mystery was solved last night. One of my friends (thanks, Mike!) sent me this link to help explain what Fbook was doing when it considered my site 'abusive'. As to why I could not login to this site I have no idea. The paranoia, if you can call it that, stems from the whole Fbook melodrama earlier this summer with some idiots from my hometown leaving nasty comments and spamming me.

Hope you guys are having a great day. I'll be posting my next article either later today or tomorrow. Enjoy the weather.

-Steve