I have had a pretty crazy week. I'm really up and down with work, a crazy situation that I can't really post about for fear of loosing my job, and I'm (thank God) almost done with school for the semester. Only summer and fall, and I'll graduate! Yay!
I've covered so many major topics this week I don't even know where to start...
First, my new thought on the innate goodness of humans. In order for Adam and Eve to sin by eating the of the tree, they must have been incapable of sinning without it, and therefore, been inherently good. So, the only way people can sin is if they are tempted by Satan and when we get to heaven, we will be without sin, because he won't be there to tempt us. I'm sure tons of people would disagree with me on this, but it's a very hopeful and positive thought as far as I'm concerned. I kinda like it. Also, there are so many jokes about food in heaven. I don't really think food in heaven makes sense. I mean, I know there is a lot in the Bible about the banquet feast, but if we won't have these bodies in heaven, why would we need to eat? I mean, personally, it would be nice to never have to go to the bathroom again... sorry for being so frank but, seriously! And if we have spiritual bodies in heaven, and people fast to let their spirit focus on God, wouldn't we just let our spirit "feed" on God? That's all we'll need!
Ok, as for ethics, here's one:
Dagny (my best friend and roommate) and I went to lunch at a cafe in a church this week. We showed up at 11:20, since we like to eat early. The barista in the church told us lunch would not be served until 11:30 when she hung the lunch menu. Kinda weird for a small church cafe to have such rules, but that's cool, so we went next door to the bookstore and looked around for a bit. At about 11:35 we went back and she told us lunch still wasn't ready and that we would have to wait. I was starting to doubt the level of service at the church cafe, but she decided to go ask the cook if he could specially make our sandwiches "early". So, we ordered, she told us just a couple minutes, and we got our drinks and sat and talked for a bit. At 11:50 we got our two sandwiches, which I could have made at home... two slices of wheat, guacamole, turkey, pepper, and lettuce & tomato. So while waiting and on the way back, we discussed a basic in ethics.
"Here we are, at a cute cafe, in the mega church of ABQ, and had we gotten such weird/bad service like this anywhere else, we would have left, but since it's a church, we give them a little more grace, and go along with it, and we'll come back." We only had an hour, and ended up taking longer than an hour because we waited so long. Dagny had paid for my lunch, so she shows me the credit card slip and says: "It's weird, the slip has a tip line, and because she was so unhelpful and not willing to serve us, I didn't give her a tip. (Dagny always tips 20-30% btw) I wouldn't have expected the cafe to take tips, but once I saw they did, as a customer, I felt obligated to tip her. And now I feel guilty I didn't because I'm in a church." Such an interesting observation.
Had we been anywhere else, and she didn't tip, she would not have felt guilty. But, since we were in a church, she felt like she should have. And yet it was, surely, the worst service we had received in a long time. We took this thought a step further and analyzed the tipping system. For the typical american, tipping encourages the judgement of others. As a Christian, I'm told not to judge others. So, unless I decide, no matter what the service, always to give a certain %, I'm judging by reducing that amount. It's an interesting concept, because I do not typically ever lower the amount I tip, but if I ever do think I should, (not out of maliciousness, but in the hopes the person will become aware of their behavior and treat others differently) then I will feel like I am judging another. I have been a server before, and it's nice to make a lot at the end of the night, but even when I was "stiffed", I always thought it was them, just bad tippers or something... never my fault. It is socially accepted to sit at dinner and judge your level of service min of 10-15% and giving at 18-20% and max at whatever you want. More on this later...
1 comment:
I know what you mean about feeling like you need to always have something smart to write about. Thats why I don't post very often.
The innate goodness of people is one of those theological questions that I feel like we will never be able to answer because both sides of the debate have good arguments. To me it doesn't really matter if I was innately good. What matters is that I try my best to be good now. Like my buddy Sam always says, the rest is just dialogue.
Interesting thoughts on the tipping. It's weird how we can feel so guilty about something we do when we're in a church yet might not think twice about doing the same thing somewhere else. Of all things, I thought about this with music. One time I was thinking about the lyrics of a song we were singing at church and quit singing it because i didn't really know that I thought what I was singing was right. But then I realized that I sing a long with the radio or mp3's all the time and a lot of the crap that comes out of those speakers is just that... crap. So why do i feel so guilty at church? I think its because our society has this huge dichotomy going on between faith and life. Faith=church, and life=family and friends, work and school, and whatever else we fill our time with. I wish i didnt fail so much at giving my life over to my faith so that I can finally find out what that guy I profess to be my savior meant when he said "I am the way, the truth and the life."
Yikes! I really ranted there. sorry.
Good post!
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