I have always been a counter-culture kind of guy. If things are headed one way, I usually roll the other way. I have found it to be the way to go since I was a little guy. While all my friends were out partying in High School, I was studying for tests. When my friends were all vying for the coolest or most popular, I was just trying to be a nice guy. When my friends were all investing in the coolest cars, I was investing in college education. While at BYU, the trend of political correctness was just coming out and my wife's former roommate became the head of that movement as one of the editors at the student rag and later (now) she is directing the Sunstone conferences. I shudder at that little detail.... It was during those BYU years that I became more brash and un-PC - that really drove my abhorrence for conformance home. Jesus despised the conformists, as well. The mindless bots who ran the show in the day - so eager to conform that they could not see the obvious around them.
Today I went to the Nike outlet store to unload some gift cards and get some cheap, reliable shoes for the kids; that is the only reason I was there - and not to necessarily conform with some societally-mandated norm.... The experience was a mad rush with all of the Canadian shoppers down from Vancouver. People were obsessed and driven; as if on some kind of treadmill with no off switch - many had a blank, emotionless, almost surreal expression on their faces, as if they could not slake their unquenchable thirst that consumerism supposedly would relieve them of. I was just there to get some reliable, comfortable shoes at a decent price. I did not necessarily care whether they had a swoosh on the side or a pouncing predatory cat.
So it amazes me, the herd mentality I see around me. People driven by what they see on TV, what they are told is normal by their friends, people who are victims of what surrounds them; their acrid environment that provides no comfort and lasting relief to the spiritual questions of life. People who, one day, may just slowly come to a realization that all they have done in the course of their lives was utterly meaningless because the life they lived was not founded on their Rock.
If the world says 2.2 children, I say 6 or 8.
If the world says equal marital rights to all, I say "What has God said on the matter - as for me and mine, we will serve the Lord."
If the world says, "Eat, drink and be merry.". I say sober up and pay attention to the corruption around you.
If the world says, "Just this once won't hurt." I say, total committed obedience.
If the world says, "151 channels of anything you want." I say, get a book; better, the scriptures or commentary on them, and curl up on a couch.
Even in practical things, while the world was buying up 10 cylinder gas guzzling monster SUVs, I was buying up and fixing a practical diesel car that got 50mpg in anticipation of the fuel price hikes that would come from the pinch on the supply from all the large SUVs.
As the world becomes more wicked, you can choose the path you should follow, often simply by doing the opposite of what is being peddled out there as normal. So, as members of the Lord's Church on this earth, we should never seek to be popular with the world. We should seek to be good people, but quietly and secretly hated, loathed and eventually hunted and killed of them. When our religion becomes so quietly mutated that the persecution stops and it then becomes the beloved state religion - while the commandments of God are clearly being flaunted, we are in danger of hell-fire and in the grips of the adversary as the ancient church was almost 2,000 years ago.
AMEN AMEN AND AMEN
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