We have to run towards God with all our might, and not look back. just run as hard and fast as you can with no thought to how ridiculous you might look because you weren’t in cross or track in high school and you don’t have a runner’s form and the mile in gym was the worst day of the year for you. let go of what the world thinks—actually let’s pause here for a minute. (like we’re still running but mentally we have paused to consider something else for a second).
cool literally deals with temperature—it’s not too hot, more on the cold side—pretty comfortable, generally speaking (as we are). i think that this quasi-definition applies to the word in popular culture. from my experience, if someone is deemed cool, it’s because they are the type of person that doesn’t get too worked up about anything in particular. they are also aptly described with the word “chill”. these people sit back and people-watch in their carefully selected outfits, though you’d never guess it, which they have designed to look like they’re not trying too hard while yet succeeding in looking put together in an unkempt sort of way. that’s a pretty specific instance of “cool” but i think a more concrete image will help us see that we are on the same page, or perhaps just in the same chapter.
either way.
to be cool is to be unaffected—which seems pretty okay. why let life get you too worked up? stress causes illness. there is nothing wrong with desiring a lasting peace. in fact, there is everything right with that desire. the danger in subscribing to the “culture of coolness” is in belittling those who do get worked up. those who have passion. if we belittle passion, and zealousness, and fire, we subscribe to apathy and aloofness and disillusionment. i sat in a lecture on our genes once, it was fascinating. the man speaking on the topic was obviously pretty pumped about genes and it made you want to listen. there was a student in the audience, eccentric and a little odd, nodding furiously to everything the professor said. i couldn’t help but notice—he made verbal affirmations every few seconds—and felt slightly embarrassed for him. i watched as a group of students behind him laughed as they shared snide remarks and scornful looks, as if he were a pathetic child fawning over a butterfly. this passionate individual ended up being one of two named in his class’s commencement address as one of the kindest, most beautiful people anyone had ever met.
we are all under the influence of the culture of cool—that embarrassment i felt was a symptom of the disease. and the joke of it all is that it tries to come off as if it doesn’t care about what the world thinks. (to steal a line from clueless: “As, IF.”) the “cool” people? they care more than probably anybody else. but not about something like the study of DNA or Jesus Christ or horseback riding. they care about what other people think about them. let me tell you, this is the last thing you want to be thinking about. i’m not saying here that you should go out and say “screw you world! screw political correctness! screw tact!” i’m saying that the opinion of men is never going to get you back to certain knowledge of the truth. you should definitely take into account how your actions affect your fellow men, but another person’s opinion of you should never be what you base your worth on.
easier said than done. subscribing to the culture of cool is the easy way out honestly. it is safe.
and there’s the problem, we are not called to play it safe.
we are called to be daring for Christ. we are called to be bold and courageous and self-sacrificing. We are to sacrifice the self. to put to death the self. what better way to do this than to forsake reputation, so carefully crafted for the sake of being “cool”. i will go so far to say that the desire to be cool is the direct opposite of the desire to be holy. oh dang did i just say that?
why yes i did. i believe it’s true—you don’t have to, but i think if we do a bit of soul-searching as a culture it might start to make more sense.
holiness is becoming more like the Father. we do this through the imitation of Christ. God the Father in the person of Jesus Christ put to death his self in the most literal way possible: he died. he died the ignominious death that was crucifixion, as if he were a common thief rather than the Son of the Most High God. he humbled himself, lower than angels for a little while, and fully took on the nature of his creatures while remaining God (an incredible mystery of which we hope one day to be granted an understanding). he was the opposite of apathetic, aloof, disillusioned. Jesus was zealous—he threw to the wind human opinion. The Son of Man was the friend of tax collectors and prostitutes—the scum of the earth in the eyes of the Pharisees and probably common people too. He chose manual laborers as his apostles—men without educations. he flipped over a table in a synagogue. what i’m trying to say is that Jesus was (and is) a plethora of things—gentle, loving, merciful, passionate, a leader—but he definitely wasn’t cool by today’s standards. and thank goodness for that.
the culture of cool wants to see the end of passion because the only people who can change the world are the ones with passion, and cool supports the status quo. it wants change but insofar as that means the degradation of society and the total corruption of any sort of morals. it wants to put to death holiness, just as it put to death the creator and savior of the world.
“be cool man” no, man. i don’t think so. i’m striving for holiness.
okay so i just ranted for a good deal on “cool”, a single word used pretty haphazardly in the world today. why?
because i wanted us (the metaphorical, all-inclusive “us”) to realize that letting go of what the world thinks means letting go of the desire to be cool. and if there is one thing i’ve learned from aristotle, it’s that you have simply got to define your terms.
so to continue: run fast and hard towards God without giving a thought to what the world thinks about it.
we often forget, daily really, that the end goal is not a specific human relationship or a beautiful house or a stellar career. it’s God. He is the only end goal. it’s tempting to look around while we’re running because maybe we’re bored, but it is then that we lose sight of the ultimate goal, sainthood.
