i spent yesterday afternoon thrift store shopping with some friends, and we ended up in the north side, searching for several stores that were no longer there, and one goodwill that was closed for the day. after giving up on shopping, we still had almost an hour left on the parking meter, so we decided to go to dinner, and stopped into this little place in the heart of a very real neighborhood.
the four of us sat at a table in the window, ordered pizza and an appetizer sampler, and went about our business: one read the paper, one drew a labyrinth on his placemat, one tried to maintain conversation in the midst of it, and i watched people.
there's something about urban neighborhoods where the people have been there for their whole lives that grabs me. it just feels more real than anywhere else....there's grit, there's honesty, there are no games.
our waitress was white, middle-aged, skinny, and very tired. not the kind of tired you get at the end of a long day, but the kind of tired you get after years of long days, one after the other. almost everybody else i saw in or around the restaurant was black. there was a man who came to wash the windows, and i'm not sure if it's his job or if it's just what he does. there were these kids there, couldn't have been more than 11 years old and were probably closer to 8 or 9, who came in and talked with each other, always leaving one outside because they didn't have a lock for their bike, and the swagger on these kids was amazing....this little 8-year-old boy acting like a thug, and you knew he was trying so hard to project that image, and i couldn't help but wonder what made him feel he needs to do it. is it a matter of safety, or just a matter of pride?
one of the boys, maybe a little older but i couldn't say for sure, had pants hanging off his butt and this big silver(ish) medallion of jesus hanging around his neck. the medallion was what struck me most yesterday, that apparent contradiction of terms....presumably, he wore it to show that he belongs to christ, trusts god to protect him, or something like that....but then, doesn't it boil down to idolatry? it's still bling--still this attempt to show that you have enough money to decorate yourself so egregiously, so you must be successful or at least have connections to people who are and who think highly of you. so even in his attempt to humble himself before his god, if that's what it was, the means he used to do so showed that he put something else--namely, material worth--before god.
maybe i'm just making stuff up, but the irony grabbed me by the throat.
2 comments:
No, I completely agree with you. The wearing of symbols like the crucifix and the Jesus fish has always struck me as a little hypocritical, even when it's just a cheap homemade necklace. It just feels like it devalues the symbolism, you know?
i don't feel the same about cheap homemade necklaces and stuff like that, because it shows that you've put thought and effort into it and that it actually matters to you enough to work for it. i see no reason why a good Christian shouldn't want others to know s/he is a Christian--isn't that the point? and yes, the deeds you do should be enough to show that you are a Christian, but there are plenty of people who do good deeds, and they don't all do good needs in the name of Jesus. so if you are doing a good deed while wearing a cross, that might aid you in spreading the Word.
i see nothing wrong with visible symbols, as long as people truly know what it means to them and are displaying with the right motivation.
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