How The Bachelor Illuminates the Falsehoods In Our Lives

by Emily Joy Allison 

I get a lot of scornful, “I can’t believe YOU watch THE BACHELOR” sort of comments from my friends when they find out about my obsession. Granted, if you know me even a little, it’s a bit surprising. On the surface, someone like me (feminist, relatively moral human being, incurable monogamist) watching a show like The Bachelor requires a level of cognitive dissonance few are capable of. But I promise it all makes sense if you dig a little deeper.

What appeals to me about The Bachelor franchise isn’t the drama, the hot men, the international travel, or the suspense of the rose ceremonies. It’s the completely accidental, unintentional running commentary the show provides on human nature in general, and specifically human relationships.

Hear me out.

We laugh at the people competing for love every Monday night at 8/7c because we intuitively recognize the motions they are going through as false. We see that, by and large, the emotions these men and women purport to be feeling are fabricated products of a completely unnatural situation involving isolation, groupthink, and lots of alcohol. “Nobody could fall in love in eight weeks while dating twenty-four other people!” we scoff. When the last rose is handed out, we see the dejection on the face of the unlucky bachelorette that didn’t get chosen; we wonder how she didn’t see it coming; we know Hunky McHotpants only let her go because she wasn’t as pretty as the other girls and that’s really all he cares about anyway. If we have even a vestige of a conscience, we feel a pang of empathy as we watch the jilted almost-lover riding away in a black limo, crying and talking about how stupid she feels for thinking this time things would be different.

But here’s the thing: each of us has been in the metaphorical black limo. We have all, at one time or another, felt stupid for thinking, this time, it would be different. We have all imagined ourselves in love with someone we didn’t really know, we have all let special circumstances and free booze replace hard work and critical thinking. There is a very thin line that separates each of us from the contestants on The Bachelor, and that line is social shame. Most of us wouldn’t be caught dead baring our souls on national television like that, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t thought those Exact. Same. Things.

Which leads to the question of whether or not those things, those feelings, are fake—as we assume them to be when we see them on television—or whether they’re integral parts of the human experience. Anyone can tell you that much of The Bachelor franchise is heavily manipulated, if not outright scripted. Read interviews with past contestants and they will tell you that the producers will purposely set up situations to cause drama and ask extremely pointed questions just to get the “money quotes” they need to make the series as successful as it is. It is both a science and an art. But it’s not all fake, as the (albeit few) very real and lasting marriages that have resulted from the show will testify. Sometimes it’s real, and sometimes it works.

Which could just as well be said about our relationships in real life.

Sometimes it’s real. And sometimes it works.

I wonder if some part of the scorn and derision people express towards The Bachelor comes from the fact that The Bachelor is, unintentionally but effectively, a mirror of human nature. It shows us what we are really like at our rawest, our most shameless. It shows us just how far we will go to find love (and just how far we will go to get laid).

And that is, well, kind of gross. It’s uncomfortable to see ourselves and our pain in the face of a drunk, white girl in a limousine with mascara smeared all over her cheeks, whose name is probably “Britney S.” and has an occupation like “dog lover” or “free spirit.” We’re more sophisticated than that, aren’t we?

Deep down, we know we aren’t. So it is easier not to look at it. It is easier to watch Breaking Bad and Orange is the New Black and Game of Thrones, more serious, sophisticated shows, and pretend that those somehow say more about human nature than a series as shallow and frivolous as The Bachelor.

In A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis writes of his deceased wife:

“Reality, looked at steadily, is unbearable. And how or why did such a reality blossom (or fester) here and there into the terrible phenomenon called consciousness? Why did it produce things like us who can see it and, seeing it, recoil in loathing? Who (stranger still) want to see it and take pains to find it out, even when no need compels them and even though the sight of it makes an incurable ulcer in their hearts? People like H. herself, who would have truth at any price.”

Perhaps that also applies to reality television. 

Emily Joy Allison is a poet and provider of fine burritos in Nashville, Tennessee. Her first album is called Dichotomized and can be found on her website emilyjoypoetry.com. You can follow her on Twitter @softlysoaring. 

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do here, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.
  
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Because I Know You: Friendship and Tom Cruise

by Charity Erickson

The other day, I went to see Edge of Tomorrow, the newest addition to Tom Cruise’s rather extensive sci-fi repertoire. I entered the theater not knowing much about the film, and to my amusement, I found it follows the same basic plot of Groundhog Day--with an alien invasion as the backdrop. (Google confirms that I am approximately the 416,000th person to make this observation.)

