The Hunger Games Part 5: The Desire to Love
My hatred of the Capitol has not lessened my hatred of my competitors in the least.
Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games, 238
But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Jesus, Matthew 5:44
I value the loving self-sacrifice that we find in the first book of The Hunger Games series. There are two beautiful moments in the book that I think are worth exploring. The first moment comes at the reaping. All of District 12 has assembled to see who will be their tributes in the Hunger Games. Primrose Everdeen (Katniss’s sister) was randomly chosen as a tribute in the Hunger Games. After Primrose’s name was called, Katniss ran to the stage to take her sister’s place as a tribute. Katniss sacrificed her life so that her sister could live. It’s a touching moment of sacrificial love that moves the whole crowd (24).
Peeta provides the second example of self-sacrifice. When Katniss was just 11 years old, her father died in a mine accident. After her father’s death, she became the provider for her family. Her mother and sister were at risk of starving to death unless Katniss could provide food for them. Katniss did her best, but one evening she headed home without any food. She passed by some houses and looked in their trash bins for rotted vegetables or bones, “something no one but [her] family was desperate enough to eat” (29). Unfortunately, the bins were empty, but she soon passed by the baker’s house, where she could smell the aroma of fresh bread. She looked desperately for food in the baker’s trash bins, but nothing was there. The baker’s wife ran outside, scolded Katniss, and threatened to call the “Peacekeepers” (the police). Katniss felt hopeless and thought, “let me die right here” (30). But Peeta intentionally burned two loaves of bread so he could give them to Katniss. He took a beating from his mother for burning the bread, who then yelled at him, “Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature. Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!” As Peeta walked to the pig, he looked in Katniss’s direction and threw the bread toward her. “Why would he have done it?” Katniss wondered. “He didn’t even know me. Still, just throwing me bread was an enormous kindness that would have surely resulted in a beating if discovered. I couldn’t explain his actions” (32-33). We discover later in the book that Peeta “had a crush on [Katniss] ever since [he] could remember” and that he had the affectionate feelings for Katniss before she even knew he was alive (130).
Katniss and Peeta provide us with wonderful acts of love and self-sacrifice that took tremendous amounts of courage. I admire these fictional characters for that, but I don’t want to confuse their self-sacrifice with the self-sacrifice of Jesus. Katniss and Peeta sacrifice themselves for people they already felt affection for and loved. Indeed, that's a wonderful thing, but Jesus took sacrificial love a step further. He told his followers that they should treat their enemies in ways of love and self-sacrifice, too. He told them,
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:44)
The Hunger Games is a brilliant book and I look forward to exploring the other two books in the series. This fictional account of Panem has a lot to teach us about the dynamics of human violence. But it doesn’t provide the solution to the problem of violence, which is a universal love that includes even our enemies.
Today is Good Friday. I often wonder why the day that Jesus died at the hands of the Roman and religious authorities is called “Good.” I’m convinced it’s because that on Good Friday Jesus revealed the only way to subvert the satanic mechanism of violence. (See part 4 of this series for more on that.) One way that Rome kept the “peace” was through the violent crucifixion of anyone who was deemed a threat to Rome. Jesus stood up to Roman violence by offering another way of life. He called it the Kingdom of God. It’s a way of life that leads to nonviolence, love, and forgiveness. Why would Rome see this as a threat? Because it challenged their violent ways of keeping peace. So they crucified him. This is where Christians talk about atonement. There is an angry, wrathful divinity that demands blood here, but it's not God - it's humans. Instead of praying for vengeance, which would only perpetuate the satanic mechanis, Jesus, the One who represents God, prayed words of forgiveness. As he hung from the cross, Jesus forgave those who killed him. “Father,” he said, “forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
In a few days we will celebrate Easter and the resurrection. After his death, Jesus came back to his followers. The importance of the resurrection is that Jesus offers peace to those who betrayed him. This is how God works. God’s peace does not come in uniting in violence against another. The Hunger Games reveals that’s how humans often create peace. Jesus reveals that God is not out to get anyone; that God doesn’t need victims to make peace. On the cross and in the resurrection, Jesus defeated the satanic mechanism by offering us a new way of creating community that’s not based on the violent death of another, but based on a community and a peace that comes through sacrificial love and forgiveness that embraces even, no, especially, those we call our enemies.
