The book of exodus

So I got fired. Actually, it was about a week ago, and I considered writing about it. I actually even considered blogging about it fully in a new, separate blog chronicling my experience with unemployment, something I've been lucky enough to go about ten years without having to experience. I'm not sure I really understand the blog concept, though, even after having my own for some time. Really there's no real need that society has to know what goes on in the minutiae of my daily life, despite the fact that that's what technology has allowed us to experience in so many ways lately.

It's funny, although it's not so much a coincidence as an end result of my earlier rantings about Darwin that I ended up buying a copy of Marx & Engels' Communist Manifesto yesterday. (These are the names that one doesn't tend to bring up in church, but I do at times.) See, I was looking for a copy of Origin of Species but couldn't find one (to buy, they probably had one at the library to check out, but I was perusing the bargain books in the bin at the front of the library) and ended up settling for what was probably nearly as embarrassing a book as the other would be, at least were I to be seen reading it by a fellow evangelical fundamentalist. I'd always wanted to read Marx in his own words, so to speak.

I've gotten about halfway through it, and so far the only surprise has been the double-takes at how modern the concepts seem to be. This book was written 160 years ago, but you could pop into the text and make a minor change like substituting "Internet" for "telegraph" and it would read like it was written yesterday. The world hasn't changed so much from the time of Marx after all it seems, even with the rise and fall of Soviet-style Communism. Perhaps he's even still right, as I suspect he's on track in saying that the number-one product created by the bourgeoisie is their own gravediggers.

Getting back to my original point of being fired--which I was planning on writing about anyway long before the Manifesto crossed my path--I was actually quite happy with it, to my slight surprise. I think it may come down to my being in many ways a communist at heart. I'm not likely to be the sort of person to rise up and start a revolution to destroy those who create in me an unhappiness with my lot in life, so it's actually quite nice to have them simply toss me out.

The fact is that there are concepts that have come from Marx and the like that are surprisingly very Christian, albeit the Christian response to the situation is different in so many ways. So often I hear nonbelievers rail on and on about how awful it is that the Bible doesn't come right out and condemn slavery. There's an interesting thing about slavery that so many Christians accept as a fact of life that's not often stated, however. No, I'm not talking about the party line that I also often take that "Biblical slavery [is] very different from our modern understanding of the practice." What I'm talking about is that "slavery" and "employment" are just different words for something that is in many ways the same at its heart.

We are fortunate in this day and age in a way that looks different but is surprisingly similar to the ancient Israelite culture. Slavery in ancient Israel was a matter of personal choice: if you had no way to support yourself independently, you could choose to sell yourself into servitude to your neighbor. Really, this was like taking a job with a six-year contract, as you would be paid, and you would be released in the seventh year. In our society, we really aren't that different, besides the fact that we don't get six-year contracts. (Most of us get something more like a six-month contract, twice a year coming together with your master boss to decide whether you continue to be happy with the arrangement you have.) We get to choose who we're going to be slaves to, and our servitude is not spent bound in chains of iron, but in chains of dollars.

Sure, so few of us would actually willingly sit at our desks doing what we do day in and day out if there was not a paycheck tying us to our employer. There are exceptions, but it seems that 99% of us would drop what we're doing at a moment's notice for a chance at more money, and also we dream of the day when we'll be free of our wage slavery and get to RETIRE! Free at last, free at last!!!!

So anyway, I've escaped from slavery, and come to the promised land of freedom, but I know it's temporary, and I dream daily of finding a new master with larger, stronger chains to bind me to a new desk: it's the American way of life. Higher income doesn't make for more freedom, but less. How many opportunities do I have to potentially walk away from an $8/hour job flipping burgers, vs. say a $50k/year job sitting at a desk processing pointless paperwork? Believe me, I'd rather be flipping burgers or washing dishes; it's tangible and feels meaningful to feed people and protect people from food-borne pathogens than shuffle a pile of papers designed to tell some CEO that their pointless business could profit greatly from joining forces with our pointless business for more efficient pointlessness!

But we all end up this way, don't we? And the Christian belief is this: we're all slaves, some of us just have more obvious chains. The question is, all of us have a certain amount of control over who we choose to be our master. I assure you that while I have worked for many companies that do things I consider meaningful on different levels, and I always strive for a job that will make me feel that I'm making a difference in the world, the only way to consistently find meaning is to not let my job be master over me, not let the almighty dollar be my god and my chains of oppression.