The similarities are uncanny: in Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s Phil Connors relives the same day over and over until he figures out how to love selflessly. In Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise’s William Cage is a military propagandist who finds himself able to reset the same day over and over as he attempts to defeat the time-manipulating collective consciousness of an alien horde that besets humanity. Also, there is a woman!

Each day that Cage resets--which he does by dying--he must find this woman, a soldier wunderkind named Rita, and together they try (and fail) each time to defeat their indomitable foe. Upon failing, Cage kills himself. And then, *respawn*. However, Cage is the only one able to remember and learn from all of their failed attempts to save the world; for Rita, each day she meets Cage is the first.

While the film is pretty meh in the inventiveness of its hero’s arc (even with the whole time travel thing, the film’s action unfolds in a staid and predictable fashion,) the relationship between Rita and Cage saves this piece of science fiction. Really good science fiction, in the end, is not simply speculation about other worlds, realities, futures and pasts; it uses that which is fictive and far away to talk about things that are close: love, war, fear, family. In the case of Edge of Tomorrow, amidst exploding aircraft and vicious aliens, we find a rather poignant statement on what makes a friendship.

Toward the end of the film, Rita expresses frustration with Cage that he is unwilling to sacrifice her life in order to complete their mission and end the war. In her reality, they’ve only just met; yet in Cage’s reality, they have spent the equivalent of years together. She asks him why he cares whether she lives or dies, and he answers, as though it should be self-evident: “Because I know you.” Not “Because I love you,” or “Because I need you,” but simply because he knows her. There is something terribly beautiful about the simplicity of his statement: all it takes to deeply care about another person is to take the time to know her.*

Through the vast majority of the film, the relationship between Rita and Cage reads as a completely platonic, even one-sided friendship, and I find this fascinating as it is not a topic often explored in “serious” film; it is a topic most often relegated to comedy and chick flicks. (The only opposite-gender friendships I can think of in popular media are found in sitcoms--Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy being the most touching example, obvs.) The “bromance” has made the topic of male friendship more common in film, but somewhat-problematically so. Not only does the term whiff of giggling, “no homo” douchebaggery, but it also demonstrates that we are still so ill at ease when speaking about deep friendship, we can’t even figure out a word to call it that doesn’t confusingly conflate it with eros.

That said, I am happy that films exploring the importance of friendship are being made. Anything that acknowledges and normalizes the role deep friendships play in our lives is a boon to the emotional life of our culture, a guide to better and healthier relationships. When we don’t take friendship seriously in art and media, when we leave it unacknowledged as a source both of joy and pain in life, we do a disservice to the richness to be found in meaningful relationships that are founded neither on kinship nor sexual attraction.

For just as we are interdependent with other people, we are interdependent with our media--we trust it to hold a mirror to humanity, and we inform it, just as it informs us. When media portrays the love among friends as trivial compared to, say, romantic love, that attitude leaches into our lived lives, and we find ourselves either confused by the powerful emotions of friendship or we deprive ourselves of those relationships from the start. Like Edge of Tomorrow, perhaps more films will think deeply about the sanctity of friendship and usher in a future where our definitions of love are bigger. Tom-Cruise-summer-blockbuster-sized, even. Amen.

*Spoiler/Caveat: the film hinted at romance at the VERY end, but I chose to ignore it. BECAUSE IT MADE NO SENSE. And apparently, no such romantic relationship exists in the graphic novel upon which the film is based--which must be why the intimation here seemed so out-of-place. 


Charity Erickson and her husband live and work together in the north woods of Minnesota. Check out her blog for more of her writing and follow her on Twitter @ecumystic.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.

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I Need You To Kill Me

by Justin McRoberts

Nothing curbs the appetite of my fierce personal preferences or consumerist instincts like falling in love with someone else. Doing so means entering the comic tragedy of living with, caring about, and wanting the best for someone who has their own set of appetites and preferences. In this spirit, I believe that life together, in committed community, provides the most viable antidote for the consumerism with which I am grown so fatally sick. That I will die is a foregone conclusion. But the character and nature of my death is exactly what the Christian story aims to redeem. There are better, more beautiful, truer deaths, the pursuit of which, in my estimation, determines the quality of life I lead.

I want to die well. I need you to kill me.

