Who is the Mary you know?

O.k., so I didn't actually see this while driving although driving past some of the more run down areas of town has made me think further on this. A lot of this actually came to me while driving thanks in part to Mark Driscoll's sermon on Mary. You can listen to it here.

Mary the mother of Jesus is definitely one of the more iconic images throughout history. Her image has probably been represented nearly as much as Jesus himself through art and imagery. It is because of this I think we lose touch with who Mary really was. Most everyone has seen a picture of Mary that looks something like this:

She looks so peaceful and serene, with gold and beautiful clothing; no worries in life whatsoever… But is this true? Let’s take a quick look at some facts about Mary:

1. She was probably a teenager – in that time girls could be betrothed as early as 12 and married by the time they were 13. We don’t know how old she was when she was visited by Gabriel but one could assume that she was in her early to mid teens. 
2. She was poor – The best evidence of this comes from Luke’s gospel where we are told that she and Joseph offer two pigeons for a sacrifice which was an accommodation made in the Mosaic Law for those who could not afford a lamb for a sacrifice. Not to mention that Joseph was a carpenter. In that time there were doctors, lawyers, bankers, soldiers, architects, essentially a whole range of “professional” occupations. Joseph was a tradesman which most likely meant that he was uneducated. Mary was most likely uneducated as well. Living in a rural community and being a girl would have meant that she did not have access to education and would have been likely illiterate. 
3. She was from nowhere - Mary lived in Nazareth. Nazareth was a rural farming community that was very very small. It was not well thought of, in fact upon hearing about Jesus for the first time Nathanael (one of the twelve apostles) said “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” 
4. She was likely regarded as a whore – Think about it: if you lived in a small rural community and a young, uneducated girl became pregnant and then went and told you that it was a miraculous conception that was foretold to you by an angel what would you think? In fact in John 8 we see the Pharisees level this very accusation at Jesus by asking “Where is your Father?” They regarded him as a illegitimate child without a father.

In light of all of this, does this change your view of Mary? I tried to think about it in the context of today – what would Mary look like today? Where would she live? This is what I came up with:

She would likely be a young girl, living in a trailer park or a rural community with little education, little future other than hoping to find and marry a guy who can make enough money to squeak by in a trailer near their parents. She then ends up pregnant and scared because all of society calls her names like “white trash” or “trailer trash”. Her parents and her fiancé’s parents likely would not believe her and her fiancé himself is about to leave her too until God intervenes through another visit from Gabriel.

This was the family that God chose to enter the world through. This was the world that Jesus grew up in – small town, working class family, rumors about his parents constantly swirling around. So let me ask you… do you know a Mary? Do you know someone in dire straights that the world has cast aside as trash? If you don’t, why? Are you too scared that you might get dirty? That your reputation might be tarnished? This Christmas think about the people through whom God chose to enter the world and reach out to them. Bless them this Christmas if at all possible, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!

Monday, November 16, 2009

So, after a week away due to sickness and laziness I'm back updating.

Today I really took notice of the billboards as I was driving. Here's my thoughts on billboards in general: they are the modern day false prophets pointing followers to false idols which will fulfill all of our hopes and dreams. You can tell what is important in a culture by what gets advertised and how. There were some trends that I noticed in what was advertised:

1. Subdivision and new homes - This taps into one of our most primal needs - shelter. Each billboard touted a different amenity whether it was prestige or price point. I was heading towards an area of town that has seen explosive growth over the past 5-10 years and the sheer number of billboards heralding different subdivisions by different builders was overwhelming. Turn right, turn left, turn around, great schools, pool, clubhouse, more house for your money, lake lots, custom homes... The list goes on and on. All of them were ultimately promising to be fulfillment.
2. The other trend I noticed was in medical care - specifically dental care as well as some information regarding preventive medical care. We are obsessed with remaining healthy and having access to immediate high-quality healthcare that is covered by our insurance plans. This is one of the reasons why the healthcare debate in this country is so heated. Again though, the false prophets were proclaiming the health and a bright smile are the path to happiness!
3. Government Contractors - I don't ever really understand these billboards. They will be from a government contractor like Boeing or Lockheed-Martin or someone smaller and all they are there for is to proclaim the completion of some project or show what the company does. In some cases there are websites that look like they link to career sites so it may be advertising for job posting but it's pretty unclear.