The desire to love in the way that Jesus loved is the hope for the future of our world.
The Hunger Games Blog - Table of Contents
The Hunger Games Part 1: The Hope for a Better World
The Hunger Games Part 2: The Desire for a Better World
The Hunger Games Part 3: The Desire for Peace
The Hunger Games Part 4: The Desire to Subvert Evil
The Hunger Games Part 5: The Desire to Love
The Hunger Games Part 6: The Fear of Death and the Hope for Life: Katniss and Perpetua
Response To Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus
Did Jesus come to abolish religion? Should we hate religion? In a video posted to youtube last week titled "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus" Jefferson Bethke argues Jesus did come to abolish religion and that we are justified to hate religion. But is that true? A close look at the life of Jesus says something very different.
To view Bethke's video, click here.
The Gift That Keeps Re-Gifting
I have gotten a reputation in my family as a re-gifter. I accidently gave some monogrammed hand towels back to my daughter and a snowman appetizer dish to my daughter-in-law in two memorable senior moments. Luckily, they both laughed heartily at my mistake and thought I was adorable rather than tragically stupid. Doesn’t everyone know you are not supposed to re-gift to the giver but to someone else? I tried to soften my mistake by protesting that this didn’t mean I didn’t want or like their gifts – I liked their gifts so much, in fact, that I thought they would make great gifts for them! They weren’t convinced but at least I tried.
I mention this because I want to talk a little bit about the things we want and what that says about who we are. It’s the perfect time of year for it. We just got through December when everyone is asking each other, “What do you want for Christmas?” and we are in the middle of January when we are all asking ourselves, “What self-improvement resolution should I make – and break – this year?” What we want and who we want to be are as closely tied to one another as December is to January. Let’s take a quick look at how.
Most of the year we happily live with the delusion that our desires arise spontaneously from within our deepest selves. But in December that delusion is harder to maintain because advertisers are in an all-out, full court press operating on the opposite premise: that our desires can be influenced and manipulated from the outside. Think about your Christmas wish list for a minute – how did you come to want what you wanted? Did you see an advertisement that got you thinking about jewelry or a new coat? Did a celebrity interview entice you to see a movie or buy a book over the holidays? Maybe you saw someone using a new phone or overheard a conversation about a trendy restaurant for New Year’s Eve and you found yourself texting on your new device from the restaurant bar.
I bet you can connect each item on your list to the source of your desire, a source that lies somewhere outside of you. Even things that seem to be deeply personal don’t originate inside us. For example, this year what I wanted most was not a thing at all, but to feel happy during the holidays. Sometimes the season goes by so quickly and I am so stressed out that I don’t enjoy the parties and the family time very much. Clearly, sometimes I don’t even remember who gave me what gift! But I worked on it this year and I’m happy to say I got my wish. But where did that wish come from? I wish I could say that I was smart enough to know that the most important gifts aren’t things you can buy in a store, but not so. The truth is that I learned this from some great teachers over the years – Ebenezer Scrooge for one, Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life and so many other holiday movies for another, and my spiritual disciplines of yoga and daily prayer are great teachers, too. All those influences somehow combined together so that this year I wanted to be more like Jimmy Stewart than the gal with the new diamond necklace in the Kay Jewelry commercials.
You see, advertisers have got one thing very right – our desires are suggested to us from the outside. The tricky part is that when they nestle inside it feels as if they have always been there. But that’s just a convenient delusion that preserves our sense of independence and soothes our easily bruised egos. It’s really much healthier to let go of all that ego gratification and accept the truth that all our desires originate outside of us. Having unattached desires is what allows human beings to learn and grow and be the most innovative of all species. Other animals have instincts, but we have free-floating, unattached desires – yeah for us!