Communists suggest the way to be free is to cast off the chains that bind you from the outside, and there's wisdom to that to some degree. For the Christian however, (and we are not the only idealists to feel this way--it's part of why I always say I admire Buddhism that they take this concept even farther) the solution is to cast off the chains from within. Whether I truly may be a slave with literal chains on my body or a symbolic slave with monetary chains lashing me to my desk in an office, in my heart, I know who I really serve as master. Yes, I look for financial prosperity, but I don't seek money for money's sake, nor even for my sake. Yes, even though I have a wife and kids, and financial responsibility to them that society and God smiles upon when I fulfill that responsibility, I don't even serve that master at heart. No, as a Christian, my master is, and must always be, Christ Himself. I choose freely to subjugate myself to the "easy yoke" of a Master who I believe will protect me and love me in a way that no other master will, or even possibly can.

As a Christian, that's the closest to complete freedom (a mythological concept) that one can ever get, and I am content in that alone.

San Diego Comic-Con 2006

So I'm back from a long weekend that included a trip to the San Diego Comic-Con. I was very pleased with my visit, not in a small part due to the fact that I wasn't expecting to see much there that I really was looking forward to. Granted, the SDCC is just so darn large that you certainly won't get bored, it's just that I didn't know of too many artists that I was looking for there that I hadn't already met.

Well, it turned out once I started browsing around that I found quite a few good ones. Rather than rank the artists in terms of who I was most excited to see and therefore possibly slight somebody, I'll just tell you who I did see that excited me, and share a bit of the excitement.

Shortly after arriving, I overheard a couple walking past me having a discussion about a book the woman had just bought. "His name is 'Shannon'?" the man asked, looking at the signature on the cover. I spun towards them.

"Is Shannon Wheeler here?!" I asked. They verified that that was exactly who they were speaking of, and pointed me towards a stall overbrimming with Too Much Coffee Man merchandise, and Wheeler himself, natch. I picked up a signed copy of TMCM #10 and came back later for a T-shirt.

I then headed off to see one of the only artists that I was interested in that I was certain would be there, Roberta Gregory. I used to read her stuff all the time years ago, but had mainly lost track of her. I was glad to see her on the list of artists, and to find that she's still doing work despite being not nearly as well-known as she ought to be. I bought a comic for a friend and got it signed, and then bought a copy of "Real Cat Toons", which, as the site promises, came with an original drawing on the back. (I don't know if she always draws something like that; it may be because I mentioned my cat having just died.) She was a lovely, friendly person to talk to, and had a lot of cool freebies, including a Jack Chick parody comic about Christian intolerance towards homosexuals. (I'm hoping to share that with a few friends of mine; I'm hoping you know who you are, are reading this, and will e-mail me to tell me whether you'd like me to e-mail, snail mail, whatever the thing to you, if indeed you'd like it. Gregory said she not only doesn't mind it being copied, but hopes it does get copied regularly.)

Then I wandered off to find a few webcomics people I like, including Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade and and Scott Kurtz of PvP. I brought a copy of the strip that I'd linked to some time ago, and told him that as a Christian, I'd really liked it. He chuckled and began not only to sign, but to make a sketch. (Read the comic first before continuing this story; if offended, skip to the next paragraph.) I leaned over to see what he was drawing and groaned, "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" His wife(?) exclaimed, "Oh, don't do that!" and he giggled gleefully and said, "But that's what it would be, wouldn't it?" I supposed so, but I told him I wouldn't frame it and put it up at the office.

Later, I ran into the creator of Bob the Angry Flower, Stephen Notley. The guy actually wears a flower costume, and seems to have a brain that's just as random and genius as his comic. Really a neat guy to meet, he seems like the sort of guy you'd have a blast just sitting and talking to for a couple hours.

Lastly, (I don't think I forgot anyone, that would be embarrassing), I managed to meet Jeff Keane, the current artist (and son of the original artist) of Family Circus, who was kind enough to knock out a quick sketch for me.

Perhaps at a later date, I'll post some photos I took, who knows?