The thing that stuck out to me this year were the number of commercials whose hidden message told of what it means to be a man.

There was the FloTV commercial that called a man spineless for hanging out with his girlfriend instead of sitting at home watching football.  There was the Bud Light book club commercial that had a guy give up playing sports in order to drink beer and ruin his girlfriend’s book club.

The FloTV’s message of course is that manhood=watching football at the expense of relationships.  The Bud Light’s message is that manhood=being intellectually inferior and inactive while drinking beer.

But both of those were lighthearted compared to the Dodge Charger commercial (watch it below).  In it we see a series of defeated men naming all the things that their girlfriends or wives nag them to do.  All the nags added up say, “I will be selfless and care about you.  I am defeated because being a man means being selfish and only caring about myself.”  It ends by saying man’s last stand is to drive a powerful car.  We will not give up that last stronghold of selfishness.

Here is the deal.  I am not a man when I am selfish.  I’m a jerk when I’m selfish.

As a Christian I aspire to be the kind of man that scripture says makes me a real man.  That includes being a responsible father, a caring, self-giving husband, and a spiritual leader.   Good marriages are rooted in both husband and wife being self-giving.  They include choosing to not do certain things for the benefit of your spouse and your relationship and for the benefit of the family.

Do I always succeed at being that kind of man?  Absolutely not.  But the kind of man that FloTV, Dodge, and Bud Light offer to me are the opposite of what scripture offers me.  I want to be the kind of man that chooses to spend time with his wife over football.  I want to be the kind of man that reads books and talks about them.  I want to be kind of man that cleans up after I shave because it grosses my wife out when I don’t.  Those are all ways I can love my wife.  I want to love my wife.

Additionally, when you add the rest of the commercials from the Super Bowl together you also get a message about women.  It is this: When women think or require anything, they ruin men.  Women are only worth something when they are mindless bodies there for men to consume.

That is not the kind of woman that I want my daughter to be.  That is not the kind of woman God dreams for my daughter to be.  I know that it is impossible to shield her from the message of the Super Bowl.  So I pray that God’s presence in her life is more powerful than that of these commercials.  I pray that she will know that she is God’s beloved and that he dreams for her to be thoughtful, intelligent, strong, selfless and prayerful.  I pray that she not settle for a man who thinks that being selfish is what it means to be a man.

As a pastor I get to see lots of relationships.  What is unfortunate is that too many husbands and wives believe the underlying messages.  I’ve seen marriages fail because one or the other spouse believed that it was their right to be selfish at the expense of their family.  My family isn’t perfect, but we hope that God works in us so that we might believe Him when He talks about what it means to be a real man or real woman, a good husband and a good wife.  I hope He does the same in you.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanksgiving Day is traditionally seen as a harvest feast, and remembered as a peaceful time when colonists and Indians came together to ensure a successful harvest bounty. Yet many Native Americans also mourn this day, as the coming of the colonists meant an end not only to their way of life but also to life itself through disease and war. Europeans forcefully took their land and claimed it as their own, later creating a new nation of settlers.

So it is very interesting to me that these Hawaiian children would be participating in this particular way in Thanksgiving. I don’t think it would be odd to make handprint turkeys, or talk about being thankful. But I do think it is strange that the teachers chose to continue the Indian caricature, being indigenous themselves.

In addition, there are many political similarities. Hawaii is an occupied nation. In 1893 Queen Lili’uokalani was placed under house arrest by a group of American and European businessmen who were concerned that she was making changes in the country that would not benefit their businesses. They placed a Provincial Government in control and asked the United States to annex the country. President Grover Cleveland refused and said the Queen had been overthrown illegally. (In 1993, Bill Clinton even apologized for the illegal overthrown of the sovereign nation.) In 1896, a new presidential election brought McKinley into office and he signed papers annexing Hawaii. This was a government resolution, not a treaty of cession or conquest as required by international law. It was made a state in 1959.

I would think it would be painful to encourage Hawaiian kids to act out an American Indian tragedy; the history is so close to home. In addition, it encourages all of us to think about native people in the past tense. In fact, there is cultural continuity. Native people are alive today, not a culture only seen in museums. Museums have to deal with this issue as well; how to talk about American Indian cultures in the past but also represent that they are alive today. The Bishop Museum’s Hawaiian Hall just opened and really tackled this problem by providing contemporary quotes, art work, and video of Hawaiian people in the midst of objects made in the past.

Yet there is another layer of complexity: the desire to romanticize. In this case it is non-native AND native people who have this desire. Much of the historical Thanksgiving story we are told is a myth. Trying to recreate the past we tend to simplify and romanticize. Yet native people do this as well. At Seattle’s Burke Museum, the Pacific Rim exhibit was created in collaboration with people who were from various Pacific cultures and lived in Seattle. It was meant to showcase their lives. Yet many wished to show “traditional” aspects of their culture. For instance, the Korean area of the exhibit does not resemble modern Korean people in Seattle at all. In fact the Korean designers had relatives in Korea mail them stereotypical wedding garments and created a fictional setting for a wedding, complete with mannequins. They wanted to show the younger generations a beautiful part of their culture, even if it was wholly romanticized.

But no, I don’t hate Thanksgiving. I’m not totally down on dress up time. I love pumpkin pie. I love kid’s crafts. One of my professors in the Anthropology Department at MTSU told us once, “Anthropology ruins you for life.” This is apparently true. I can’t see cute kids running around a playground dressed up with feathers without thinking all of these things. But I do feel like it is good to be intentional. I just hope to find a balance of celebration and contemplation as we move through this Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe this will give you some food for thought and conversation as well.

It was an interesting venue for fireworks. As far as I understand it, fireworks are meant to symbolize “the bombs bursting in air” during the Revolutionary War that lit up the night to see that the flag was still flying. Being at Pearl Harbor in this particular spot took on that meaning with WWII coming to it, and so many lives lost in this particular spot. But from where we stood, and you can see from the photos, the American flag was flying high and ships were still there. We won. The fireworks mixed with the history of Pearl Harbor to create a particularly contemplative 4th of July.

We’ve voted.  There’s no turning back now.

What were the results?

My top candidate was Dennis Kucinich. As far as I can tell he isn’t even really a contender at this point, but he got the most green checks as far as the issues go.
Tied for second were John Edwards and Mike Huckabee. I guess that says it all right there. A democrat and a republican were tied just behind the number one choice .

I was talking with a group of guys last night about this strange outcome. Neither party and no candidate really covers all the issues that I care about. I guess I’m not alone in this predicament, but it is frustrating none the less.

Although it may not actually work out this way, I want my politics to be informed by my faith. But instead of that tying me to one party, as it seems to do with so many people in the media, it has the opposite effect on me. There are very good reasons not to vote for candidates from either party.

So do I vote for the person who has the most green checks next to the issues? Or do I decide that one issue is the most important and vote for whoever I like most there. That is what I did in the last presidential election. Now I don’t know that I made the right decision.

So who will I vote for in this primary? I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll just stay uninformed and obey the survey. Or I’ll go the American Idol route and vote for the worst. How are you making your decision?