The trick of life is to be really smart about who and what we let our desires get attached to. The big mistake we often make at Christmastime is that we let advertisers and others we think are smarter, prettier or sexier than we are direct our desires for us. The important thing to remember is that our desires don’t take a direct path to objects – our desire is always deflected toward an object by someone we want to be like. That’s how the advertisers do it – they show us smart, pretty, sexy people with the objects they want us to buy. It’s genius, really. But allowing advertisers to dictate our desires is not genius. They are the worst kind of models because they don’t want what’s best for us, they want what’s best for them, which is for us to open our wallets and fork over the cash or swipe the plastic, as the case may be.
Fortunately for our souls, January follows right on the heels of this month of marketing mania. Making New Year’s resolutions forces us to take a hard look at who exactly we want to be like: the skinny girl, the ripped guy, the powerful boss, the smart professor, the sexy friend, the popular celebrity, whoever! These are our models of desire. Before you make any resolutions, you might want to ask yourself if you are happy with your models. Can you trust them? Are they truly unselfish models, wanting for you only what is best for you? If not, you might want to shop around for different models. They may be fictional, historical or spiritual; you may find them in books or plays, at church or work or close to home. The best models are the ones who truly love you or inspire you to live a joyful, fulfilled and peaceful life. At least that bit of wisdom is the gift my models have given me, and I guess this blog is my attempt to share that gift with you. No senior moment this time, no accidental re-gifting. Learning the truth about desire and how to choose models is a gift worth re-gifting – pass it on!
The Redemption of the Grinch
“Give me your grinchiest look,” I said.
And he did.
My kids are watching the shows I grew up with. Is it shallow to say that this is one of my greatest experiences as a parent?
Birth. And then the Grinch.
I. Love. It.
My Wife has this call and response thing going on with our Youngest Son.
She’ll start, “You’re a mean one…”
And he responds, “Mr. Grinch!”
It’s one of those beautiful family moments that make us all smile.
Now that I’m watching these shows as an adult, I interpret them in a different light. Let’s stay with The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. “Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch who lived just north of Whoville did not.”
You know the story, but here’s a little refresher: The Grinch hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season. We are told that no one know just why, but most likely because his heart was two sizes too small. And those Whos down in Whoville, they were so loud in their Christmas celebrations, which drove the Grinch nuts. He hated the Whos. The Grinch devised a plan to stop all that Who noise. He came up with an awful idea, a wonderful, awful idea. He tried to stop Christmas from coming by stealing the Whos’ presents, Christmas trees, and food. Well, you know that by the end his heart grew and he was transformed.
But how did it happen?
I’d like to explore with you how Dr. Suess could have told the story. After the Grinch stole Christmas, the Whos could have united in hatred against the Grinch. You can imagine the Whos coming together and yelling, “The Grinch hates us! Well we hate the Grinch!” That’s how hate works. Once hate is unleashed, it spreads like a contagious disease, infecting ourselves and our relationships. United in their hatred the Whos could have come after the Grinch with pitch forks and guns. (Can you imagine little Cindy Lou Who running after the Grinch with a glock?) The Whos could have gotten a little Who justice. They could have taught the Grinch a lesson by locking him up in Who jail.
MSNBC would have loved that!
Of course, the Whos reflected hatred of the Grinch would have only increased his hatred for them. He would have become even grinchier … and then the Whos hatred of the Grinch would have increased even more until soon Whoville would have suffered from Who Armageddon!
Dr. Seuss could have told that story, but, fortunately for us, he wanted to tell a story of redemption. Anthropological genius that he was, Dr. Seuss shows us the only way to redemption. You see, hate can spread throughout a community, but so can love. In order for our hearts to grow, we need to see the big, loving hearts of others. The Whos didn’t fall into the Grinch’s trap of hatred. They didn’t allow his hate to infect their lives. Rather, they modeled a different way of life: A life of community, joy, and love. When the Grinch saw their Christmas joy as they stood hand in hand welcoming Christmas, his heart grew.
And when the Grinch brought back their toys, Christmas trees, and food, the Whos made space for the Grinch. He joined their Christmas celebration and he ate at their table.
Near the end of the movie, the Whos sing in the presence of the Grinch, “Welcome Christmas, while we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.”
In part, that’s what Christmas is about. Making space for the Grinches in our lives and hoping that maybe, just maybe, even our own Grinchy hearts will grow.