Dying to myself ends up being a far less individualistic discipline than I had imagined, as John’s oft quoted aphorism makes clear. “He must increase, but I must decrease” presupposes another person’s presence and role. I had generally thought of the practice of “dying to myself” as an endeavor of isolation, like Thomas Merton or Carlo Carretto, hidden away in a cave, high on a cliff-side, eating dust and stale bread until I’ve sufficiently starved my selfish desires away. But that’s not been my practical experience. The most powerful impetus for my self-denial has, instead, almost always been the desire to make room for those I’m given to as Family, those with whom I follow and worship Jesus. Often, I want blessed goodness for those I love more than I want it for myself. Seeking it for them has frequently meant putting my needs, tastes and preferences aside… and when I have been lucky, it was long enough to see just how small and petty they were.

And sometimes, that moment of clear vision grants me wisdom enough to leave those tastes and preferences at my periphery…. further from the core of my own identity… making more room in me for the blessed goodness I want for you. Help me displace them. I need you to kill me that I might live again.

Strangely, many of my best efforts to snuff-out my consumeristic impulses become simply more nuanced forms of consumerism. I strive for self improvement through the belief in self reliance - and I end up chasing after the latest, best, most moving version of my own faith. On the other hand, nothing has been as effective or (dare I use the word) authentic as dying to myself in order to make room for you.

My politics.
My theology. (and yes, I’m suggesting that personal preference plays a significant role in the development of my theology)
My sexuality.

…all become secondary aspects of my person.

You are more important than my politics.
You are more important than my theology.
You are more important than my sexuality.

“The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes,” writes Bonhoeffer “the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and His work become the one and only thing that is vital between us.” - Life Together

I need you to kill me that I might live again, in and for Christ, with and for you, and in loving, hospitable pursuit of those who have been unable to find a place for themselves in the Kingdom.

A few years ago, reflecting on this same principle and practice, I became keenly thankful for the central role the eucharist has played in church life. As part of a longer piece, I wrote this:

“I spend a good deal of my social energy trying to surround myself with a tribe of people more reflective of my tastes and preferences. Then, at the communion table, Jesus asks me to do something dramatically different: deny my expectations, my tastes and my preferences and receive into my life and family anyone God gives me to.”

And still, it is true. I want to live well. I need you to kill me.

Justin McRoberts is a singer, songwriter, blogger, pastor and teacher living in San Francisco He is also the mind behind the CMYK Project. You can follow him on Twitter @justinmcroberts and find more information about his other endeavors here.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.

Image Credits:
All photos by Lars Hammar 
  

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The Value In All Sorts Of Loves

by Emily Maynard
 
If you’ve walked into any store that sells things recently, you may have noticed that love is in the air. Actually, it’s on the shelves, the display tables, the aisles, the walls, and piled next to the checkout counter.

Ever since they slid the Christmas lights into the clearance bin the first week of January, we’ve been overrun with heart-shaped confetti and chocolates and sentimental statements screen-printed onto everything. In fact, today might be a bit of a relief, because it’s nearly over now. And it’s almost time for Shamrock Shakes, but I digress.

It’s fine with me if you’re not really into Valentine’s Day this year. I get that. Valentine’s Day is kitschy and overdone and maybe it makes you barf in your mouth a little when couples get super into it on social media.

It seems like torture, when it’s already the coldest and most miserable time of year, for all the privileged, partnered people to have a day set aside to gloat.

It’s like a giant stuffed bear holding a heart that says you’re a loser if you don’t have a certain type of love in your life, and it can be incredibly painful. Some of you probably have stories about romances that feel more like cruel April Fool’s Day jokes.

I’ve been there, too.

This year, though, I am told that everything is supposed to be different. I’ve captured that mythical unicorn of every Young Christian Woman’s heart: a real, live, authentic human boyfriend. All the commercials, and even some of the messages I’ve heard at church, tell me that I should throw myself into romance at the expense of all else. They say I should expect to be showered with diamonds, or at least confetti and chocolate, as a memorial of our love. One of my friends even made mention of it recently when we were trying to make plans to hang out, “Oh, well, next weekend is Valentine’s Day, so you’ll be busy, of course.”

Everything is expected to change now that I’m “in a relationship,” but the thing is, I’ve been in real, significant relationships with people for years before now. It’s called friendship.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’d spend Valentine’s Day with only one person this year, considering I’ve spent so many February-14ths romantically unattached. I’ve formed other habits, and I’m not giving up my independence or my affections for the people that matter in my life.

