Kinky Narrow Roads

It's been awhile since I've lived inside of hard-core Christian culture, and today I've been thinking about a metaphor the church used to described Christian culture versus secular culture. (I'm sure you're familiar with it.) It said that the Christian life is like traveling on a path that is straight and narrow, while the secular path is a highway, broad and filled with people. It's probably based on a thing Jesus said:

"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

Good ol' cryptic Jesus.

Anyway, I was thinking about how being away from Christian culture has allowed me to seek out/investigate/consider many more ways of doing life. There's no more need to keep a running ledger on who is living incorrectly, always fearing the possibility of leaving that single narrow path.

Secular culture feels very far from the broad crowded boulevard the church described. Maybe it's due to the popularity of the internet, but it feels like there is no more monolith of culture. There aren't just five bands and ten shows that people like, anymore. It's not the church versus Elvis. It's church versus genre (horror, comedy, romance, fantasy), versus a smorgasbord of sexualities and gender identities; there's so much now for the church to be against, such variety, that the end times are surely upon us.

I forget where I heard this, but somebody was saying that, in the future, artists and creators will be making things for their rabid fanbase of 15 people. That sounds awesome to me.

Secular culture is fractured into a million possibilities; all paths are narrow, but hardly straight. They twist and turn and are full of surprises. You never know who you might meet on them or who might turn out to be your people.

If there is a remaining monolith of culture it's - ironically - probably conservative/evangelical Christianity. It's hard to fit everybody on a single path unless you make it a highway.

Family Table

The Ralph's by my work has been undergoing some construction/ remodeling. I'll go there during lunch time to get some food and to work on my writing. There's a Starbucks inside and some tables to eat at. During the remodeling the table space was greatly diminished and they threw one of those big Starbuck-sy tables in there to make up for it.

I usually try to avoid sitting next to people when I'm out in public, but because there were so few places to sit, I'd share the big table with four or five people. There were always a bunch of strangers mushed together there.

On two separate occasions, another of the table's occupants said out of nowhere that this was like a family table. That we all shared.

I said nothing and didn't break eye contact with my laptop screen.

The table make-up tended to go like this: an elderly couple (always different and always very old), a talkative Ralph's employee, a dour-looking woman in her forties, and me.

"This is like a family."

When I went in to Ralph's, today, I noticed that they had finished their remodeling. They had taken out the family table and had, instead, a bunch of little tables for two. These were all filled with well-adjusted looking professional people chatting with friends they already knew.

I kind of miss the family table, Ralph's. We shared, you know?

Vocal Fry

Preach it, Tom.