(You can watch Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas below.)
Reply to Tony Perkins: Jesus was a Free Lover, Not a Free Marketer
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council in Washington, begins his recent article for CNN entitled My Take: Jesus was a free marketer, not an Occupier by stating that “One of the last instructions Jesus gave his disciples was ‘Occupy till I come.’”
The quote is from the Parable of the Ten Minas, found in Luke 19:22. There are economic overtones in the parable – a mina was about a month’s wage in first century Palestine. Perkins uses the parable to discuss modern economics. Anachronistically, he claims that Jesus endorsed the free market. The free market, of course, is a modern concept, so Jesus could not have been a “free marketer.” Perkins then uses the parable to denounce the Occupy Wall Street movement, a movement that he claims, “take(s) over and trash(es) public property” and “engage(s) in antisocial behavior while denouncing a political and economic system that grants one the right and luxury to choose to be unproductive.”
Perkins explores the parable and the Occupy Wall Street movement from a spiritual perspective. While I appreciate that perspective, his spiritual interpretation of the parable is false. By their very nature, parables are mysterious. Parables are like riddles that contrasts two worldviews. One worldview could be described as the kingdom of violence; the other is the Kingdom of God. Jesus confronts us with these worldviews and asks us to pick which worldview we will live by.
Jesus told the Parable of the Ten Minas near the end of his life. He knew that the political and religious elite would soon kill him, and, in telling this parable, he tried to prepare his disciples for his death. Jesus prepared his disciple for his death in parable and in straightforward teachings. For example, in the previous chapter of Luke (18:31-33), he told his disciples that “the Son of Man” (a term he frequently used to describe himself) would be “handed over” and that his persecutors would “mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him.” Luke tells us that “The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.”
Two thousand years later, we need to ask ourselves, “Do we know what Jesus was talking about?”
Jesus starts the parable by saying, “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then returns.” Perkins assumes that the king is Jesus, but is he correct? While Jesus does refer to himself as “the Son of Man,” he never explicitly refers to himself as a king. But we do claim that Jesus is king – a different kind of king. Jesus transforms our understanding of “king.” He is the true King who doesn’t lead his army in violence and warfare. Jesus had nothing to do with the kingdom of violence. Rather, according to Luke 6:27, Jesus is the true King who leads his disciples in the Spirit of love, a love that embraces even our enemies.
That changes everything, including our interpretation of parables. Instead of Jesus referring to himself as a man of noble birth going to a distant country to have himself appointed king, could Jesus be talking about the actual king of Judea – Herod? In fact, this is exactly how the Herodian Dynasty received power – from a distant country called the Roman Empire. As Jesus continues the parable, the king behaves exactly as you’d expect. He is good to the two servants who live up to his expectations by earning even more money for the already rich king, and he punishes the third servant who fails to earn the king more money. In fact, Jesus ends his parable with this alarming, and prophetic, statement, “But those enemies of mine, who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and kill them in front of me.”
Perkins is wrong to assume that Jesus is the king in the parable. Jesus is not the king; rather, he is the third servant. When Jesus teaches to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those mistreat you,” he flips our violent worldview upside down. It is not the kingdom of God that rewards those who are good and punishes those who are bad. That reciprocity describes the kingdoms of violence, the kingdoms of this world. Jesus was not enslaved to that violent reciprocity; rather, he freely loved all people. Jesus did not kill his enemies who did not want him to be king over them. It was Herod, Rome, and the religious elite who killed Jesus. They killed him because after Jesus occupied the Temple (Luke 19:45-46) they thought his movement was antisocial as he denounced their political, economic, and religious systems. Jesus responded to their violence with nonviolence and love: On the cross he prayed that his persecutors would be forgiven (Luke 23:34) and in the resurrection he offered peace to those who betrayed him (Luke 24:36).
