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The issue of profanity in the speech of a Christian has come up several times this week from various directions, and I figured that it was high time that I express my views on the subject. My aim is not to convince you that your views on swearing, whatever they may be, are wrong; my only aim here is to expose my thought process and how I arrived at my personal decisions, and then hopefully give you something to think about the next time you're confronted with the issue of "to cuss or not to cuss"...because I really think that Christians today are making too much of a big deal about this and losing focus upon the root issues that are so much more important.

If you'd like to read up on one of the articles that spawned this essay, check out a posting from Relevant Magazine about why you should watch your mouth. Make sure to read through a good portion of the comments just to see the back and forth that is generated by the commenters.

Once you've done that - or if you decided to skip it and read it later - follow the jump to the meat of my article.

It's been a long time coming, but I think that it is finally the hour to commit to print my reasons for being one of the five people on this planet that is not on Facebook. Seeing as Mondays are complete crap for television now that 24 and even Heroes are on hiatus, let me just sit back and fill you in on my thought process while Mr. John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival provide the background music. I scored a copy of "The Long Road Home - the Ultimate John Fogerty/Creedence Collection" from Amazon for $2.99 the other day, so I'm feeling mellow and groovin' right along to the solid sounds of the bayou.

But enough stalling. Without further ado, here's why (in no particular order) I do not have a Facebook account, nor will I unless forced to do so under penalty of death or as a requirement for a job paying a minimum of six figures.