I missed the rule that years of friendship don’t count once you find a quality mouth-kissing partner. So, this year, like so many years before, I’ll be celebrating Cupid’s birthday with my friends.

My friends and I have relationships that have flourished for years, and that’s without the added incentive of smooching hormones. They’re the ones who loved me when I was wearing cargo overalls (1997), plucking my eyebrows into oblivion (2003), and hadn’t yet discovered dry shampoo or feminism, but definitely needed both (1999-2012). They have shared adventures, ideas, empathy, happiness, and hope through many heartaches. They are the people who have shaped me into who I am and showed me what faithfulness, equality, and love really look like every day. And they have my undying affection in return.

Our culture celebrates romance above all other expressions, but I think friendship actually deserves the biggest cozy-stuffed-animal-holding-a-heart pillow of them all.

If you’ll permit me to rearrange your social life, please, pull back the kitsch and the mushiness and commercialism, and go have an amazing Valentine’s Day with your friends. Not because you’re cynical about the state of romance in the world, but because you see the value in all sorts of loves.

Shower your friends with confetti and chocolates, not because friendship is second best and it’ll suffice until you meet The One, but because love is not limited to one particular type of relationship.

Find ways to celebrate the relationships that tough out years of commitment even without the added sexual chemistry. 

Emily Maynard is an outgoing introvert from Portland, Oregon. She is a big picture thinker and big question ask-er. She likes Twitter, vegetables, fashion, Harry Potter, mentoring college students, new information on anything, and declarative sentences. Emily does her thinking aloud at Emily Is Speaking Up and @emelina.  

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.
 
Image Credits:
Image #1 via J. Girard 
Image #2 via Sister72 
Image #3 via Lunchtimemama
  
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On Love

by Lane Severson

As a Christian, I find it very difficult to say anything about love that is both true to experience and true to my religious convictions. The Bible seems to indicate that God is love and that we are identified as part of God's people by being loving. The entire law boils down to loving God and loving our fellow man. At the same time we seem to only experience love in a glimpse here and there and even then, it seems to be enveloped by the rest of life – there, but indistinguishable from everything else. Or, on our worst days, it seems to have only been a cruel illusion that was never true at all.

The worst way to talk about love is when we reduce the word to the idea of “niceness.” Loving our neighbor then means that we are nice to people even when they are mean to us. The result of this is usually that we begrudgingly “take the high road” and subsequently feel self-righteous about it. No one actually says that this is what love is, but this is what often passes for “loving our neighbor.” In my experience, this kind of love makes me more of a dick and less like Jesus, and that makes me think it isn't love at all.

What does love look like? (If you just answered “Jesus” in your head, I'm going to smack you.) I have a couple stories that sound like love to me.

Once upon a time, a friend of mine broke up with his on-again-off-again girlfriend of what seemed like decades. Then, they both signed up for eHarmony and were matched with each other. And now they’re married with a couple of kids. I haven't seen them in years, so it’s entirely possible they now hate one another. But when I think of that story, I feel like love won. 

Or, I think of the woman in my Dad's church who got remarried to her first husband after 25 years of separation. That is the most romantic story I know.

I can also tell you stories about how I've hurt the people I love and how they have hurt me too. Obviously, I know the difference between doing something hurtful to a person that I love and doing something loving toward them. But I don't know what being loving looks like outside of a relationship that includes being hurt and forgiven.

A couple years ago, I found myself walking wounded, struggling with inner turmoil. A part of it had to do with a difficult encounter with my parents; they’d dropped the ball on some stuff in life that was deeply important to me. I finally brought it up to them, and they realized then that they’d not held onto that ball very tightly at all. They apologized; they asked if there was anything they could do to make it up. But emotional scars aren’t exactly the sort of thing that can be patched up with a gift card to Banana Republic. I answered honestly; I told them I didn’t think so. Now, they weren’t trying to hurt me. I just got hurt. They couldn’t fix that fact, and neither could I.

“What now?” my Dad asked.
“I think this is where grace happens.” I said.

One of the things I can tell you about grace is that it’s something totally beyond what we’re able to offer on our own, even to people we think we love. Grace is God being sufficient in our weakness. It is a divine help that is sent to us when we need it. Or, to be more accurate, it is sent when someone else needs it from us.

