To Work Or Not Work On Sunday

Visiting the old hometown today.  And I have to confess - it's a working Sunday.  Not only that, I feel especially guilty because I'm writing from a Starbucks.  So if I start using nonsensical jargon, I blame it on the jazz music and the mermaid.

I know what you're thinking.  This is another religious rant based in outmoded ideas that no longer apply to our time.  The notion of taking Sunday off is pleasantly quaint, but impractical in a world that runs on pagers, and PDA's, and wire recorders, and typewriters.  Heck, it's a miracle that this post even got published.

Anywho, (yes, anywho) the thing about all Biblical truths is that I have found through lots of trial and error (more error than trial, more perspiration than inspo) that when we ascribe to and adhere to God's precepts for our living, and by God, of course, I mean the mythological figure they're always shaking their fist at on television and in the papers - (because it makes more sense to trust in a mermaid, right?)

Let me take the sarcasm back a couple notches, lest some of you actually believe I mean some of this stuff.

I have found, through trial and error - and I am allowing myself a couple tangents today because I'm not supposed to be working.  So technically I'm just kind of giving voice to something within my soul.  That's not really work, is it?

Ah, the topic.  I've found that when I, personally, follow God's advice, which, I admit, is usually in the form of a command - 

I tend to be a happier individual.

Reader (you) is probably fuming.  Bark bark bark gay rights, bark bark bark I can't divorce my wife, or sell my body for sex, which is my idea of the great American dream, bark bark bark spit in public - just, listen to me, tiger.

Let's just hang in there for a second.  The jazz and the coffee must be affecting my brain more than I realize.  This doesn't happen at Atlanta Bread or the other places I go and enjoy but don't quite feel comfortable endorsing with a LinkedIn post just yet.

Is Starbucks evil?  Not the topic today.  I wrote a previous post on it you can easily find, and I'd post a link to it, but that would feel like work, and I don't have to work today.  So if you want to read it, go ahead and find it yourself.  Just kidding, just kidding.

Funny thing, I've been accused of being high before, and people don't believe me when I tell them I'm just high on life.  I've gotten into things I'm not proud of - drugs have always seemed rather stupid to me.  In part because God warns against the stupidity of liquor.  He says leader-types avoid it.  If you can believe that!

Anyway, I wasn't quite sure where this post would lead when I began writing it.  I thought I was, but turns out, we're on this journey together, you and I.  I have a vague idea of where it will end, but - frankly - writing it well isn't quite as important to me as attempting to follow God's mandate as best as I am able today.

He says to honor the Sabbath.  Which, as all you geniuses will likely start barking about, the Sabbath isn't Sunday.  Props to you if you take Saturday off instead of Sunday.  Props to you if you are a medical professional keeping people safe and healthy today.  I bid you Godspeed in your ministry, even if you don't think of it as such.  I don't see how you couldn't, but oh, look, I'm digressing again.

While there is a gnawing guilt within my soul about 1) working on Sunday 2) being responsible for other people working on Sunday 3)

Ah.  But there isn't.  And herein lies the reason my subconscious, my Christ within, what have you, set about writing this post.

The only reason I chose Starbucks is that - if I failed to mention this - it happened to open an hour earlier than the other place I usually go to and prefer.  The music in here is a little too loud for composing music, even with these over-sized earphones I cherish from my radio days.  I need to invest in a good noise-cancelling pair, but frankly, as a semi-starving artist, there are more important investments to make.  Although - perhaps not - our ears - well, as my kindergarten teacher once said, we only get one pair.  And then there was this seven-step graduate who shared with me that saying about why God gave us two ears-

Where on earth am I going with this -

Ah, yes.  The reason I set about writing this post.  We get closer and closer.  And really, this piece is a case study in good dramatic writing, because it is a stream of consciousness, for the most part.  And by that I mean that you have kind of an "A" theme, and a "B" theme, and the construction of music, or writing, works best when we introduce the theme and kind of cycle through them.  It gives the audience a chance to process the other themes on a subconscious level, as, I am quite certain, you are doing now.  If you think you are not, it is only because - well, it is the power of my writing.

Where was I ... ah, yes.

But before I return, you may be wondering why I equate stream of consciousness with good dramatic writing.  At the moment, I cannot articulate it, so I shall leave that for the moment and try to wrap this up.

While I admit the potential for error, both to you and myself, I would posit to you that while I am guilty of many sins, that of patronizing a diabolical coffee chain today is not one of them.  I'm not saying Starbucks is or is not diabolical - again, that is not the point here.  Such we can argue about all day.  And I'm very certain Mr. Schultz would appreciate any excuse for his brand to be insinuated further on your mind, even diabolically.