• I'm a control freak. I maintain my own webserver in my apartment and I have chosen to do so because I can have total control over the software that runs my blog and what goes on that machine. That machine isn't shared by any other users, and if I decide that I want to add something to the server - like Google Analytics, for example - I can do so without having to check for permission or fiddle around with somebody else's poorly written "one size fits all" code. Of course this means more responsibility for maintenance and security on my part(as was evidenced by the downtime experienced when my server went kaput), but in the long run the maintenance has been fairly minimal. Plus, I'm a geek and so my inner geek respects the rest of me more because I run my own server and host my own blog.
• I'm not a shutterbug. I don't take a lot of pictures, nor do I mess around with tagging individuals in the pictures that I do take. I'm also not that concerned with what pictures I'm in that were taken by whom...the pictures are already out there and I'm not arrogant enough to think that I could ever make anyone remove anything that I didn't like. Hey, I did whatever I was doing in the picture when it was taken, so I can't really deny it anyway. Because I already have my own blog, the main reason I can see for facebook is to pass photos around and since I've already stated my indifference to photography, Flickr does just fine by me. AND my pictures are viewable by everybody, so you don't have to be part of some special club to see them.
• I have enough drama in my life. This one is more of a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but it is a factor I will not deny. I have enough trouble keeping up with the blogs I follow already, nevermind adding in a whole plethora of blogs/walls from every friend I've ever known to keep up with. While I'm narcissistic enough to think that people are interested in my up-to-the-minute status when I deign to post it (via Twitter or whatever IM program I'm using), I don't really have time to keep up with everyone else's status. I think we've all heard the horror stories of people accidentally forgetting to set a relationship status and being deluged minutes (yea, seconds) later with questions of, "Ooooh! Does this mean that you and Janey BROKE UP?" Even unemployed I've got too much drama going on in my life to worry about crap like that.
• There's a reason I didn't keep up with people from high school. Like a typical guy, I have a few really good friends, a pretty good smattering of friends, and a lot of acquaintances - and then there's everybody else. I've pretty much made an effort to contact the people I'm interested in contacting and keeping in contact with and I just don't really care about everyone else. It sounds ridiculously calloused, I'm sure, but I figure that if I was really interested in being friends with someone and they were important to me, I would have been in touch with them by now. Stages in life happen, and if I don't keep up with everyone from every one of them that I've gone through, well...I'm okay with that. Besides, there are some people out there that I don't want to make it easy to find me for, and so if they're going to make an effort they're going to have to use Google, for cryin' out loud.
• I'm not a cookie cutter person. Now before you go flipping out on me and get all offended, I have nothing against anyone who has a facebook page and spends copious amounts of time fiddling around with it. Plenty of people have (I'm sure) great facebook pages and I don't think any less of someone for using facebook rather than anything else. All I'm saying is that I want you to read the first point in this list, and then realize that I feel driven to express myself as much as possible, which means that I like solutions that can be completely customized if I so choose. As much customization as facebook may have in the templates, at some basic level there are certain restrictions that facebook imposes which have a common denominator for every page. MySpace has the same issue. Changing the fonts and background image does not a unique page make and I feel that I can't be as free with my ideas of what I want the BrainDrain to be if I limit myself to someone else's framework. Sure I'm using MovableType as an engine for the blog now, but if I really want to get in there and monkey with the perl modules, the CSS, flash widgets, whatever, I can totally do that if I put my mind to it. Have I? Barely. But I could, and that's more important to me.
• When Facebook gets superseded by The Next Big Thing (TM), I don't want to have one more piece of web detritus to manage or try to contain. Let's face it, facebook is currently the bee's knees for most people but that probably won't be the case forever. Something else is waiting in the wings to explode onto the scene and when it does, facebook will become the virtual graveyard that MySpace already has become and that Orkut and Friendster were years before that. Many people have abandoned MySpace profiles just sort of hanging out there that they never check and I, for one, don't want to have a trail of virtual corpses littering my path through the internet. The BrainDrain has been updated a few times, but for the most part it is a living thing that has evolved with me and will continue to be my oratorical platform of choice. Plus, I don't want to have my blogging history strewn across multiple sites; the BrainDrain was started in 2004 and is still going strong, and every post I've ever written can be searched and accessed. Users don't have to jump from site to site to see where I've been. If someone is really bored, they can start from the beginning and chart my personal growth through five years of blog posts. Can your social networking site deliver that at the moment?
• I want people to come to me, not just randomly be reminded of me as they glance down a "friends" list. This will be the most hubris that I exhibit in this post, but I want people to have to come search for me to see what I have to say. I (sometimes) put a lot of thought into my posts and generally want to express my ideas, and I labor under the notion that those who read my posts regularly are interested in what I have to say and that they find my words entertaining at the very least. I don't really want to be the "I'm bored, let's see what.....oh, hey, Drew....is up to" (although I'm sure that has happened for some of my readers more than a few times). I think I tend to enjoy the community engendered by some blogs with a small (but dedicated) readership rather than posts that are accessible to any Tom (is not my friend), Dick, and Harry to read. Sure my blog is out there available to anyone who wants to read it, but they kind of have to look for it first. Whether one of my posts gets linked to another offsite post via a TrackBack, or the person knows me and wants to find out more information, I want them to come looking for something specific and maybe find something else of interest once they arrive. Think of the 'Drain as a local mom & pop store that all the locals know and like to frequent versus the corporate one-stop-shop for generic items that is Wal-Mart. Like I said, hubris. But that's why I have this blog.

So there you have it. Those are probably the most prevalent reasons for my aversion to facebook. I debated whether or not to enable comments on this post, specifically because I don't really want to deal with all the facebook zealots trying to convert me or tell me why my perceptions of certain points are wrong or errant. I've heard it all before and unless you can prove to me that I will get a million dollars the moment I sign up for a FB account, your missives will go unheeded. In fact, if you get too lippy, you can be sure that your comments will just fade into the ether. There goes that control thing again...but that's why I have my own blog. On the 'Drain, the Drew giveth and the Drew taketh away.

I'll leave facebook to all those of you people who love it and have time for it while I repair to the top of Curmudgeon Crag and blithely post my thoughts for whoever will listen to the crazy old hermit who only comes into town a few times a month to yell at small children and haggle over the price of fruit at the market.

Street Customs is on the tube right now and the WCC guys are trying to get two cars done by Christmas Day and the runway is so short that they're having to work late into the night on Christmas Eve to get the cars done. Ryan (the owner) is all angry that things look like crap, and that they're all still there, and that he has to stick around and rally the troops, etc. He says, "you know, if they had worked this hard a couple of days ago, we wouldn't even be here right now", even though the order for those cars came in just a few days before. On another episode, one guy's wife was in premature labor and Ryan was angry that the guy was more concerned about his wife than the speaker box he was supposed to be working on. Seriously? Are you kidding me?

