Hating My Roots: A Post About Identity

I woke up Monday morning with two interesting tweets staring at me.

First of all, let’s just ignore the fact that one of the first things I do after waking up is checking Twitter. I know I’m pathetic, I don’t need to discuss it here.

The first interesting tweet was somebody quoting Malcolm X. He said, “You can’t hate the roots of a tree, and not hate the tree.” In many regards, this is so very true. In so many other regards, it’s not at all. In saying something like that, Malcolm X spoke a great truth about identity, but a great lie about the nature of grace.

Everything about grace involves hating the roots and loving the tree. It involves hating the sinful, greedy nature of a person but still loving that person regardless. If we were even close to being honest with ourselves, we would have to note that we, as Christians, should hate our own roots more than we hate the roots of those we see around us. Then there can be as much tree loving as there needs to be.

Grace changes everything. It changes the way we view ourselves and others. Continue reading “Hating My Roots: A Post About Identity”

Craven On...., Real Talk

A Boring Second Birthday

It’s my blog’s second birthday, and at the end of this post there is something for you to download and read. But first, I have about 700 words to say:

If there is one thing I’ve learned in my very short and highly ineffective life, it’s that the lives we lead, or I guess really the world that we live in, is SO stupid. It’s absurd.

Think about it. Our primary method of communication are 140-character messages typed on out on tiny personal computers that we pay $50 a month just to use. This is normal, everyday life for us, and we LOVE it.

For the past two years of writing, I’ve always tried to embrace the absurdity of life on this blog. Sometimes it is the absurdity of building huge ships without even considering that it could sink. Other times it’s the absurdity of how every Saturday in the Fall, thousands of people put so much emotion and hope into the performance of 20-year-olds in a football game. Wherever you look, absurdity is around us.

This is normal for us these days. Things shouldn’t really surprise us anymore, because this is what we’ve become. Continue reading “A Boring Second Birthday”

Real Talk, Useless Observation

Infallible/Inspired

I believe the Bible to be special. I believe it to be infallible and inspired by the Author of All. Maybe you share this view.

It’s a bit of a strange concept to think about. After all, we’re talking about documents that were passed down for many generations before ever being written down, and even after that, they had to be translated into language that we understand. So there’s all kinds of crazy stuff that doesn’t necessarily make sense to us in the age we live in. There are a lot of cultural differences that make things really, really difficult for us to understand.

But that’s where our viewpoint of the Bible itself comes into play. Because if we just think of it as some other book, we can disregard all the things that don’t interest us. However, if we view it as being infallible and being inspired, than we have no choice but to look at the content as being something entirely different.

We have to acknowledge that the content is in there for a reason. Continue reading “Infallible/Inspired”

Misplaced Mississippian, Real Talk, Useless Observation

The Long Fall

“Is it safe?”

I often find myself longing for this two-week period of my life from back in 2009. It was right after graduating from college, and I spent my time driving around throughout the Southeast listening to a lot of CDs cause I didn’t own an iPod.

It was exactly what I needed just out of school: time away from everything. I was coming off a particularly rough 2008 and figured that since my problems at this point in time were dealing with a couple of girls I found attractive and finding a part time job to pay my cheap rent, life was going alright. The future was wide open for me, which was exhilarating but also terrifying.

It is that free feeling that I keep coming back to as the years go by. Not the fear or the wandering or the confusion about cute girls. It is the feeling of freedom.

Yet I can’t help but think that the more I long for that period of time, I do it for the wrong reasons. Continue reading “The Long Fall”

Real Talk, Useless Observation

Apologizing For Myself

Last week, a very rare thing happened to me: somebody complimented me.

I won’t bore you with a post about nice things somebody said to me. You deserve better than that. But what you should know is that they basically said I was an okay person. This isn’t notable, I know this. It only stood out to me because I know this person’s history, and I know how often they have written off other people. I knew their history of being hurt by other people, and their response of hating other people.

It made me wonder if they realized that I was no different. No different than them. No different than the people they hated. No different than the people they had been hurt by. Continue reading “Apologizing For Myself”

Real Talk

Paradox of Opinions

I can’t sing.

I mean, I’m not going to make people cover their ears and run out of the room screaming or anything. But I’m also not going to warm up the pipes and make ladies swoon. I’m capable enough to do what I need to do and comfortable enough to know it’s not exactly my spiritual gift.

But don’t you dare tell me that I can’t sing, because I will get livid, and I will get indignant. Continue reading “Paradox of Opinions”