What Would Jesus Shave With?

OK, I know that argument over what would Jesus drive has pretty much fizzled out. And good riddance! It tended to be divisive and distracting. But I think a good point was put out there that perhaps, just maybe, we are a nation of addicted consumers and this addiction is not really a good thing for us or the planet.

I was reminded of this when I opened up my jar of Maxwell House instant coffee (too lazy to brew on work days). The lid had this really nifty rubberized non-slip yellow band around it that felt real cool when you turned it with your bare hand. (I don’t always wear gloves in the kitchen). I don’t think it made it any easier to open but it was called the E Z Grip Lid. I got to wondering – did this help to sell coffee? And why? Have the number of coffee jar opening accidents been drastically reduced? I could visualize Maxwell House lids flying out of housewive’s hands, smashing into their husband’s foreheads, blood pouring onto the dinette. Good to the last drop, indeed.

I was outraged! How much does it cost Kraft foods to make this special lid? How much more does it cost the consumer? Is the production detrimental to the environment? Are the lids being made in Chinese sweatshops? I was ready to take this case up with Kraft themselves but then I found out… that….apparently…..it… is… helpful for folks with arthritis. Makes it easier for them to shut the jar tight and then reopen it. Keeps the coffee fresher. (sigh)

But I couldn’t let this energy, this momentum, this thirst for justice go to waste. I needed a cause and I needed a cause just like this; trivial enough to not require any real thought but a threat that was wide spread enough that I could rant about it on my blog. Let me see….let me see…..

Aha! It was right under my nose all along! Well, maybe not my nose, but the noses of millions of American men – Super Razors! Something called the Razor Wars has been raging for some time now between shaving titans Gillette and Schick. Outside the mundane K-Mart world of those who use disposable razors, unknown to those reactionaries who still use their grandfather’s safety razors and completely foreign to the German loving OCD types and their electric rotating knife shavers is a world of action, excitement, sexual tension and space age technology; the domain of the Non Disposable Razor, or NDR for those of us in the know.

I remember when the first double bladed NDR came out. “What can they be thinking of?!” I thought. Trying it out with trepidation I found that yes indeed, it did shave much closer. You see, the first blade lifts the hair follicle out while the second blade cuts much closer to the skin – in fact so close that it cut the beard below the skin! Zounds!

This was great until my neck and face became a war zone of festering in-grown hair pustules (you’re not eating are you? sorry). Besides that, the double blades had the added advantage of allowing me make dual shaving cuts on my face that were in perfectly parallel lines. Ouch! So I grew a beard. Now not all of you out there may have the testosterone necessary to do this – that’s right, you guys who still have full heads of hair. But for me, it wasn’t a problem.

So from the sidelines I watched the shaving armament companies gear up for a war of escalating razor speed and power. The handles became rubberized with contour ribbing for a more sure grip ( The reported cases of emergency room nose re-attachments dropped 70% in the first year alone!) Then a third blade was added for more speed and an even closer shave. It seemed that the limits of shaving performance had been met.

But then, after years of R&D and million of dollars invested Schick unveiled its outrageous answer to power shaving – the four bladed Quattro. Named after a four wheel drive German automobile in honor of the company’s founder, Audi Schick, the Quattro blew away the competition. Men that bought the Quattro claimed that it was so fast that they could make it to work at least 20 minutes earlier than men using inferior razors, and that was after a coffee and donut at Krispy Kreme. (Yes, sadly this market demographic does not frequent Starbucks). Now it was just a matter of time. Schick could sit back, catch up on the “Lost” episodes they missed while developing the Quattro and just wait for Gillette to fold.

But Gillette not only didn’t lie down and die peacefully they took a bold gamble, one so risky that it could either mean great rewards or…..a truly disposable razor company. Bringing in the best scientists that Germany had to offer (hey, I detect a pattern here!) and, using night vision goggles under the cover of darkness, the tech crews devised and produced the Mother of All Razors – The Fusion! With five blades, ( Five Blades?! This baby was shaving so close it was scraping the bone!) contoured rubberized pistol grips, an 8X10 Zeiss scope, 14 round turbo mag with AWD and chrome tip dual exhausts – this was a razor to be reckoned with. (Unfortunately, due to the need for an early pre-Christmas release it only came equipped with drum brakes and there is a company advisory against shaving too fast near the jugular. Vented discs should be installed on the ‘08 model.) An extremely expensive piece of machinery, Gillette is hoping to recoup some of their costs by opening it up to the foreign market. Interestingly both Saudi Arabia and Israel have put in advance orders for the Fusion while Gillette plans to send advisers overseas to help train the Arabs on the technicalities of high performance shaving.