What does this mean for the spirituality of the Occupy Wall Street movement? The kingdom of violence infects every aspect of our world. Jesus challenged that kingdom with the Kingdom of God’s Love – a love that embraces the cosmos, as the Gospel of John says. There are certainly aspects of our economic and political systems that are spiritually destructive and exploitative. The movement is right to critique those aspects. The spiritual problem with the movement is that it has divided 99% of us “good people” against 1% of those “bad people,” who have not lived up to our economic and political expectations. That division is the result of the spirit of violence that Jesus came to deliver us from. If the OWS movement wants to be effective, it must seek to include its perceived enemies. Because if we really want to make political and economic change, we need to be in this together. All 100% of us.
The Color of Love: Van Gogh and Coldplay
You might think that the 19th century artist Vincent van Gogh and the modern rock band Coldplay seem like an odd combination. But they both teach us something very important: The color of God’s love.
Many would describe van Gogh’s life as a tragedy. He was plagued by mental illness and extreme anxiety, both of which started in his youth. His father was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. The expectations of being a preacher’s kid is always tough and his relationship with his father was often in turmoil, yet young Vincent aspired to follow in his father’s footsteps. He also developed a passion for art. Vincent became a missionary and then entered seminary, but failed his entrance exam. After that failure, and in his late twenties, van Gogh chose art over continuing to pursue professional ministry.
Failure was a theme in van Gogh’s life. For example, at the age of 30, he perceived his childhood to be a failure. In a letter to his brother Theo, van Gogh described his childhood as “gloomy and cold and sterile.” He claimed his father was dictatorial and stubborn, which led to the failure of their relationship. Van Gogh experienced little love from his father during his childhood, which sent him on a search for love as an adult.
As an adult, he continued to experience failures in relationships and in his profession. He fell in love and when he proposed she responded, “No, never, never.” (Ouch!) Despite being a prolific artist, he only sold one of his paintings, The Red Vineyard, while he was alive. He was unsuccessful in his other business endeavors, too – as a bookstore clerk and as an art salesman. As a missionary, he decided to live as the poor men he was ministering to in a Belgium mining field by sleeping on a straw bed in a small hut. Although this is exactly what a missionary should do, the church authorities determined his behavior was undignified of the priesthood and removed him from the position. Ironically, he failed as a missionary because he was too successful. At the age of 35, van Gogh committed himself to an asylum. While there he “viewed his life as horribly wasted, personally failed and impossible.” Suffering from depression and mental illness, he attempted suicide on July 27, 1890 and died a few days later from a self-inflicted bullet wound to his chest.
So, you might say van Gogh’s life was a tragic failure. But to emphasize his failures is to miss his most important success:
He knew the color of God’s love.
Van Gogh was not a professional minister, but he chose to minister to people through art. In one of his letters to his brother, he wrote, “I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things. Love this friend, this person, this thing, whatever you like, and you will be on the right road to understanding Him better, that is what I keep telling myself.” Van Gogh tried to help people know God’s love through his paintings, and the color he chose to reveal God’s love was … yellow.
In his book, The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving others, Scot McKnight claims that “The best-kept secret of van Gogh’s life is that the truth he was discovering is seen in the gradual increase of the presence of the color yellow in his paintings. Yellow evoked (for him) the hope and warmth of the truth of God’s love.”
This “gradual increase” of yellow in his paintings reflects his gradual understanding of God’s love. Take, for example, his most famous painting, Starry Night. At times, God’s love feels distant, like the stars. Notice that in Starry Night the most prominent yellow is in the distant stars. Now, look at the church. The place that should be über yellow is dark. Where is God present in the world? Van Gogh says nowhere.
Another of van Gogh’s paintings, The Raising of Lazarus, is not as famous as Starry Night, but you see the drastic difference in the use of yellow. An angel comes to Lazarus and resurrects him to life. Life from death. That was van Gogh’s hope. In spite of his failures and his madness, he hoped in God’s love. Indeed, sometimes God seems as distant as the stars, but God’s love is right here, present, and seeking to foster new life. To paraphrase Paul in Romans 8 “For I am convinced that neither our failures nor our madness, not even death itself, can separate us from the love of God.”
Yellow is everywhere.