The moments in my life that seemed the most like love had almost nothing to do with me or with my ability to love. They all seem like the story above: the unlikely overcoming of things that were going wrong. I'm obviously not talking about the vapid idea of “falling in love,” which is just total bullshit. I'm talking about an idea of love that could somehow be a connection with the love that God is, a love that requires his presence because it requires us to be weak and him to be strong.

Loving our neighbor can't just mean “be nice, even when they don't deserve it.” As I mentioned above, this is a surefire recipe for becoming a huge d-bag. Loving our neighbor has to mean that we don’t hide our weakness anymore. It means that we can be vulnerable with people who are different, even repulsive, to us.

Love can only be this way, this deep and radical vulnerability, when it is grounded in a faith that God’s strength really is motivated by love and really will be present in our weakness. This means that exactly at the moment when we assume love hasn’t happened – when we have exposed our weakness and actually been a dick - that God’s grace can happen and we can finally experience what we believe to be true, that God is love.

Lane Severson blogs at On Pop Theology and Out of Ur. He likes charismatic liturgy and listening to Kanye West or Jay Z with his wife and five children. Lane can be found at about.me/lseverson or on Twitter @_lxnx.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.

Image credits:
Image #1 via Pink Sherbet Photography
Image #2, Love is just a game II by carunderwater-x
Image #3, Grace by davespertine 
  
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The World Needs More Unironic Glitter Glue (Or, I Can't Help Loving Christmas)

Image by Currier & Ives

by Lyndsey Graves 

I can’t help loving Christmas.

Sometimes I think it’s not very cool to love Christmas. Lots of people like to run around reminding everyone that it’s a pagan holiday (and therefore, somehow, utterly godless); some people have an understandable aversion to the commercialism of the season, which taints their enjoyment in the whole thing; and other people seem to relish cultivating a Scrooge-y, Grinch-y Scrinchiness, simply for the sake of being contrary. But I am one of those people who just believes in Christmas spirit.

I don’t know exactly why. I’m usually a pretty suspicious, critical person; I spent Thanksgiving weekend in equal parts watching football and analyzing misogyny in football TV commercials. But I am 100% bought into Christmas time, Christmas cookies, Christmas gifts, tinsel, lights, and praying for snow. 

This isn’t because I am immune to the frustrating parts of the season. I’m not as busy as some  - no parties to host, no kids in pageants, no church services to organize like my seminary pastor-friends. Further, I also happen to like my family and don’t mind driving long distances. Yet, December for me is and always will be fraught with finals frenzy, and as a student I always pick up extra work hours in order to afford a few gifts. I’m not just making paper snowflakes and singing Alvin and the Chipmunks all month.

Image by Susan Smith

So what do I mean by “Christmas spirit”? If there’s something beyond the shopping and rushing and Pinteresting, something warm and human and divine – what is that something supposed to be?

I certainly can’t say there’s anything objectively special about December 25th, unless it’s that, growing up in Georgia, praying for snow teaches you stubborn hope for things as distant and unlikely as the Advent of the Messiah. Maybe the dark of winter is, after all, a good time for an unlikely-bright celebration of such an unlooked-for king. And yes, that story itself has much to do with what I love about Christmas, but you’ll forgive me if I am a bit more enchanted by the donkeys and magic stars and cousins leaping in wombs than by the incarnation. I’m a theology student and “incarnation” is the only word any of us knows anymore. 

My Christmas just isn’t going to be hyper-seriously-spiritual this year; after term papers on theological concepts and obligations of all kinds, I’m gonna need down-to-earth sugar sprinkles and a Linus-reciting-Luke level of heady theological engagement.

Image by gravity_grave

Maybe “Christmas spirit” just means to me that I love seeing everyone try just a bit harder, approach the world with a little more openness and love. Just because we can – and, when we remember, because God is with us – we try to make a day more special for each other. We remember to surround ourselves with music and to feed each other real food. We let Christ’s birth into humanity call us back to our own humanity. If we’re lucky, we even get to take actual time off work to actually be with our families. 

The world needs more un-ironic glitter glue. As long as my Christmas still has those moments beyond the money-spending, pine-needle-sweeping, and Scotch tape emergencies, I’ll still believe in the magic of the whole thing.

Lyndsey lives in Boston, MA where she is pursuing her Master's in Theological Studies at Boston University. She enjoys Community, Mad Men and Beauty and the Beast and her spirit animal is a sloth. She would like to know if this is some kind of interactive theater art piece. You can follow her on Twitter @lyndseygraves and you can find more of her writing at her blog To Be Honest.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.
  