Matthew 12:4, like many Biblical texts (again, no link, look it up yourself.  It takes no effort, and it's good for you) is used to justify - well, (Expletive) any Bible verse (where did that come from?) 

I'm breathing in and out.  I'm guessing that if I'm even thinking of expletives, it can't be from the Lord.  So let me take a breath here, and kind of reboot the train of thought, that it shan't crash.  (I use "shan't" in the proper grammatical sense.  I was told once that only men struggling with homosexuality use the phrase shan't.  But I promise you, I am living proof that if that was true before, it shan't be any longer.  Seriously.  They want the rainbow, and now they want good grammar.)

The Bible has been maligned by all sorts of "scholars" with the hermeneutic equivalent of cheap parlor tricks designed to appease homosexual audiences.  All rooted in media-induced fear, mind you.  But there I go, an educated, experienced journalist, coming off all conspiracy-theorist again.

I'm writing to you as someone highly skeptical of cheap grace, the re-interpretation of the Bible at the expense of the law.  And this is why, perhaps, I found this subject important enough to write this post about, when I really have many, many notes to jot onto the screen with my fountain pen.

Fact is, Biblical integrity matters to me tremendously.  It's a center, the kind a very unwise man once infamously said cannot hold.  And it's not an imaginary center.  It's like the Sun, in that it keeps us all kind of alive and moving consistently enough to be alive, but infinitely more permanent.  And the universe cries out that this center, this truth, this reality not only exists - but that if we fail to conform to it, surely it is to our own demise.

And this is why, under normal circumstances, it is unwise to work on Sunday.

It's so like us millennials to think that, as a silly pop song goes, "You are the only exception."  Or is it "Youth are the only exception?"  It doesn't matter, but either way, it's wrong.

See, in a universe of media messages in which the only theme so often seems to be chaos - in a culture that confesses no common truth, no understanding, except a belief that certain people are wrong - which, of course, means nothing because it doesn't inform us of what is right, but only what is wrong -

We're left grasping at straws of truth which only reflect the complete picture that generations before us have always taken for granted.  The truth is there, and accessible to all of us, if we would only listen to the way our souls resonate with the universe.  I know that sounds a little sketchy to you religious types, of which I kind of am one - but please stay with me.

See, it's so very difficult to listen to what is right, and here within all of us, even as I write this.  Even as I write this, I grapple to remain true to that sense of the good within myself, the Christ within all of us whom He's chosen to pick us up where we ourselves aren't able to.

I guess I'm trying to say that there's a lot of what media students call "noise" between ourselves and God.  There are so many messages out there, so many captivating songs, gesticulating idols, celebrities, serious-sounding wisdom appropriators, impersonators.  I remember being in the Buffalo Wild Wings on Hollywood, and being just surrounded by a million different oversized television screens, and feeling, as I mentioned to my actor friend, that - well, remember that scene in Zoolander in which Derek is being brainwashed in a "Daie Spa?"

Yeah.  It's like - we're so used to being surrounded by -

I was working at a radio complex in Steubenville you've never heard of, once upon a time, as a college student, doing an overnight shift, either producing or interning- I spent years there, so it does kind of blur together.

But I remembered being there, overnight, in that dark building.  And hearing all these voices, coming from different studios.  Just voices.  Some talking about sporting events, others ranting about political whatever, and then, of course, there was the country music jockeys.

But- gosh.  It was incredibly creepy, because even though I knew the police department was nearby, and so it was and is, perhaps, the only safe block in the former steeltown outside the college I was attending at the time - 

I just heard all these voices.  Voices.  Nobody there.  Just - a bunch of voices, talking over one another.  Being channeled through one of those old fashioned patchboards.  VU meters bouncing up and down, and a million different voices - a million different manners of programming - radio programming, really, people-programming - though I didn't perceive it as that at the time.

All I heard was voices, overlapping, talking over one another, vying for the attention of audiences in who-knows-where, and yet, when I would go into each studio - from whence each voice emanated-

It was empty.

Empty.

Now, when my actor friend treated me to a late supper at the Buffalo Wild Wings, filled with the marvelously easy-on-the-eyes sort that frequents that part of the country on Hollywood Blvd., (hello Zoolander, again)

I tried to tell him that - I tried to warn him that, though I couldn't place my finger on it, couldn't articulate it fully, that there was, that there is, something incredibly wrong with our mind's eye getting too accustomed to being surrounded by flashing screens, with a million different eye-catching graphics, and a million different synchronized voices, all talking at us at once, vying for what's left of our attention.