Now, you may be wondering, “That’s all fascinating, but what does it have to do with Coldplay?” (Thank you for the segue.) Coldplay released their debut album Parachutes in 2000. That album included their smash hit called … “Yellow.” I can’t help but think of van Gogh’s use of yellow to reveal God’s love when reading these lyrics:
Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah, they were all yellow,
I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called yellow
So I took my turn
Oh what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow
Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
You know you know I love you so
You know I love you so
I swam across
I jumped across for you
Oh what a thing to do
Cause you were all yellow
I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
And it was all yellow
Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
You know for you I’d bleed myself dry
For you I’d bleed myself dry
It’s true look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for…
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine
Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And all the things you do
There is a long tradition that claims that God is light, so stars are perhaps our best symbol for God’s love. The stars are our source of warmth, and they do shine for you, but not just for you. They shine for everyone and all of creation. You cannot control the light that beams from the stars. Just like God’s love, you can’t hold it for yourself. It permeates the world, making it all yellow.
Still, it is hard for us to trust that yellow is in our world. As van Gogh knew so well, God’s love often seems distant. That’s why God’s love swims and jumps across the abyss that seems to separate us from God. God swam across because we were all yellow; we were all loved by God. We see this in the Judeo-Christian tradition when Moses encounters the burning bush, when the prophets speak God’s word, and ultimately in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In that life and death, we find that God’s love is all inclusive and non-violent. Even when we reject it, even when we make God’s love in Jesus bleed dry, God’s love returns in the resurrection to shine for us, offering forgiveness, peace, and love.
Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you, symbolizing God’s eternal love for you, for all humanity, and for the world.
***************
Where do you find God in the world?
When has God seemed distant in your life? When has God seemed present in your life?
Black Friday Survivor's Guide
The value of an object grows in proportion to the resistance met with in acquiring it.
-Rene Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, 295.
“Do you want to come with me?” She asked.
I replied with a question of my own. “Are you kidding me?”
My mother frequently invited me to go on her yearly Black Friday ritual. I thought she was crazy. She would wake up at 4:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving to cash in on the great deals at a store called Fred Meyer. “Freddie’s,” as we affectionately called it, is a West Coast superstore, kind of like a really nice Wal-Mart. Groceries, electronics, pharmaceuticals, clothing, toys – pretty much anything you could ever want you could find at Freddie’s.
My mother loved Freddie’s. Especially on Black Friday.
A trip to Freddie’s on Black Friday was her spiritual journey to Jerusalem. I anticipate that sounding extremely superficial to my readers. What could be worse than participating in one of capitalism’s most aggressively competitive days? As consumers compete with one another in acquiring objects, the objects perceived value grows as we bump elbows, play tug of war, and trample over one another. The news has reported in recent years on the mad crowds rushing into stores on the morning of Black Friday. The rush has a contagious element to it, as people feed off of the competition to find the best deals. Tragically, some people have been trampled and killed by the insane rush to purchase stuff. This was the first year that stores opened on Thursday night, enabling consumer competition and greed, and also leaving many in retail without a holiday. An ABC News article reports that a woman used pepper spray on Thanksgiving night to scatter a crowd from an Xbox display; that a group of thieves shot a man after he refused to give them his purchases; and two men fought over jewelry deals – one was arrested as he refused the police when they demanded that he leave the store.
The problem of greed is much bigger than stores. When purchasing an object has more value than another’s life, we have a serious problem with what the Bible calls idolatry. Our mimetic (or imitative) nature produces excessive devotion to material objects. Because we are mimetic, we imitate the desires of others. We see that a group of people are at an Xbox display, about to pounce on Xboxes like ravenous wolves. Seeing this only increases our desire to purchase an Xbox, and since stores have a limited supply, our desire increases. So, what is one to do? Pull out a bottle of pepper spray, of course.
Still, from my own experience, I don’t want to scapegoat all Black Friday shoppers. My mother died 10 years ago after a ten year battle with cancer. She was sick on her last Thanksgiving. But she woke up that Black Friday morning like she did every Black Friday morning. (Actually, I think she slept in a few hours and entered the doors of Freddie’s at 8:00 a.m.) She was on a mission to find a great deal on the only purchase that really mattered for her and her children. And she found it.
Socks.
