Its a strange new world

In my video below, if your computer allows you to play it, is a video of Matishayhu. He is a reggae artist, and also a Hassidic Jew. Would you even believed something could be a commercial success like this 10 years ago? I would not have believed it. But this strange combination of Carribean rhythyms and strict Jewish lifestyle collide to make a pretty interesting sound.

This weekend I was talking with a parent. He was picking up his daughter from our youth group, which she attends regularly. He was sharing how he appreciated all we do for his daughter, and also that he is not very religious. I nodded and smiled. I was about to say something and he went on to say, "Well....as a matter of fact, my wife and I are Wiccan." He smiled. I smiled. I said something about howI appreciated him trusting us enough to let us have his daughter in our youth group. He left. Then I looked to the parent whose children have been driving the daughter to youth group. He was also smiling. But he is Buddhist. As a matter of fact, before he married his formerly Catholic wife, he was studying to be a Buddhist monk. And I thought to myself, "Isn't this interesting, a Wiccan and a Buddhist bringing their kids to a Christian youth group, and a Baptist one at that! How in the heck did that happen?"

Then I watched this show on VH1 called In Race We Lust, which was all about interacial dating. And that multiracial children are becoming more of the norm. And I thought, how common would it be to have a whole TV show discussing and celebrating this 50 years ago. Not really that common would be my guess.

In our society, clear categories and labels are going to be harder and harder to come by. And juxtapositions like Hassidic Reggae and Wiccan/Baptist are going to be more and more common. And, I believe, even celebrated. Is that a good thing. Not always. Is that a bad thing. Not always. But more and more we are not going to be able to retreat into our enclosed communities, or assume everyone is like us, or even assume people are going to have the same logic about things that we have been accustomed to in the past. We are going to have to work with the drawbacks of these truths about our culture, and celebrate the fun and good things about them, or just become more and more disconnected from a world we are called to care for and love.

Something to think about....