I've been guilty of being one of those voices.  And of course, it never seems that way, by design.  Part of the game of being a media personality is pretending that you aren't trying to - but back to topic --

The subconscious reason we listen to these voices - is not because - they offer us anything useful.  Football announcers, even the color (in the sports sense) guys, doesn't matter-

You see, what we're all really listening for is a voice to tell us how to behave in such a way that's best for us.  You ever see those shirts that read, "obey?"  I guess that's how desperate the millennial is for some kind of authority.

But, you see, it's not enough for us that we should just listen to any authority.  And yet, we're wired to submit to some authority or another.  Even the most powerful kings.

If that statement arouses your anger or suspicion in me, may I assure you that everybody submits to some authority.  The best entrepreneurs submit themselves to the needs of their audience.  In that sense, everybody has a boss of sorts.

In our personal lives, we are, ultimately, conformists.  The most honest psych professors, even, will admit that what we all want is to be normal, for the most part, and if we are special, for it to be in a good way.  In this way we submit to the will of our communities for the better.  And good men stand up to the pressure to conform to the evil ways that creep into a community when it happens.  Which is, perhaps, my end game here.  Because I will be darned if I even know at this point.  This feels like a tangent to me, too, in case you're wondering.  Thanks for staying with me.  I'm almost done.

Question for all of us today is not, primarily, as I was asking at the beginning for myself - is it okay for me to work on Sunday, although that is a very important question and one that I am particularly wont to treat with the greatest reverence, because it is important to God, and so it is highly important to me.

The question today is, even if the thing you happen to submit to is something deep within your soul, the very thing that has desired to follow this seemingly incoherent ramble for a seemingly insignificant moment in your life - 

To live on this earth means choosing one thing over another, and then doing so again, and again.  Much ado is made about the right to choose.  In every choice, we accept one thing and reject another.  We may choose broccoli or carrots, or both, but more broccoli means less carrots - or we may choose both and perhaps in doing so choose to reap intestinal havoc we might have otherwise spared ourselves of.

Point is, every day is a choice to submit to one authority while rejecting another.  That's why Jesus said we can't serve both money and God.  We have to choose one as our master.  Now, money, you fellow wise-cracking millennials, is not the only idol.  There are lots of millennials who are happy to enjoy life's simpler pleasures which are free of money.  And there is some virtue in that.  But - again, that does leave the question, if my underlying premise is correct - what, if not money, are you submitting yourself to?  Are you submitting yourself to endless leisure?  Are you submitting yourself to a job that you feel is a dead-end job, or maybe one that feels good while you're there, however you still have a sense within you, that somehow, there is more to life, a kind of lifestyle you desire, perhaps with more exercise, more time spent with friends or loved ones, even more opportunities to make more like-minded friends, or even unlike-minded friends or loved ones?  And somehow, you feel stuck.  You can't tell why, but you just feel this overwhelming frustration with being stuck.

Not fully potentializing.  Not all there when you are at work, working as a means to an end that you'll be darned if you know what it is.

Not all there, when you are at home, or with your friends.  And wondering - what's it all for?

And so you head to a bar, or, you turn on the television, or the computer, or Netflux.  (It's not worth mentioning the real name.)  And you watch.

You watch, and you know not why.  But you desire a certain something that work hasn't given you.

You tell yourself, oh, you just need to relax after a stressful day.  Or maybe it's Sunday, and you just want to do nothing.  It's relaxing.  Like smoking a joint (I wouldn't know, honestly, but I am a writer, so I can imagine.  legit.)  You don't know why, it just feels good.

Until it doesn't.  And you're up all night.  Or - you sleep, but you wake up having had that dream that seemed like it was trying to tell you something, some deep longing buried deep within you.  And you can't articulate it.  And furthermore, there's no time to.  Why?  Because it's Sunday, and for you, Sunday is just another day to get stuff done.

What are you submitting to today, for lack of a better thought on my part, and I do need to be wrapping this up?

Why are you doing what you're doing?  Who, or what is benefiting from your plans for the day?

You say you enjoy it, or don't, but in any event, that's your business.

And I'm here to suggest, in part that even the things that we think happen in the quiet of the night aren't merely our business.

Even the things that happen in the quiet of the night are not merely our business.

I had the fortune or misfortune of meeting one Alex, the daughter of Bob Horvitz, who won a pretty well-known prize in some circles.  (Either that, or it was merely a delusional girl who liked to go around telling men that her father was a Nobel Prize winner as a clever way of insinuating herself as some kind of grand prize.  But I suspect she was being quite honest and in touch with reality)  He - allegedly - won the prize in studying and revealing new things about the healthy way that cells in the human body are supposed to die, that the body may live.  I haven't verified it, so take it with a grain of salt.  You are the salt of the earth, so that shouldn't be a problem.