My mother’s main objective on Black Friday was to purchase socks. It was one of her major rituals of the year. But my mom had a sense of perspective about Black Friday. She knew it wasn’t really about socks or an Xbox. Her devotion on Black Friday symbolized her devotion to her family. And when you remember it’s about love for your family, you begin to perceive that others might just be shopping out of love for their family, too.
I know I opened some pretty expensive gifts on Christmas morning, but the present I remember unwrapping most were those socks. They were a constant. Whenever we would unwrap a bundle of socks, my siblings and I would hold them up in the air and yell, “WOO-HOO!” And as we expressed our joy, a smile emerged on my mother’s face.
You see, for me, Black Friday isn’t about the mimetic craziness and competition. It's about a mother’s love and devotion to her family that was symbolized in the warmth of socks.
I miss those socks.
Why Kim Couldn't Keep Up: The Disease of Desire
Many people are turning against Kim Kardashian and her family since her divorce last month from Kris Humphries. According to the Washington Post, “More than 100,000 people are no longer interested in ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians,’ and would like E! to stop airing the family’s reality show.” Those 100,000 people have signed an online petition titled “No More Kardashian.” Cyndy Snider, the petition organizer, justified the petition by claiming, “We feel these shows are mostly staged and place an emphasis on vanity, greed, promiscuity, vulgarity and over-the-top conspicuous consumption.”
I’m not a fan of Kim, but I’m not going to sign a petition to get her banned from television. To the extent that I care, I’m disappointed that her marriage only lasted 72 days. I’m disappointed, but of course I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised because Kim has been set up. And we set her up.
Kim is a product of our culture. And we are partly responsible for her life.
Here’s what I mean. In the United States someone can star in a reality show called “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” This is a clear reference to the American phrase, “Keeping Up with the Joneses.” This idiom is based purely on the anthropological phenomenon of mimetic imitation. This imitation has two steps. First, we unconsciously learn what to desire by observing what others desire. These “others” become our models for what to desire. Second, we unconsciously want to outdo our models. So, we see that a neighbor or a friend just bought a 42 inch flat screen television. That stimulates our desire for a television, only we won’t be satisfied with a 42 inch television – we want a 55 inch flat screen.
The mimetic principle of “Keeping Up with the Joneses” reflects American consumerism. It is an unconscious mentality that seeks to outdo our neighbors and it produces “vanity, greed, promiscuity, vulgarity and over-the-top conspicuous consumption.” It leads to a disease of desire, where we gain a sense of satisfaction by out-consuming one another. This mimetic competition of purchasing stuff becomes an addiction. (Credit card debt, anyone?) Even worse is that in the end, nobody can keep up with the Joneses.
Not even the Kardashians.
Nobody can keep up with the Joneses because once we have the disease of desire the object no longer matters. In fact, once we acquire the object, we are instantly dissatisfied with it. It’s not about the object; it’s about an addiction to desire that no object can satisfy.
And this is how we set up Kim and her family. They are caught up in a mimetic mechanism that is bigger than they are, and they can’t keep up. We wanted to see them live without the limits of desire the rest of us have. (Or should have.) In that sense they are our models for what our culture thinks is an ideal life. For example, Kim’s fans love her because she does “krazy” things on massive scales. Because objects can never satisfy her, she continuously purchases big, expensive things, she takes trips to exotic places, and she held a televised wedding that rivaled the Royal Wedding in viewership and in cost. Nothing in Kim’s life is based on satisfaction; she is addicted to desire, and if that addiction continues she will never find satisfaction. So, after acquiring the object of her desire (her husband Kris Humphries) she wasn’t satisfied. She felt disappointed and let down after her wedding. And so she divorced her husband after 72 days.
And now many of us are turning against her. But what we don’t realize is that we are the ones who set her up. We set her up to be addicted to desire. The title “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” meant that we looked to her to mimetically keep up with herself – to never be satisfied with what she had and to outdo herself in each episode. And we loved her for it. We wanted her to become addicted to desire. And we turned against her for doing just that.
Indeed, Kim and her family need to take responsibility for the position in which they find themselves. I hope they do that. But signing a petition to kick them off television won’t solve our cultural problem of diseased desire that leads to endless consumption and dissatisfaction. Even if the petition is effective, more Kardashian-like shows will emerge. The only way for the Kardashians to be cured of the mimetic disease of desire is the only way for us to be cured of the same disease that infects our whole culture.