One of the striking things that I thought while seeing these is how incredibly blessed I am to live here. While I am driving down the road with companies competing to provide me housing and healthcare there are many in the world who have access to neither. We are truly blessed beyond our own recognition even to the poorest among us. 

Have a great day!

Monday, November 9, 2009

Ahh... the start to another week. Mondays are interesting days for me because I travel further Monday mornings because I drive out to Madison for a meeting... this tacks on about 15-20 extra minutes onto my drive depending on traffic and how much I speed. This also usually gives me a good opportunity to see stuff. Today however was a little different. There were only two things worth noting that I saw and neither one really took place on my longer drive.

The first was a beat up old car that had been pulled over by the police, I presume for speeding. Looking at the car you would not know that it was capable of starting, much less speeding. It makes me wonder why it got pulled over and not any of the other 500 cars that probably sped past the police officer. Did it get pulled because of its looks?

I also saw something while trying to find a parking spot at lunch today. There was a goth standing in the parking lot and the guy looked like he was rubbing something on the girl. As I passed I saw that he had a lint roller and was rolling all of the lint off of her black clothing. As I circled for a second time looking for a space I could see that she had turned around and he was de-linting her back. It was a little ironic that this couple that is so "unique" and counter-cultural was spending so much time with the lint brush. But, when it comes down to it, they just want acceptance, same as the rest of us. She had the same insecurities everyone else has that her clothes were not going to be just right and because of that, she was going to be judged. He was willing to stand in the parking lot and make himself look slightly ridiculous to ensure that she felt comfortable. It was actually kind of sweet. It was nice moment for me to look at both of them as people and not He-Goth and She-Goth.

Have a great day!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Well, today I got the chance to put my money where my mouth is and I blew it. I was driving to work this morning and there was an older guy walking down the Parkway in a closed section of the road. It was not super cold this morning but was probably high 40s with a breeze. Traffic had slowed and there was plenty of room for me to pull off and see if he needed a ride. I kept second guessing myself until it was too late and the opportunity had passed. I watched him cross the road in my rearview mirror and it looked like he was just walking to McDonalds so he wouldn't have needed a ride anyone but that's not the point. I had a chance to practice what I've been preaching and I didn't because I thought too much: what if he doesn't need a ride? what if he's just out for some exercise? what if he's one of the workers on the road? what if he thinks I'm dumb?

In reality, none of these things should have mattered but they did. Why? I mean, worst case scenario the guy would have said "No thanks". I mean I guess he could have pulled a knife or gun on me or something but I highly doubt that in SE Huntsville. I was so worried about my reputation that I missed a chance to help someone out. I guess when push comes to shove we make a value proposition in our heads - which is worth more to me? My self-esteem and reputation or someone in need of help? I want so badly to win that argument and say that it's the latter but all the evidence refutes that claim. I hope I get another chance soon...

On a different note I noticed today how much lighter traffic was. This is due in large part to the flex-time schedules a lot of people in Huntsville are on which allows them to take every other Friday off. It's interesting how something like that can have a noticeable affect on traffic conditions. I wonder what everyone does on their days off? Never having worked flex time I don't know what I'd do with three day weekends every other week.

Finally, for all you entrepreneurs out there I saw a business opportunity: a Hawaiian Shaved Ice stand was for sale and the U Sell It lot. It was green and had a penguin with a lei on it. I think this would be a great business opportunity come summer time... Think about it...

Thanks for reading!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Well, the inevitable happened today... for the most part I didn't see anything worth writing about today. Sure I saw an ice cream truck pulled over with a blown out tire and the driver standing outside explaining something to a cop but otherwise it was fairly quiet. This is the same ice cream truck that drives down our street at 40 MPH... no wonder he blew out his tires.

Thankfully, there are a couple of things that I've seen over the last several weeks that wouldn't necessarily fit into the days that I saw them either because I got verbose or because I forgot that I saw them... So, here's some stuff I left out:

The first day I started doing this I was driving home through a neighborhood and saw an old lady walking towards me. She looked me in the face and mouthed "slow down". I looked at the speedometer and saw that I was going 30 in a 25 so not excessively fast. The reason this stuck out to me is that I've done the exact same thing while walking around our neighborhood at night. We tend to have a lot of teenagers driving around in the neighborhood and they drive what seems to be really fast. I've been out with the dog or the kids and yelled at them to slow down; I've even contemplated throwing a bag of dog poop that I happen to be carrying at the cars.