West Coast Customs isn't unique in this. I used to see it all the time on American Hot Rod, American Chopper, and Overhaulin', and this is kind of the norm in the corporate world. This kind of stuff happened at IBM all the time (although not always to me). But it just irks me to no end to see company managers and owners making ridiculous commitments to customers on delivery dates and actual deliverables and then getting angry when their people can't pull off their ridiculous commitments or getting indignant when the employees get angry that the bosses are forcing them to miss time with their families or rearrange their plans to make the company look good. How is this acceptable? Maybe a better question is why the workers put up with it? Makes me glad that I've got some time away from that crap. That's one of those things that I don't really want out of my next job - that and the relative contribution junk.

I can understand wanting the employees to care about the company and have as much pride in it as the owner does, but can the owner really honestly expect them to be willing to sacrifice their lives for it because that was the decision that he made (or is still making)? It just floors me. Is this what American working life has become?

Right before Christmas, the number of my a/v components exceeded the available inputs on the back of my television and so I took some time at lunch today to go pick up a component switch from Fry's to make things a little easier. I'm not expecting a whole lot from the switch, as it is a brand that I've never heard of before (anyone heard of Pelican?), but a friend of mine has one and is pretty happy with it, so I figured that I'd give it a try. We'll see.

Anyway, I was cycling through the stuff and making sure that it was all setup right with picture and sound, and when I got to the DVD player I decided to use Death Race to test it out because the opening scene has some nice 5.1 surround sound goodness with bullets flying everywhere, cars racing, and an explosion or two. I'll admit, maybe I had it a little loud because I really love this flick, but I don't think it was insanely loud. Plus, it was only 7:45 and I wasn't planning to watch the whole thing.

Sure enough, a few minutes after I started the DVD I hear the people upstairs banging on the floor, and when I didn't stop things right away I heard several bangs that clearly couldn't be just coincidence. The last time this happened was when I was playing Gears of War 2, which has some pretty intensive gunfire sequences and explosions and stuff. And I could understand if it was past 10pm or something and I was being obnoxious and making it difficult for people to sleep. But 7:45? The last time they banged like that was even earlier...like 5:30. I don't get it. I think that next time I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing until they come down here and talk to me as an adult rather than banging around like a silly child having a temper tantrum. I suppose I could go up there and find out if they really are intending to convey their irritation by banging, but I figure that maybe they can use the exercise that the banging motion provides for them when they do that.

I've had a lot of neighbors over the years, and while some of them have listened to music or movies loud enough for me to hear them and I've been annoyed, I haven't said anything unless it's interfering with my ability to sleep and I would expect them to do the same. Seriously, am I the one being irrational here? Am I always doomed to have to keep my volume low, even if I have people over or something?

As I noted in the previous entry, I've started reading Lord, Save Us From Your Followers by Dan Merchant, and let me just say that it's been highly convicting. An interview that he did with Tony Campolo really caught my eye, and it really speaks to several of the things brought up in our previous discussion of redistribution of wealth and who cares for the poor. I respect Tony Campolo a lot, and so it was interesting to read his responses to Dan's questions - not what I expected. Take a read of an excerpt from pages 35-36 when talking about why people might be confused by Christians:

TONY: ...And of course the most important thing is, they can't understand how the Christian community can support political administrations that are committed to giving tax breaks to rich people while poor people are getting the ground cut from under them. Seems to us that the Jesus of Scripture was very committed to the poor. I can see the point of view of those who say, "This is the responsibility of the church; it's not the responsibility of the state." I would differ with that. We have the right to call upon the nations. It's interesting to note that the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, which everybody likes to cite when dealing with the poor, "I was hungry, did you feed me? I was naked, did you clothe me? I was sick, did you care for me?" ends with these words: "And on that day I judge the nations." The nations! He doesn't say, "On that day I shall judge the church." Jesus says, "I'm gonna judge the nations." Check it out in Scripture.
DAN: There are many who agree the poor need to be tended to, but who should do it?
TONY: Yes, now my moderate friends would say, "We don't question that the Bible talks a great deal about the poor. We just don't think it's the task of the government to take care of the poor. They shouldn't be taking tax dollars and taking care of the poor. The care of the poor is something Christ called His people to do, therefore it's the responsibility of the church to care for the poor." And there's a lot to be said for that particular point of view; I think it's a very viable point of view. The question is, what do we do about things like health care? Can churches handle that, considering the cost of health care in America? What are we going to do about universal education for the poor? Can the church do that? Can the church come up with the assets to respond to the AIDS crisis in Africa, which will cost billions and billions of dollars? Can the church do that and still maintain its mission? So you can see how the argument goes.

