There is no easier way to encourage me to ignore a particular cultural phenomenon then for every Christian I know to tell me that I absolutely have to engage it.

To list a few: "The Purpose Driven Life," "Saving Private Ryan," the Cornerstone Festival, Billy Graham's travelling roadshow, "Body for Life," Switchfoot, anything Bill Hybels wrote, "The Passion of the Christ," Icthus, "A New Kind of Christian," and "Wild at Heart."

This is not say that these are all bad creations...The Vineyard sent me to a compulsory viewing of "The Passion of the Christ" and I found it to be an extremely powerful and beautifully horrific adaptation of the story of Christ's death and resurrection. In fact, for all I know, these are all amazing pieces of work...I just hate it when every Christian I know decides that if Jesus were here and He had a gift certificate to Borders, this is fer sure what He'd spend it on.

I never said I wasn't a bit of a jerk.

Anyhow, I ended up taking a gamble on a couple of these. I ended up really liking Switchfoot (though I'm still not certain they are, as I was told, 'like Radiohead for Christians'...I'm pretty sure that Radiohead was Radiohead for Christians). I started to read "The Purpose Driven Life" to see what all the fuss was about, and put it down after 15 pages or so, because I was tired of Rick Warren telling me that my life could now begin to carry some real meaning because I had bought his book.

I am also just finishing "Wild At Heart," which was another compulsory Vineyard thing...and I am really glad that it was. "Wild at Heart," for all of its hype and overselling, has turned out to be a fantastic read. I plan to write a bit more about the book as soon as I finish it. I can't say for sure, but I think it may actually change the way I choose to live in some ways...we'll see...I'll keep you posted.

But may I share with you three books that changed my life? Strangely enough, all three are not only not Christian books...but they are distinctly counter-Christian...at least as I read them. But it was these three that gave me some incredible lessons in both the power and weakness of humanity, and gave me a perspective on my own place in the universe that pointed me toward a God who is manifested in an impossible triad of Sovereign, Benevolent and Unchanging.

1. The Fountainhead. Ayn Rand's seminal humanistic tome, this book both empowered me to know my own strength and forced me to reconcile it with my inability to account for it's genesis.

2. Siddhartha. German philospher Herman Hesse's fictional retelling of the life of the Buddha, this book was a two-hour read that continues to challenge everything my body and my mind tell me will offer me lasting fulfillment.

3. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. Restoration kingpin Samuel Johnson's profound tale of a young prince's search for meaning, this short book echoes many of the themes that I had read in Siddhartha four years earlier, but left me with a nagging sense of despondence at man's search for purpose and meaning apart from a divine power. (See: Ecclesiastes).

I don't know if these texts will do it for everybody...each person has his or her own art that will speak to him or her...but they did it for me. I hope you get time to give one, two or all of them a read, though...if nothing else, it will give you one more option when the Final Jepoardy category is, "Relatively Obscure English Literature."

And I'm sure I'll see "Saving Private Ryan" someday...I'm told I need to be sure not to eat beforehand.

Peace,
Justin

Men should be able to fix cars.

That's kinda what I always figured...men should be able to fix cars. They should also be able to use whatever a router is (the wood-cutting kind, not the cable-modem kind), be able to tell the difference between a Camaro and a Firebird from the back, know who drives #32 in NASCAR, and be able to spot a nickel prevent defense from the blimp-cam.

By these standards, I am not only not a man...I may actually be a woman. It took me a good 20 minutes to put new wiper blades on my Toyota yesterday, I wouldn't know a router if I were holding one, I'm fairly certain that I could tell a Camaro from a Hummer but that's as much as I'll claim, I can only assume #32 is driven by a mustachioed man named "Darryl" or "Cole," and...I think I made up the term "nickel prevent defense."

This is the part of the blog where I am supposed to stick my digital finger (seems redudant, doesn't it?) in the air and say "But no! These are outdated, archaic ideas of manhood! The modern man isn't constrained to these kinds of criteria to achieve manhood!"

...but I'm not so sure.

I've went to the "Fight for Freedom" weekend last weekend, which is based on the perversely popular "Wild At Heart" by John Eldredge. To summarize way too briefly: the idea is that men must reclaim their masculinity from a society that tells us that men are to be docile, soft and tractable. That we spend the rest of our lives fighting the desires that God built us with...the desire to know that, in the end, we are strong enough to come through when the time comes for us to fight.

Now, don't get me wrong here...I'm not convinced that watching NASCAR has something to do with being a real man. But I think there is an element of our culture that tells me that I need to be calm, pleasant and an all-around nice guy to everybody I come in contact with...and that the more carnal, visceral nature of manhood is something to be tamed and eventually extinguished. It's one of the reasons that Fight Club speaks so powerfully to me...the idea that we can meet God somewhere between burning, acidic breaths in the middle of a fight with another man. You don't have to be mad at him...you don't even have to know him...you just have to fight him, and let that be your entrance to the Cathedral. It's an intriguing idea for me...not because it's strange and violently subversive, but because I think that, deep down, I long to connect with the carnal Justin that lies somewhere between layers of 50/50 poly-cotton plaid.

What is a man? How do you know? I think you're supposed to learn from your father...what if you don't remember him telling you anything about it? I think he's teaching you regardless, either in his presence or in his absence. But the question for me becomes, what did I learn from that absence, and is it really truth?

Peace,
Justin

I have spent the last couple of months doing everything but writing on my blog, which I silently, but emphatically, chalked up to having nothing to say.

That's bullshit.

Verbal discretion has never been my strong suit, and I am foolish to think that all of a sudden I came down with a case of quiet humility. It's just not me. I think I had plenty to say over the last couple of months...the same half-formed opinions on topics I barely understand that comprise the bulk of my conversations. I like to opine more than I like most things, and that certainly didn't change. I think what happened is that I got depressed. For whatever reason, I got down. And when I get down, I start to lose inspiration to create much of anything.

The truth is, I think part of me started to believe that my thoughts weren't worth putting up on the blog...that they didn't meet whatever standards for public discourse govern the blog world. But that's just it...there are no standards. I've read many brilliant blogs (see: c-change.blogspot.com) and many very very stupid blogs (see: 1spframes.blogspot.com/). and many inbetween. And yet I held on to this idea that every sentence I post has to meet some standard for decent writing...that I have some plumb-line of inspiration to meet, and should I fall short, I will lose 10 charisma points, be sent a written reprimand by the "counsel to make sure everything Justin Masterson does is OK," and be kicked squarely in the small of my back.

This idea raises two questions for me...why do I think I'm so damn terrible...and why do I think I'm so damn important?

It's like I hold these expectations for myself...that I constantly have to live up to some kind of standard, or people will notice. Exactly which people do I think are watching? I don't know. I can't boast the kind of paranoid delusions that, say, John Nash can...but I still can't shake the feeling that everything has to be done perfectly, or somehow everybody will find out that I'm not all that great a dude.

If I can shake my own Justincentric perspective long enough, I can see the reality that most people are far too busy monitoring themselves to pay any attention to me. But I can't stay in that perspective for very long...I tend to drop back into this mindset that I'm not allowed to fail.

My parents weren't terribly perfectionistic, I don't think. Though my mom did like to vaccuum...but that may have just been because it drowned out the 80's hair-metal-glam-rock blaring from my older brother's room. My dad kept a comb with him most of the time...but I still don't think that qualifies as perfectionistic. We had wire hangers. We had clothes on the floor sometimes. We even had socks that didn't match.

So how does a guy end up thinking that if he doesn't do well at everything the world will fall apart?

I don't know. Do you have any guesses?

Either way, I'm glad to post again.

Peace,
Justin