However, seeing this lady yell at me made me stop and think. 1) I'm just as guilty. I was speeding in her neighborhood, not by much but speeding nonetheless. 2) It's really a matter of perspective. To someone walking 30 is really fast; to the driver it's frustratingly slow. This caused me to thing about the other things in my life that are colored by perspective. Everything that I see that goes on in the news or in my interaction with others is colored by my upbringing, preconceived notions and general worldview which results in me judging others for things that I am just as guilty of in other contexts and that are really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

The second thing happened just this past Sunday. If you read the post for the weekend I wrote about the fog on Sunday morning while driving to church. On that same drive I pulled up to a stop light at 7:10 in the morning. There were no cars coming from either direction and there were none behind or in front of me. My light was red and stayed red for probably 30-45 seconds and I waited the whole time. Why? It was not unsafe for me to go at that point, there was no camera on the light and no police in sight to enforce the law so why didn't I go? Why wouldn't most people go?

So I started comparing the way that we drive here in America with the way that people drive in other parts of the world. I think that by and large we think that we're unique and rebellious and all march to the beat of our own drums. But, if you compare something as simple as driving, we're complete rules followers. If you've ever been to another country, especially a second or third world country you will know that the rules of the road are really more guidelines than anything else. People run red lights in situations like the above and do not pay attention to lane markers or turn lanes or turn signals or anything of the sort. Here however, everyone maintains their lane and conforms to the rules of the road.

Granted, this makes travel much safer and more pleasant here and having to sit at a light for a minute is worth the cost of the improved conditions. But have we taken the conformity and rules following too far? Are we so conformed to the world that we just stay in our lane, interacting with our people and follow all the "rules" that have been set up arbitrarily? I know I tend to follow all the social rules when I'm with people outside my circle of friends. We talk about safe topics and laugh at all the jokes and don't get too deep into our lives because that's messy and we all like to live on four lane divided highways with overpasses so we don't have to stop and see anything.

I think it's time we all started breaking a few rules and seeing what it would do to the world. Maybe we should drift out of our lanes or drive 4 wide on a two lane country road. We should stop waiting around for the "green light" in our friends and neighbors lives and should instead just invade their lives and decide the you are going to screw the rules and be real. That would be awesome!!!

Hopefully I'll be back with some new stuff tomorrow... we'll see! Later...

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

It looks like I'm finally caught up! It's Wednesday night and I'm posting Wednesday's entry! Here we go:

First, I saw a car with one of those "In Memory of" decals. The dates were 1994-2006. I just looked at that and thought about how tough it would be to lose an 11 or 12 year old. I mean, any loss of a child is horrible and traumatic in its own unique way but losing a member of your family who's been there for 12 years? That had to be insanely tough. There was a much younger child in a car seat in the back who looked like she might have been born in 2006. I cannot imagine what the parents must have gone through.

I saw a guy painting the concrete posts on the new overpass. I was unaware that those required painting. I just assumed that they were naturally concrete colored... evidently this one needed a touch up though. Wouldn't want to have unattractive overpass supports now would we?

I realized today that I hate it when I pull up beside someone I know. I pulled along a co-worker today while we were driving to the office and my passenger window happened to be down. So he rolled his window down and we had a brief conversation at 50 MPH. That wasn't the part that I hated, it's what to do after that that bothers me. Do I speed up and try to leave them behind? Do I slow down and pull behind them? Do I just try to drive like I would normally drive and try not to look at them again? It just ends up being awkward.

I think that this awkwardness comes because of the removal from a familiar setting. I guess we relate to people differently based on where we are and when we see people outside of our comfort zone it's a little off putting. A prime example of this is my son who hides from his preschool teachers if we see them in Target. He doesn't have anything to say to them outside of the context of preschool. It was sort of that way with this guy today. Outside of work, I don't have a relationship with him. I don't know where he lives or what he does on the weekend. We've had friendly conversations in the office but he is in his own little silo isolated from my church friends who are isolated from my neighbors, etc...

Ideally I would like to break these barriers down and interact with everyone on a relational level instead of a transactional one. This particular coworker and I don't work in the same department and only really interact when one of us needs something of the other. However, he is close to my age and we really get along well when we do interact. All of us should make more of a point to de-silo our lives and let everyone mix together...