In another portion of the interview, he goes on to say on pages 37-38:

There is no doubt that there is an awakening in the evangelical community, particularly that caring for the poor is a biblical obligation. You mentioned Rick Warren, and he would be a good example. He says now, "I went through seminary. I have doctorate degrees. I've been a Bible student for years. How could I have missed all of these passages of Scripture that talk about caring for the poor?" And, of course, he's getting his church people directly involved in meeting the needs of poor communities all over Africa and doing it brilliantly. But, once again, there are those who say, "We approve of that, that's a church living out Christ's commands for the poor. What we object to is taking tax dollars and doing it." I contend for both. I contend the needs of the world are such that the nations have an obligation as well as the church.

I think one of the things that came out of the previous discussion was an assumption that a large percentage of poor or needy people were just lazy and would rather take a handout than work hard to live. I submit that this is not the case, but I'd like to use some lyrics from an unlikely source, a decidedly un-Christian source: Kid Rock. I heard his song "Amen" today, and it seemed to underscore a non-evangelical point of view that went hand-in-hand with what I was reading about from Mr. Campolo. Checkit (the lyrics that I thought were salient are highlighted in red):

It's another night in hell
Another child won't live to tell
Can you imagine what it's like to starve to death

Amen

I found it really interesting to read those words from someone that I wouldn't have considered to have much of a social conscience. Then again, I've never really listened to what he had to say before - I've only heard.

So now I'm interested to listen to you. What do you think about Tony and Kid's statements from widely different venues and points of view? What does it bring up in your mind when you hear people say things like this? And before we engage in discussion about this, let's hear one final word from Tony from page 42:

Whenever you carry on discussion you always have to entertain the possibility, I could be wrong. In all discussions on all subjects, even on the Bible, I entertain that possibility. Except for one thing...Christ and the Crucifixion....Everything else is up for discussion, and I have to be humble enough to say, "Let me hear your point of view. Maybe you can teach me something. Maybe I hold some views that are wrong."

I've been entertaining that possibility a lot lately in my own internal dialogs. What thoughts come to your mind as you read through this post?

Allright, all you armchair theologians and back room biblical pundits - this one's for you.

"It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything that causes your brother to stumble." - Rom. 14:21

Ah, yes...that old chestnut. To put it quite succinctly (but hopefully not to simplify it too much), the point of this verse is to admonish more mature Christians to be sensitive to other Christ-followers and exercise their own convictions on spiritual freedom carefully. The example in the context of the verse above was that some more mature Christ-followers had decided that it was okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols based on their study of the scripture and their communication with God, but there were some Christ-followers who had not worked through that issue and it was causing them great consternation and confusion. Paul's admonition was that it would be better to just put aside that activity for the sake of someone else than to indulge in it and cause someone else to fall away from the faith or be hindered in their exercise thereof.

Now that I'm in a band with a bunch of Christian guys who have decided that our ministry is away from the church and out in bars and clubs, this issue is bound to come up. This has brought up a question in my mind as I've been thinking about this topic: when does the phrase "don't do anything to cause a brother to stumble" move from reminder of responsibility on the part of more mature believers to become a shield behind which less mature believers can hide in order to escape dealing with the consequences of their actions?

Hit the jump to explore this further with me...

This post is going to be somewhat of a stream of consciousness - a legitimate "brain drain", if you will - that I've been bouncing off of various and sundry people over the last couple of weeks. It's something that has sprung up in my thoughts as I've attempted to wrap my brain around the idea of solitude and God's unconditional love. As a church, we're getting set to talk about the 1-2 punch of relationships (not just husband/wife, but friend, platonic, romantic, etc.) and missional living, something that requires learning how to love unconditionally in order to be successful.