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A Power Ranking of Various Kinds of Powers

Image by John

by Ben Howard

Sports writers have to fill a lot of column inches every week and there's only so many original ideas that you can come up with before you just start making lists of things. This gives rise to a weekly tradition of “Power Rankings” wherein people rank things subjectively even when they've already been ranked by objective measurements. We here at On Pop Theology wanted to take our own shot at totally subjective list-making, so we present you with a Power Ranking of Various Kinds of Powers.

20) Hour of Power – We have a policy at On Pop Theology that the last spot on every list must be occupied by a televangelist just for the fun of reminding you that televangelism was totally a thing. We introduced this policy today because we can, and reserve the right to revoke it in any situation where we wouldn't get to mock televangelism.

19) Power Rankings – You're reading this list so you can understand how useless these things are.

18) Powerball

17) Nintendo Power – Press Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A Start to unlock commentary on this classically useless magazine.

Image by Lambdachialpha

16) Power Tower – I'm including this on the list solely to brag about how Cedar Point was close to where I grew up and how we went all the time when I was a kid. #EndBragging

15) Powerpuff Girls

14) Powers Boothe – Who do you call when you need an actor to growl menacing lines in a southern drawl? Well, probably a lot of people, but if they're all busy call Powers Boothe.

13) Austin Powers

12) Bear Power – Have you ever seen a bear? Have you ever contemplated their powers? Think about it.

11) J.D. Power and Associates – This rating is seriously buoyed by the mysterious nature of these “associates” teamed with my very active imagination.

10) Power Rangers

T-8) Executive Powers/Power of the Purse – These two are stronger in theory. The theory being that government is incredibly powerful, while the fact is that no one particularly cares or trusts any of the people involved. Hooray America!

7) PowerPoint – This isn't Huffington Post so this Power Ranking isn't a slide show. You're welcome.

Image by Patrik Theander

6) Electrical Power

5) Horsepower – Somewhere, in a vast underground bunker deep in the heart of Wyoming, there is a lab full of scientists in crisp white coats whose research consists entirely of measuring the pulling power of various combinations and numbers of horses for the benefit of the human race. Without their tireless efforts how could we know that my microwave has seven horsepower. Thank you scientists!

4) Superpowers

3) The Powers That Be – None of powers on the list so far have the ability to topple these purveyors of oppression and...umm...powerfulness? But there is hope...

2) Our Powers Combined – Yes, kids Captain Planet was right and one of the most powerful forces in the universe, even greater than Power Rangers and PowerPoint, is the might of all our powers combined. But what's the key ingredient of all our powers combined...

1) (That's) The Power of Love – Who knows even more about power than Captain Planet? That's right, Huey Lewis and his culpable sidekicks, The News. These servicable 80's rockers knew that our only chance against The Powers That Be was the potent combination of Our Powers Combined and The Power of Love. Because it don't take money, it don't take fame, don't take no credit cards to ride this train. Heart!

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.  

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.
  
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Einstein: A Tale of Cats and Eschatology

by JaneAnn Kenney

Now, I’m not one of those Left Behind sort of eschatology nuts, although not having read the books or watched any movies (are those movies out yet, Nic Cage?), I don’t suppose I can say for certain. I am pretty certain though. In any case, I’m not a Chicken Little or anything. What I can say about eschatology is that sometimes in the now we get glimpses of the not-yet. These glimpses fascinate me and fill me with hope, and often with tears. One such glimpse was given to me by a very old man and a cat.

Whether consciously or not, I have avoided writing about cats. I do not think I’m a crazy cat lady in the making, but I admit that my sister and I have a plan for our widowed days. This plan alternatively involves hiding neighborhood baseballs found in our yard in the dark recesses of our old house and forbidding their young owners into our yard, or else inviting the ball players onto the porch for freshly-baked cookies. The non-negotiable in either scenario is the cats. We both adore them—for entertainment value, for snuggle value (when they so decide), for not having to walk them or take them outside in a manner akin to the Postal Service’s sun, rain, or snow policy value.

I’ve avoided writing about them for what I think are now obvious reasons. It gets a little intense. Since I was born, there has not been a time when my family did not own at least one kitty, and most of the time we’ve had at least two around. Needless to say, we have all kinds of stories about the critters. However, I’ll only tell one, and then I’ll give you my pithy proverb, and then I’ll be through, at which point you can decide whether I am a crazy cat lady (but not before, please).