One thing that I did notice while driving and paying attention to my car and my coworker's car was the natural instincts that begin to develop when you do something repeatedly. I drive the same road to work every day and evidently my brain can now process everything without me so that I don't ever have to think about what lane I'm in. For example, my coworker switched lanes at one point and, although the lane was currently uncongested, I knew that it was going to slow down in a second. The weird part is I didn't know why it would slow down... turns out it's because cars were merging.

I just think it's amazing that our brains have been set up to work this way. I mean it's constantly running in the background trying to solve problems all day long and making connections to things that you didn't know were connected while at the same time keeping your heart beating and lungs moving. God made us incredible that we are able to function at such a high level without even thinking about it. For example, I kept having dreams last night because I was worried that on the Monday post I might have written rouge instead of rogue. Evidently this was very important to my brain because it kept getting brought up!

Finally, I got to see a near accident with one car being driven off the road by another. Car #1 was in the right turn lane moving up to the light to make a turn when Car #2 decides it needs to turn and pulls out in front of Car #1. Car #1 swerves and runs up on the curb while Car #2 takes advantage of a break in traffic and makes a right turn. It was fun to watch but I'm glad that no one and no things were hurt.

Thanks so much to everyone who has told me in the last several days that you enjoy reading this blog. I enjoy posting this stuff so please keep coming back!

Have fun...

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

This morning was fairly chilly and as I was driving to work I passed a Huntsville Utilities meter reader walking around some of the condos near my house. The first thing I thought was that I would like that job... a lot of walking around and seeing people's houses and yards. Of course, I would only like it on my terms: cold, not hot; no rain. I think we all romanticize other people's lives and think "man I wish I was like them." But, in actuality we wouldn't like their problems any more than we like our own.

I also saw some advertisements for a Christmas Superstore with "trees so real they'd even fool Santa" or something like that. It occurred to me that this sign has been up for several weeks and I haven't really thought anything about it. I would say that it's been there since at least mid-October which is now evidently the start of the Christmas season... who knew?

I passed a bank and tried to take a picture of the signs over the drive-through exit. They said in big letters "NO ENTRANCE" and then underneath in a much smaller font and all lower case letters "please". The signs on the inside say "WAIT HERE" then "please". It seems like the please is an afterthought thrown on the sign. The ironic part is that if the signs had just said "NO ENTRANCE" or "WAIT HERE" I wouldn't have seen them as rude... they were just stating the rules. But once you tack that tiny "please" at the bottom, suddenly I'm aware that the sign was being a little rude and demanding and frankly I'm a little annoyed that it just chucked a "please" out there as an afterthought! It's just the bank trying to be all hip with the lowercase fonts and stuff but I totally don't think it works.

Finally, I saw a Great Dane in a coat. Just let that sink in.... a Great Dane.... in a coat. A 150 lb fur covered animal in a coat. It was fantastic! And I can't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure that the person walking said Great Dane just had on a long-sleeve shirt with no coat... Oh yeah, by then it was 50 degrees outside.

Anyway, I'm sure they had a good reason for the coat, maybe the dog is naturally cold natured or has poor circulation due to its massive size. I suppose seeing an owner being too caring for their animals is better than the alternative so I shouldn't mock. But it was pretty funny looking.

Thanks for reading... Have fun!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Today I witnessed a case of what I will call Passive Aggressive Vigilante Justice or PAVJ for short. PAVJ takes place on our roadways for a variety of reasons but the primary trigger occurs in the following situation: A multiple lane road has a sign which reads "Lane Ends, Merge Right (or Left)". Many drivers immediately begin the transition to the lane(s) which will remain open except for a few rouge drivers. These drivers take advantage of the newly vacated lane to move up in the traffic pack. They will drive alongside all of the other drivers waiting patiently in line and, at the last second, cut back in front satisfied that they have passed 15-20 cars and are now 3 minutes closer to work!

However, these rouges should be on the look out for vigilantes. These vigilantes will stop at nothing to bar the rouges access to their precious lane! This is called Passive Aggressive Vigilante Justice. The vigilante would not dare confront the other driver if it were not for the safety of their automobile. However, since there are thousands of pounds of metal between them and the rouge the vigilante inches forward, front bumper pressed against the tail end of the car in front, never making eye contact with the rouge but never allowing more than 2 inches of space into which he might squeeze.

