Low on the Go!

who are you? (sing the title like the song by The Who)

so in light of this whole discussion on hippie yuppieness, i thought i'd provide a little character sketch of yours truly. this will, of course, be biased since introspection has never really worked all that well (au courant, Freud is yelling at me from the grave for that last remark).

in all honesty, if the world was my lover, i would probably either be a pot-smoking, G-8 summit protester trying to "be true to herself" OR an anorexic "yuppie" trying to be successful in school, or the plastic surgeon that ODs on black tar heroin because all the riches in the world wouldn't be good enough for me to get high. what is most likely, is that i would start out as the hippie and end up as the yuppie. i mean, the dichotomy is pretty evident from what i'm studying in university. Peace and Conflict Studies. its the "coolest" thing to study, but to get into the program you have to be the kind of keener who saves the whales while CONCURRENTLY getting a 4.0 in your spare time. somehow, when i was in high school i didn't manage to save any whales, but i was heavily involved with an organization entitled Free the Children. All this to say that in my past life, i freed some children and got honours with distinction in all my classes. i always assumed i'd be the hippie-yuppie. i went to an arts school for crying out loud. i'm sure some people i know must now live on a peace love and happiness commune. but i also grew up in a chinese household. i wouldn't JUST be able to be a hippie living on a commune. somewhere in there, you gotta throw in the financial ability to drink a starbucks three times a day and own a bmw (although to compensate for the hippie in me, i'd settle for a mini cooper. owned by BMW, but without the temptation for gangsters to key it).

since discovering the Best Treasure ever though, i don't really take stock in how i should be "defined" or "stereotyped" or "labelled". i am an alien and stranger on the earth, an ambassador of Christ, the aroma of Christ, a bondservant of Christ, called as a disciple, a fellow citizen of Christ, a disciple of Jesus. i could go on and on. to glorify Christ is the purpose and defining vision of my life.

however, while i am on this earth there ARE earthly things i DO find delightful and when my heart is in the right place these things direct my eyes up their ray to the Giver of gifts. so i enjoy these things. i don't consider myself a conoisseur of music, although i do enjoy listening to good cacophony (all kinds, although i must say that i hold a special place in my heart for many indie sounds). i don't consider myself an athlete to ANY degree, although i do enjoy rowing and ballet. i enjoy many "artsy-fartsy" things like making my own jewellry, sewing purses and crocheting. my favourite area in Toronto is probably kensington market because i take pleasure in the ethnic diversity, the independent spirit and the organic, vintage feel of the location. i love indie culture and find it vastly different and more "chill" than the high stress thats always buzzing around bay street, where i live. i try to eat organics and free run, because i believe that the Lord has entrusted us with the earth, so while i live here, i want to be a good steward of the things He has given. with mass production, unnecessary cruelty to animals takes place on an ongoing basis, and so while i do not champion the animal rights' cause, i spend the extra 50 cents to know that my eggs aren't coming from chickens who have to fight to breathe. not to mention that organics taste better. i am not, however, a vegetarian. firstly because i don't mind a good piece of chicken once in awhile, but more so because i esteem people higher than animals. Thus, if i should ever find myself in overseas missions, i don't want to have to perhaps insult my host by telling them that i only eat vegetables (although in certain cultures, being a vegetarian may be more of a positive thing..in which case, i would give up meat. but again because of a love for God and his people, not to champion a cause. props to those who DO champion the save the whales cause though.).

anyways, i digress.

all this to say that if delighting in these things classifies me as a hippie, then maybe according to the eyes of the world, i am as such.

at the same time, i do enjoy drinking a good grande americano from starbucks and i do own a laptop and i do live in a condo on bay street and i do attend what is arguably the most anal retentive school in Canada. i own a cell phone, and i can't imagine what it would be like to live without it. well, actually i CAN imagine it because i spent the past week without one..but thats an entirely different story. i do a lot of my grocery shopping at Dominion's even though its a snooty store, because its the only grocery store near to me. but lets be honest, even if there was a grocery store a 25 minute walk from my house, i would probably still go to Dominions because sometimes i'm lazy and i don't want to carry groceries a long distance. if delighting in technology, starbucks and shopping at Dominion's makes me a yuppie, then maybe according to the eyes of the world, i am a yuppie.

sometimes, i'm more of a chameleon than anything else. because i enjoy so many things, and often, vastly different things, i can choose what to emphasize at different times. if you look closely at yourself, you will probably find that you too are like this. i hold no reservations about being able to morph into a "different" person in different contexts because i think that in leading a missional lifestyle i want to comprehend the different cultures that surround me and i find it hard to embrace these cultures when i stand outside the window shouting "repent or die!". the closest one will get to a concrete view of my personality is probably from this blog, because in writing this i'm not too mindful of different cultures reading this...seeing as, out of the 50-80 hits i get a day (depending on the month), i probably only know who a handful of the blog stalkers are.
does this attempt to be cross-cultural and missional mean that i change who i am? no, for i will always remain a child of God and i pray that my eyes will always stay fixed on the Creator instead of serving the creature.
but while i live on this earth, i am glad that in some ways i am able to identify with the "hippie" and "yuppie" cultures (and a myriad of other "cultures"), so that i can explain the gospel to those who need to hear it in a way that is perhaps more relevant to them than a soapbox preacher (although i am sure there are many a story where God has used the soapbox man to call people into repentance).

and thats that.

addendum: i just wanted to say that in writing that i want to be "relevant" and missional to cultures around me, this does not give me the excuse to participate in sin and revel in the sinful, temporal delights of the world. in re-reading this, i realize that this is the way it may have come off. to sum up what i was saying in one sentence, i'll borrow something from mark driscoll. i want to be culturally liberal but theologically conservative.