Our cat Einstein was the proverbial scaredy cat. Mom always said he was born near a big, mean dog under a porch, but now that I’m older and wiser, I suspect he was born inside a meth house (this was West Virginia, after all; Go ‘Eers!). In any case, he spent most of his life afraid. I think that my energetic nature was terrifying to him, being rather reminiscent of his chaotic kittenhood, which is why instead of being my kitty, he adopted my brother, Scott, as his human.

He became a big, beautiful cat, all dark stripes with white accents at his feet, the tip of his tail, and belly. Though never fat, he was a solid cat. Unlike fluffy cats who sometimes look quite heavy, Einstein looked deceptively light. He was built. As a result, it was ironic that everything terrified him. Any natural predators to be found would have to think twice about such a heavy beast, and—let’s be honest—we weren’t in the wild parts of West Virginia, i.e., no bear spottings for days on end.

Life was sometimes hard for Einstein. He didn’t much like other cats and got into the habit of spraying pee inside the house whenever new cats arrived, marking his territory. This made him an outdoor cat. Following a family move, he hid underneath our new clawfoot tub for three days. (We both miss that tub…) When his human went away to college, no one was willing to sit with him calmly for hours and deal with his slobber and claws.

Then my family made another move, this time to Indianapolis. For months my parents lived in a rental apartment and couldn’t keep any of the cats with them. So they got farmed out to family. Einstein went immediately to live with my grandparents in Columbus, Ohio.

Now my grandparents in Columbus are—unsurprisingly—also cat people. They used to have exclusively Siamese cats but became more equal-opportunity with the years. Einstein entered the house as the third cat and was meant to stay until my parents found a permanent house. When they found it, however, he did not leave promptly.

For the last years of his life, my grandfather suffered a lot and in many ways. He had emphysema from years of smoking. He had dementia, which eventually robbed him of his independence. He couldn’t remember how to drive home from his usual haunts around town, and he relived painful war memories he’d spent years avoiding. Once quick-witted, he would now repeat the same questions over and over, circling back to what had already been said. He even began watching football. And enjoying it. All those years in Buckeye country and he didn’t care about football till 2011.

You think I’m kidding. I am not kidding.

It progressed to the point that Grandpa would leave the house for doctor visits and not much else. It was at this time that Einstein came to be fostered in his house. My brother and I were nervous; the cat didn’t like new situations and definitely didn’t like new cats (the spraying bit again).

I think Einstein lived in Columbus for about a year and a half. In that time, he and my grandpa became inseparable. They were old men together. Grandpa would lie in bed watching TV or sleeping while Einstein lay beside him, being constantly and carefully petted, purring, and leaving only for the litter box or food.

My grandpa died last October. We had expected it for a long time, and he’d been predicting it for maybe my whole life. I held myself together pretty well for a little while, talking on the phone to my mom and my grandma. It wasn’t until I heard about Einstein that I lost my cool. It was my grandma who told me.

That cat lay by my grandpa’s side to his dying day. Einstein stayed by his side even after Grandpa had stopped breathing. He was the warm spot when Grandma found Grandpa in the morning. With Grandpa’s bed empty, Einstein wandered the house looking for his person. He cried. He was lost.

I’m not saying that we adopted Einstein eighteen years ago so that he could go comfort my grandfather in his twilight. I’m not even saying God orchestrated a move for my parents so that the cat would have to go live with my dying grandfather. What I am saying is that when my grandfather’s body and mind betrayed him, the cat gave him comfort, day in and day out. I know it’s not a lion and a lamb story, but for me the tale of Einstein and my grandfather is an echo from eternity, whispering about what will be.

Now I take care of Einstein. When he’s stinky, or he tracks cat litter through the house and leaves dirty paw prints all over from sneaking into my brother’s bathtub, I remember the happiness Einstein brought to my grandpa, and I go pet that old cat. I deal with the slobber and the claws, because he did a good thing for a man who needed him.

You can ask JaneAnn about: Nashville, theology, cats. Baseball. Glacial rivers. Her stance on the color purple, and then again the existence of the word "purple." General frivolity and terrible music (for the DANCING!!). Old Stephen King novels, time zones, and toll roads in Oklahoma. She will not, however, answer any questions about that thing living in her fridge. You can follow her on Twitter @JAKof3Ts.

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