Counter-Cultural?

The other day I made a quick run to the store after work.  Having the night off, I wanted to endeavor a quick baking project and decided to pick up my items at the local Save-A-Lot. 

I was rounding aisle seven with my cart full of four items, (My mom always taught me to start with a cart as you just never knew. Thanks Mom!), when I encountered an Amish couple...in very traditional Amish garb and with distinctive haircuts, caps, features, etc.  I’ll admit I was a little surprised but smiled kindly and politely before embarking onto aisle eight. 

I thought little of my encounter in front of the cheese and breakfast sausage section until I went to check out (now with seven items total...just enough to make the cart worth it.  See! Mom, IS always right!).  Just in front of me at checkout was the Amish couple. I fear my face registered immediately perplexed and befuddled.  I don’t suppose I stopped to consider what you might purchase if you were Amish and shopping at a Save-A-Lot in downtown Hillsdale.  But I know I wasn’t expecting to see the cashier scanning through (easily) a dozen or more bags of potato chips, four cases of soda, and a few packages of Mrs. Freshley’s brand (like Little Debbie’s) packaged baked goods. 

I am not anywhere near kidding.

As I checked out and went to my car I found myself puzzled in a strange amusement.  In my mind the equivalent and sum total of a counter-cultural people is the Amish.  In a world of technology and fashion, sex, drugs, and rock and roll – the Amish have stayed amazingly close to what they believe to be truth.  And yet, getting in my car, all I could think was “well, you don’t get much more submersed in current culture than ho-hos, ding-dongs, potato chips, cheese puffs, and off brand Mt. Dew!”

And the whole scenario has had me thinking. 

Thinking about what it really means to be counter cultural. 

If you really want to look and be different than the world...what does it look like?  Sound like? Act like?  How will the world know?  Is it really so important at all?

Romans 12:2 has the oft quoted but, I feel, poorly executed (by myself most certainly included) instructions “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...”  To be in the world, but not of it.  Paul is pretty obvious about the fact your mind will need to be renewed.  To be counter-cultural is, after all, a whole new way of thinking. 

And Paul never implies being different from the world is going to be easy.  A verse before he “urges” his readers to offer themselves as living sacrifices, offerings of worship before God (Romans 12:1).  It will take the whole of who you are, yourself set completely aside, no longer shaped by the world around you – if ever the world is to be shaped.

Can I be counter-cultural?  Am I physically capable and spiritually willing to continually lay myself down...not so that I don’t look like the cultural around me, but so that I look more and more like the God I love?  Not just in word and claim (of course it is my desire!  But anyone can say that!), but honestly ready to live a life that is a whole new way of thinking...  Later in Philippians 4, Paul admonishes to think about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, and praiseworthy.  It’s a start... Or the start.  Where the things I choose to think about become my way of doing life...  

My mom used to have a small plaque on the wall that read: "Watch your thoughts, for they become words.  Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits.  Watch your habits, for they become character.  Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny." 

I would dare to take the word “destiny” at the end and change it to “legacy”.  It will become the legacy.  The legacy you leave, the mark you place...when you leave the world, leave that job, leave a class, leave a party, leave a room.  What will the world you worked and lived among remember about you when for one reason or another, you are no longer there?

Can I live a life where I become known for my peace?  My joy?  My forgiveness? My truth?  My kindness?  My purity? My reality? My love?  Will it look anything different from the world’s claims on each?

If I really want to look and be different than the world...what does it look like?  Sound like? Act like?  How will the world know?  Is it really so important at all?

“Live in such a way that the world will be glad you did.”  -- Max Lucado


"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out..." 

Romans 12:1-2a The Message