We truly are the ironic generation. I know myself that I fond comfort and fun and fellowship in irony and cynicism. Even right now, sitting in a convocation service, all I can think is how I can mock the speaker or pick apart his message. Alot of this sounds a little over dramatic, but when I boil it down that's what I want to do.
Now I think that beIng aware and thinking and thinking critically are all important. I think that there are too many people in the church and in the world at large that simply don't take the time to think, but I have to come to. Point where I have to realize that it's not my place to think for them.
Who am I do devalue anyones thougts pr creative expression? I can't gonas indepth to this subject as I want to, but one thought that I had is that many of my thougts that I think are so profound as related to where I used to be intellectually and artistically and philisophically are simply the polar opposite of where I used to be.
I used to rail against the left, and now I sneer at the right. I'm trying to work out balance, but in the meantime, I simply sit smug and prideful.
Is there ever a point where irony and cynicism and sarcasm are innocent or even holy? I don know. One thing that I've found from interacting with people from other cultures is that sarcasm or irony are a strictly western invention. I hurt or confused some of my Asian, Indian or Nepali friends by making what I thougt was an innocent comment, but the sarcasm was construed as sincerity. Where does that put me in this line of thinking.
One of the people that I respect almost as much as any other artist is buddy greene. A southern gospel song writer. But here is a man who as an understanding of being an artist and a Christian. He has a love for art of all types and like me, he is not simply satisfied with the surface of a y song or work of art, he digs out the story, the maker, the maker's story and he lets all of this knowledge influence what he makes.
In my brief one on one conversation with him, when I started to spit out a bitter, snarky commnet, he said to me " Aaron, the church and the world needs artists, but it doesn't need any more cynics." we spoke a little more in the vein. But I didn't let it scratch beneath my intellectual surface.
Years later, i find my wife and I clashing over art because I get so snobby and cynical. Let's just say I've learned not to make country music jokes on long car rides... But later, I run into my friend phil and through a chance meeting in a barnes and noble ( which I must admit I visit becuase it makes me feel a little smarter just being there) but in my short conversation with phil, he responds
To a cynical comment of mine by sharing a struggle of his own with cynicism. He then shares with me something that has had my head turning over and over for weeks "cynicism is just a form of pride" . And there I stood, proud of my journey towards humility.
It's somthing that I need to work on, but then again all I can do is surrender and humble myself. There is a great reason that god never says for us to BE humble, he says to humble ourselves. It, like every other thing in this life, a journey. Somewhere we cannot arrive, because once I think I have arrived, I have in fact taken a step back.
God has been working me over lately,financially, intellectually and spiritually. At the risk of sounding trite, I've come to realize that god wants his children to live a life like his son Jesus, not Frasier Crane.
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