And you say to yourself, why on earth do the cells in our body need to die that we may be healthier?

You're smarter than the average reader, being on linkedin.  No, just kidding.  But you do know that, of course, I'm talking about cancer.  What's cancer?  It's a bunch of cells that get to thinking they're so amazing - they're so special - that, in a most unhealthy way, they ought to be duplicated more than normal, artificially.  Kind of like the electronic duplication and dissemination of all those voices out there, all those images of talking heads.

That's what cancer is.  Too much of a good thing, unchecked.

And this Nobel-winning dude, well, he happened to discover a new way of killing off these out-of-control cells so that the body might live.

I'm kind of scared myself at where this is going, but I'm going to write it anyway.

The human body, the human tribe, is not unlike the human body of the individual.  Just as the parts of the body are, according to the Gospel, according to my authority, all designed to serve a purpose, those of us called to serve God are all destined, as if by a kind of spiritual DNA, encoded within every cell of our bodies, and ultimately responsible for this very online publication -

Just had a thought.  Usually, cancer is caused by artificial forces in the world.  Asbestos, increased levels of radiation from microwaves, or too much X-ray exposure - all these "brilliant" inventions of men intended to serve great purposes - which, sometimes, have unintended side-effects.

The cancer takes a good thing, usually a good piece of DNA, designed by God naturally, and something interferes, something gets in the way of the cell's fulfilling its purpose.

The cell thinks it's growing, and indeed it is.  But it's growing in a most deformed way, which even the passive observer can ultimately see.  And yet, the cell thinks it's just doing what it was designed to do- but does so erroneously.  It's outsmarted even the body's normal defenses, the white blood cells.

But then, you have a good Doctor who intercedes.

When this girl, Alex, first told me her dad won a Nobel prize regarding the death of cells, I assumed at once he had won the prize for preventing cell death.  Isn't that the zeitgeist of our culture?  All death is bad, right?

Well, here's what my authority says.  And Jesus told us, as I now tell you, that you can trust it is true, because this is not my message, but that of One who is infinitely greater than I am.

Sometimes, for us to be of any good to anybody else - just like those cancer cells who think they're following their genetic DNA "hearts" but - actually, are only following the misguided "advice" of a radio signal (in the case of cells, perhaps, too much radiation -- in the case of one affected by broadcast television or radio, again, the effect of too much radiation - think about that a moment if need be).

Sometimes, for us to be any good to all the strangers in our lives who we wish weren't, be they family members, estranged friends, even those we haven't met yet and think we might possibly like to -

We have to die.  Not - the way you think, necessarily - if you're struggling with thoughts of suicide - the kind the papers never report, because, of course, they're partially responsible --

Let me be very clear.  Sometimes, the job of a good doctor, like my friend Alex's dad - is to help those otherwise deviant, life destroying weeds of cells - and by the way, which, it must be noted, their inflated sense of self should ultimately result in their own undoing - and this is not a birth control myth, if you're thinking that you're missing the point (we can address that another day)-

Sometimes the job of a good doctor is to help us die to ourselves in the way that brings life.

"Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it," is what my master, my good doctor says.

So - perhaps, the reason I set out to write this post is that even though, chances are, you never would have seen me working in this particular Starbucks, whose politics and mission are indeed evil, as they oppose that of the good doctor, the good master whose message I bear for you here and now -

Is that I feel that, though I believe my work to be necessary on this Sunday, I believe that in a world of churches with wayward pastors sold out to the myriad of voices that you struggle with, you know, on the television, on the computer, even here on LinkedIn,

I guess I simply felt I owed you an explanation, for what otherwise might have appeared, and perhaps still might appear, to be a contradiction in my creed.

It's not that I'm perfect or without contradiction.  Fewer things do I meditate on more than my process of what I hope to be increasing, rather than decreasing integrity, or congruence.

My soul informs me that if I lack integrity and do nothing to correct it, and you may feel free to challenge me, if you are of good faith and desire my well-being as I desire yours - then I am simply marking time here, not fully potentializing.  Not fully living up to all that God has created me to do.

And while we may never get there, I trust that writing this has brought me a little closer to that often seemingly-elusive, seemingly pointless goal.

And somehow, I feel strangely confident that it has brought you closer, as well, soldier.

Be blessed.

Yours,

P.V.
Peter Vadala