My concern is this; are we serving the Kingdom by spending our hard earned money (well maybe not that hard earned, I have done a little blogging at work lately, I do need to stop that) on dangerous, expensive and resource exploiting performance razors? Why can’t we just shave with the old fashioned straight razor – it can be used over and over again and it has so many more uses than just shaving faces. If we are uncertain about this we should just ask ourselves: What Would Jesus Shave With? I think the answer is pretty clear.

 

 

 

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STUDY GROUP QUESTIONS:

How much speed can you get out of a NDR, anyway?

Should real men have smooth faces like girls?

How fast is too fast? Where are you going?

Why are bearded men sexier?

Does it really help you get girls? I mean really?

Sounds Like the Devil

In the “Screwtape Letters” by CS Lewis, the senior demon advises his apprentice, Wormwood, not to worry when his ‘patient’ begins to attend church services. Screwtape assures him that the patient will be so distracted by the terribly flawed members of the congregation that he will soon be missing the ‘enemy’s’ (that is, God’s) point, once again.

In the five years I have been going to church I would have to agree with Screwtape’s prognosis. We are so easily ensnared by the petty trivialities that crop up whenever our egos take center stage. But once we are aware of this trap, it can be avoided with just a little applied effort. Especially if the church is focused more on humility, worship and service, rather than on the instruction of others. Thankfully, these types of churches are becoming easier to find every day.

But Satan is a wily opponent and never tires of inventing new ways to distract us from God. Just as we expect today’s churches to take advantage of 21st century technology, it’s reasonable to expect the same of Old Scratch. Sitting in church today, I again was presented with evidence of his efforts.

Over the past five years or so I’ve had the privilege of visiting a variety of churches. Some have been conservative, others more liberal, some inward focused, others involved in outreach, some were full of tradition, with others more austere. I’ve enjoyed spirit filled charismatic services and been moved by thoughtful, quiet and contemplative ones. Whether I felt connected to these churches or left feeling chilly, all of them have been victims of what (I think) is the latest offensive campaign of the spiritual war.

Satan has figured out a way to demoniacally possess the audio visual systems! Almost without fail, every religious service I’ve attended has been plagued with a peppering of annoying pops, buzzes, hisses, clicks, feedback squeals, whines, hums and drop-outs. It doesn’t matter how big or small the church, how hip or how homely, how rich or how poor; their soundboards, speakers and projectors seem to be working against them.

Yesterday we attended a traditional wedding. The congregation sang the processional hymn, the pastor waiting patiently on the altar. On the second stanza he decided to join us in song, but apparently no one had checked the volume of his wireless mike. I quickly looked to the ceiling, his voice thundering from the eaves, so loud that it hurt. Stunned at first, I thought that God was paying us a special visit, but soon realized that if it were Him then He would’ve been in key.

A familiar occurrence at contemporary services; in the middle of an uplifting song suddenly the words on the screen don’t match what the lead guitarist is singing. We stumble and fall over the lyrics and each other as we scramble to present this awesome God with a song that will be at least mediocre enough to deserve a place on his hit list. I can almost see the great cosmic hook waiting in the wings.

Almost weekly my train of thought is jerked suddenly off track when, in mid-sermon, (often at a climactic teaching point) the preacher’s voice vanishes for a long three-count. Happily unaware, he carries on with his message, oblivious to those of us looking around for any clue to what he just said. “What?” I worry about those who may have been led off of the narrow path of righteousness because they never heard the entire message.

“Oh, I thought watching “Pimp My Ride” was a spiritual discipline.”

“What a waste of time. I couldn’t find God anywhere in Vegas!”

“OK, here’s my two cents. Just like that widow in the Bible.”

“Ouch! Sorry about that. Maybe we should try throwing Nerf balls instead of stones.”

Reminds me of the Sermon on the Mount scene from the “Life of Brian”, where some folks on the crowd’s far off fringe had difficulty hearing Jesus’ words. “What did he say? Blessed are the cheese makers!?”

Before you think that I am being unsympathetic, I was once an amateur sound tech, manning the console at the back of church. I was quite adept at hitting the ‘SUCK’ button myself. But in all seriousness, consistently poor (or inconsistently good) audio visual programs have become so commonplace that I think it has become accepted as the price of doing business. But we are about doing God’s business, right? Maybe if we can’t get it right we should consider some alternatives.

Megaphone, anyone?

Is it Sinful to Sleep in the Nude?

I guess it might be. Check these out, they’re for real. (I better start keeping an eye out for thunderstorms, there’s probably a lightening bolt with my name on it somewhere.)

(The only difference between the boy’s and girl’s pajamas seem to be the head coverings. Dangerously metrosexual!)

http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/