About 1600 years ago there was a man named Augustine. He also had the disease of desire, and he soon realized this was a spiritual disease. The disease of desire is spiritual because it is fundamentally about idolatry. Augustine lost perspective as he placed himself above God. He soon realized he would only find satisfaction when his heart rested in something bigger than himself, bigger than the stuff he could acquire, and bigger than his sexual relationships. In his autobiography called Confessions, Augustine referred to God when he claimed, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” The cure to the disease of desire is to realize that a fulfilled life doesn’t depend on acquiring more stuff in order to keep up with anyone. Rather, a fulfilled life depends on the right perspective. A fulfilled life depends on opening ourselves to the God who transforms our desires to competitively “keep up” with our neighbors into a desire to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
It seems to me that Augustine's wisdom from 1600 years ago is as relevant for Kim Kardashian as it is for all of us.
What is Love? The Roxbury, Two Rabbis, and You
Special thanks to Haddaway for asking the question. You can purchase their song "What Is Love?" on Amazon by clicking here.
To learn more about Hillel's emphasis on love, click here for his Wikipedia page. See specifically the section called "Golden Rule."
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, love is not primarily an emotion or feeling, but an action and commitment. It seeks the best for the other, including those we call our enemies.
Libya and the International Community: Freedom, Tyranny, and Fate
“We will fight for our freedom, and we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.”
“It is a historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Qaddafi has met his fate.”
Abdel Havez Ghoga, National Transition Council Spokesman
Freedom. Tyranny. Fate.
Libyans took to the streets in celebration last Thursday as the news of Muammar Qaddafi’s fatefully violent death spread throughout the air waves. People cheered in the streets in celebration of this historic event that many claim has brought freedom and an end to tyranny in Libya.
We know the fate of Qaddafi, but we don’t yet know the fate of Libya. The chapter on Qaddafi’s freedom to rule through tyranny and violence has ended, and Libya’s next chapter has begun.
We should pause and reflect on how Libya arrived at this moment. The battle for Libya began last February, on what was called “The Day of Rage.” Of course, there was good reason for rage and protest in Libya; Qaddafi’s government ruled with an iron fist, was politically and economically corrupt, and supported terrorism throughout the world, including terrorism against his fellow Libyans. Eight months after “The Day of Rage,” Qaddafi was found by rebels hiding in a large drainage pipe, tortured, and then murdered. Video proof of those events are apparently available for viewing online. Pictures of Qaddafi’s bloody face are ubiquitous on the Internet. In researching the topic, I’ve accidentally stumbled across those ghastly images.
Presently, many are now asking if Qaddafi’s murder was just. The Chairman of the Transitional National Council of Libya, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, announced yesterday that, because of demands from the international community, a “commission of inquiry into the death of Colonel Qaddafi” would be formed.
I’m not sure who in the international community is demanding such an inquiry, but I wonder if that demand might be hypocritical. Libya is in this position now largely because of the international community. The UN, France, Britain, and the US all supported and participated in the violence against Qaddafi and his regime. Thus, the solution that the international community provided to the violence of Qaddafi’s rule was … violence.
Of course. Because that’s the way violence works. In the words of Andrew McKenna, we cannot control violence, violence controls us. We celebrate our violence and we demand the “freedom” to use it. Qaddafi demanded that “freedom.” Libyan rebels demanded that “freedom.” The international community demanded that “freedom.” But the truth is that we are enslaved to violence. We cannot control it. It controls us.
And so, Libya starts a new chapter in its history. That chapter starts like nearly every other chapter in world history: it starts with violence.
So, what is the fate of Libya?
That chapter will soon be written. But if Libya’s story is consistent with world history, “freedom” will continue in the form of slavery to violence. Libya is not alone in that fate. The international community stands with Libya in our enslavement to violence.
We do have a choice, of course. We don't have to be enslaved to violence. We are free to choose the way of nonviolence, love, and forgiveness. That freedom is within our power.