I have to admit, I have played both of the parts on multiple occasions. However, PAVJ backfired once on me in a major way. We were driving back from the beach and were just south of Birmingham when traffic began to backup due to an accident. As we drew closer is was evident that the accident had happened under an overpass and completely shutdown the interstate. As a result, all of the traffic was being diverted to an off-ramp, over the connector road and back onto the interstate on the other side of the accident.

I complied with the signals and move over to the right like a good soldier ready to wait my turn in line. But wait... what's this I see in my rearview? A rouge! Flying up the left side of the stopped cars until he reached me at which point he threw on his blinker and awaited my acquiescence. However, he was not to enter, not on my watch! I inched and crept directly on the car in front of me, eyes fixed firmly ahead and he did not gain entry.... until the car behind me let him in. Within 60 seconds we felt a jolt as the rogue rear ended our car... He had been too busy watching the accident to realize that we had stopped moving and had bumped right into us.

Obviously I was furious! Not only was he a rogue, he was a rubbernecking rogue! I hopped out of the car fuming, ready to drop the passive part of PAVJ. At which point the man jumped out of his truck, came to me apologetically and explained that this was his normal exit. He lived a few miles from there and was just trying to get home to eat lunch before he had to go back to work. He was so sorry and it was totally his fault and he just can't believe that he did that. His insurance company took care of everything and thankfully the car was a rental so there was really no inconvenience to us whatsoever other than some lost time.

This brings me to my point... He was a person. Not a silver Chevy Silverado... a person. I had no idea what the situation was and assumed the worst. I think this is the problem on both ends. The rogues, in general, do not have any regard for the PEOPLE in the cars, they're just cars. I highly doubt that these people would cut to the front of a line at the Post Office. Meanwhile the vigilantes are concerned with one thing - vengeance. Think about it, what do they gain by not letting the car in? Tops you're looking at 10 seconds of time saving... maybe a couple of minutes if the rouge sneaks through a red light. It's all about vengeance and teaching a lesson.

Anyway, it just gave me something to think about. I never know the situations that lead people to cut in line like that. Maybe there is an emergency or maybe they just don't see that I'm a person. Either way, I think next time, I'll just let them in...

Two other things and then I'll be done:
1.) I looked at some people's faces today while they were driving. Based on their countenances you would have thought that they were driving to their funeral. It made me self conscious and I tried to smile and look more cheerful the rest of the drive. I think it actually put me in a better frame of mind once I got to work.
2.) Way more people talk on cell phones at 5:00 than at 7:40. On the way to work I counted 2 people talking  on phones. On the way home that number was closer to 15 or 16. I know it's not scientific but it was intriguing nonetheless.

Later...

Friday, October 30 - Sunday, November 1, 2009

I'll be covering the whole weekend with this post.

To start with, Friday started off looking bleak and rainy but at one point I looked up and there was one clear patch of sky that was bright blue in the middle of the clouds. It was really cool to see and reminded me a lot of my life... mostly cloudy with brief glimpses of clarity!

I saw a couple of guys cramming a huge amount of black tubing into the back of a Range Rover... it really did not look like they were going to be able to drive it away. What's more, it was outside of a bar downtown... so I'm not really sure what to do with that??

I saw one of these in a parking lot:

I'd never seen one of these before but I think it'd be fun to have one of those and just travel around to see what's going on. I say that but in actuality I would much rather drive around the country in one of these:

Of course, I doubt I could afford one tank of gas, much less the actual cost of the motor coach!

I also saw a blue Chrysler Crossfire with a tag that said "VOTEDEM" and various Obama and Democrat miscellanea. It was actually refreshing to see, especially in Huntsville. Not because I necessarily agree with all of the beliefs of either party but because it was someone who was doing more than taking a stand. The lady who owned the car was taking a stand at a personal cost. She had to pay for the tag and drive around in a very conservative part of America. It's easy to take a stand by slapping a sticker on your car, but she knew what she believed in and was spreading the word!

Finally, I saw this while driving to church at 7:00 on Sunday morning.

This reminded me of 1 Corinthians 13:12 "...Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." It gave me something interesting to think about on my way to church... 

Have a great day!