judging the judgers: lessons i learned studying fundies and rednecks

lately, there's been controversy surrounding a wedding anne is supposed to be in. the controversy revolves around the attire that the bridal party are must wear. due to the flavor of christianity the officiating pastor subscribes to, the bridal party must wear dresses that go to the floor, are long sleeved, and cover the collar bones. there must be no dancing. and all the music must be pre-approved by said pastor. as expected, many of the people involved in this wedding are pissed. honestly, i think it's kind of funny. do i think this pastor is a legalistic, judgmental, ignorant person? yes. do i think that the flavor of christianity that he and his church follows has anything to do with jesus or anything jesus came to do? probably very little at best. does it drive me crazy that people buy into this stuff? yes. the charge i keep hearing thrown around is that they (the pastor's church) are just so concerned with appearance. they just care about what's on the surface. but in the midst of the idiocy, hilarity, the anger and mind-numbing frustration i have to ask: am i guilty of the same thing?

we went bowling yesterday. the bowling alley is an interesting place to do some people watching. well, it is but it isn't. at first it's fun gawking at the uber-mullets, nascar jackets, and bud light t-shirts, but after a while you get used to it because everyone just looks the same. as i'm there i almost start feeling bad for these people. there's more to life than deer-hunting, nascar, camouflage, country music and bowling. at the same time i start getting frustrated because i'm judging and stereotyping. i know it's wrong to assume everyone at this bowling alley lives this stereotypical redneck, white trash life; that they're all that shallow; and for that matter, that my way of life is superior to theirs. but isn't it though? i mean for gosh sakes, try some other kind of beer!!! you don't know what you're missing!! expand your horizons! the very fact that you think budweiser is a good beer shows that i'm superior! these are the thoughts that go through my mind. there must be some sort of objective way to judge cultural superiority. trying new foods, trying new wines, listening to new music, watching documentaries, reading books, watching cable news other than fox-- these things must show that i'm superior.

i really didn't know how to process all this. i kept thinking, "what am i missing?" Then these two guys came over to bowl in the lane beside ours. one had an incredible mullet; just stunning. it looked like the mullets professional wrestlers wore in the 80's. the other just had short hair with a baseball cap. they both had beer guts and t-shirts with sports teams on them. they were like all the others; just an average pair of working-class guys. but there was something about them, however, that was far superior to myself. they were kick-ass bowlers. in fact almost everyone there was. they had the perfect form and the wicked curves. they had their own balls, shoes and towels. and when they started bowling i started feeling pretty inferior. the guy with the short hair would line his toes up on the dots, run up, bring his arm back and around over his head, back down and release. the ball would start going straight for the gutter, but then, just as it was about to go in, make this dramatic curve and crash right into the strike pocket.

my theory for bowling is much simpler. i don't give a damn about form. i come at the alley from the right with my arm in line with the gutter throwing the ball on an angle toward the center. the only thing i care about is hitting the strike pocket. if i can throw the ball and get a strike then i don't care what it looks like. if it works, then that's what i'm doing. form is completely irrelevant.

anytime i go out to eat with my friend joe, he always asks our server, "in x amount of years you're 100, how do you know that you won in life?" last week in church a woman shared her story about how she came out of a life of drugs, alcoholism, stripping and total hopelessness and met christ in such a way it permanently changed her. today our pastor said that after one of the services where she shared her story a woman came forward to say that she had been contemplating suicide and that she was dealing with those same demons. whenever i hear something like this emotion swells up inside my chest because somehow, mysteriously, the God who is love and who from all things exist became incarnate. and in the midst of the most tragic circumstances and hopeless existences, this incarnation continues. in the end, culture is nothing more than a mask and behind that mask the fundies, the rednecks and myself are all just human beings that need love, grace, peace and hope. and i'm sure that that has much more to do with winning at life, because, after all, form is meaningless.