So, the thoughts that I've been having have basically centered on the contradictory nature of the following responses that I have observed in life: why is it that a man is considered a fool for loving a woman unconditionally (especially when that love is unrequited) and yet would be considered "spiritual" if he loves God in the same manner? On it's face, this probably doesn't sound like a difficult question, so let me add to it a little bit. Out of the same mouth comes admonition to "move on" if human love is not returned on the one hand, and exhortation to "love no matter what" on the other. How can we love God in a way that we can't love a human being?

I find it amusing that people who ride cafe bikes (or "crotch rockets") recklessly are always the same morons that wear the least safety equipment. If you're going to be a total jackass and weave in and out of traffic, ride people's tails, and squeeze between cars at highway speeds then you'd think that more protective gear is in order. I also find it somewhat telling that pretty much everyone I have ever met that rides a crotch rocket recklessly (as opposed to a touring bike or custom ride like you'd see on American Chopper or Biker Build-off) takes after their namesake by being, well, a complete crotch.

I've had my share of run-ins with these motorcycle morons, but one of these idiots rode up on me fast tonight and when I didn't get over in time for him, decided he was going to make my life miserable by matching my speed right in my blind spot. It strikes me as really, really stupid to sit in the blind spot of a vehicle that is about 3,000 pounds heavier than yours, especially when the only safety gear that you are wearing is a helmet, but whatever. He would weave in between my car and cars in the other lane, but would continue to match me in speed. I don't know if he was trying to keep me pinned in my lane or what, but I thought several times of either slamming on the brakes really hard and letting him fly past me or just make maneuvers to come on over and cut him off - if he was going to sit in my blind spot, let him pay the consequences for it. In the end, I rode the inside of the lane I was in, which forced him to go around the other side of a car in the middle lane and then I gassed it and got into that lane. He was looking at me for a while, as if to challenge me or something. I'm not sure what got his goat, but eventually he got bored and sped away. Buh-bye, douchebag.

And then I saw it, and the picture snapped clearly into focus: the back of his shirt read "Aggie Pride". That said it all.

One of the main reasons that I hate moving has to do with trying to remember all of the different organizations and publications that you need to inform of the new address. Invariably, I always miss like four of them. I usually miss a magazine or two and some bills here and there.

However, on this move, I've had quite a different problem. I've updated my address for several things multiple times and yet they still seem to be sending stuff to my old address. The most egregious violation was NutriSystem, who has sent my current order to my old place, even though they sent last month's order to this place (I changed my shipping address at the 11th hour). I can't remember how long packages get forwarded, but I was thinking it was something really short - like two weeks. If that's the case, than somebody at The Hills is just about to get a month's worth of my diet food. Lucky them. If that's the case, then I'll have to fark around with the NutriSystem people and either get them to ship me another order or credit my account for next month because I am not paying for food I didn't receive because their online system is jacked up.

Wells Fargo doesn't seem to be able to retain my new address either, and you can also add Smith-Barney, WIRED, and Relevant Magazine to that list as well. I've had to go change my address in those systems multiple times and still I receive forwards from those places because they're sending stuff to my old address. I don't know what I have to do to tell these people that I have moved.

*shakes head* Have I mentioned just how much I hate moving?

I've said it about a bajillion times before and I'll say it again: I think cell phones without hands-free enabled should be outlawed in cars while the car is in motion. I don't know how they'd do it, but there should be some sort of active jammer that is engaged once that car goes into any other gear besides park. If a cop sees someone with their hand up to their ear or doin' that stupid "phone gangsta lean", he should be able to pull them over and give them a hefty fine. The brain can switch from talking to driving much faster than one can drop the phone and put the hands back on the wheel if some event occurs which requires full-on attention to the road.

I know that most of you probably use the phone while you drive, but....don't. All I have to say is that I pity the fool that causes an accident with me while on a cell phone, because I guarantee you that they're going to lose that phone. If your call is that important that you must take it on the road and can't be bothered to think just a little ahead and use (at bare minimum) a hands-free device, then you shouldn't leave the house/gas station/donut shop until the call is done. We don't care about your call - all that we care about is that you handle the two tons of metal you're strapped into with awareness. Pay attention.

That's all I'm sayin'.