IVP - Strangely Dim

Dirt Cheap

by David A. Zimmerman

Last year I bought air, water and dirt in one weekend. Don’t judge me—I had my reasons. I might even have bought fire if I could have found a place to sell me some.

You know that your culture has tread onto supremely consumerist ground when you can purchase primal elements. I mean, really, try not to see dirt or water throughout the course of a day. And air is literally in the air we breathe. It’s also in the hardware store and the yellow pages; in some places it’s bottled per serving. But what does it say about me that I actually paid for the basic building blocks of life?

In my defense, I bought air because I had a flat tire, and the buckets of air freely available to me at any given moment aren’t quite pressurized enough to fill the tire—at least not in the time frame I was willing to invest.

Water and dirt are slightly less defensible. My wife and I buy bottled water because we don’t like the “taste” of the water out of the tap. The purchased water is allegedly bottled from sources uncorrupted by the evils of congested city life, which is funny, since it's overwhelmingly cityfolk who buy it.

That being said, I imagine I still have a sympathetic audience. Bottled water sells like hotcakes, and though my wife and I buy a lot of it, we surely don’t buy all of it. And anyone concerned about their tire pressure will forgive me for paying good money for air. But dirt?

Again, I’ll offer my meager defense. I had a gigantic hole in my backyard, the former site of an above-ground pool I had recently sold. As much as I hated the pool, once it was gone I had the hole to contend with.

A contractor had mounded a giant hill of dirt a mile from my house and offered it free to whoever would come take it, and I did try to take him up on the offer. But that dirt was compacted so tightly that I could hardly break the surface with my shovel. Not enough time at the gym, I suppose.

Again, I had no desire to set aside the time it would take to get what I needed from that pile, so after a quick cost-benefit analysis, I bought some beautiful loose dirt from a materials provider. They sell rocks too, by the way. In the end, I paid more for the dirt than I was paid for the pool. But I’m happy, and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

I’ve found since that I love to stand on the supremely consumerist ground in my backyard, sipping some cool, pure water and enjoying my dirt. I go cheap on the air though—I don’t need that kind of pressure.

So whoever said that money can’t buy everything should spend an afternoon in my backyard. With money I bought air, water, dirt and happiness. Still, I’ll probably be happy only so long with that bare patch of dirt in my yard. Eventually we’ll do some landscaping, once we’ve saved up enough money to buy some rocks.

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How I Shall Seize Control of My Company

By David A. Zimmerman

Call me Absalom—that’s the name of the role model for my upward mobility.

Wait—I’ll save you some needless Googling. Absalom is a prince of ancient Israel, a son of King David who temporarily usurped his father’s throne. You can read about him in 2 Samuel, which you can find at www.biblegateway.com.

Anyway, Absalom successfully unseated the most popular king of Israel’s then two-king history, which makes him a highly practical model for my own naked ambition.

Now, banking on the likelihood that nobody who might challenge my meteoric rise to the top actually reads Strangely Dim, I’ll share my strategy with you so you can pray for me and even apply it to your own relentless pursuit of power. Absalom made his play in three simple acts.

1. Absalom acted nicer than everyone above him; therefore I shall act nicer than everyone above me. Absalom and his father each won the hearts of the people at different times. David did it by being just a little bit crazy; Absalom did it by being a “man of the people.”

This will be a bit difficult for me, since I actually am a little bit crazy, and the people above me are actually very nice. (Wink, wink—just in case they do read this.) Nevertheless, one of the cool things about being out of power is that the people in power have to make all the difficult decisions and (this is important) announce those decisions. I can simply commiserate with those affected by the decisions and “let them know I’m there for them.” This was Jerry Seinfeld’s strategy as he courted a woman in a troubled relationship; eventually he moved from “being there for her” to “being there.” Brilliant.

2. Absalom acted smarter than everyone above him; therefore I shall act smarter than everyone above me. Absalom had opinions about everything, and his opinions usually made his audience feel better about themselves. Since I don’t have to make the decisions for my company, I’m free to critique the decision-makers from the sidelines. This, by the way, is also my principal strategy for taking over my church.

3. Absalom recruited his father’s staff and even slept with his father’s harem. I’m reasonably confident that the powers that be in my company don’t have harems, but there are plenty of other ways I can contribute toward a polarized work environment. Ask anyone. Once I take over, people will quickly shift their loyalties to me—if, that is, they know what’s good for them.

That’s it: three easy steps to a coup d’etat. Absalom pulled it off and enjoyed supreme power for a couple of weeks, until he was, of course, executed.

Like I said, pray for me.

***

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Philosophers Walk the Earth

By David A. Zimmerman

I’m starting to think that I could make anyone a philosopher. Basically, all they have to do is to relentlessly redefine every word they use every time they use it. Unfortunately, everyone would then hate them, because they will have made previously intelligible words unintelligible.

The consequences of these unspoken rules of philosophy are staggering. Consider the book Philosophy in a Time of Terror, in which, according to Christianity Today, Jacques Derrida takes two entire pages to answer the question “September 11 . . . gave us the impression of being a major event. . . . Do you agree?”

It has to be done, though: if philosophers speak plainly, all the philosophers around them will redefine what they say on their behalf, and rip them apart for having spoken so carelessly. You see this played out most aggressively in politics. A journalist demands a statement from a politician, who speaks as thoughtfully and quickly as possible without falling into the obvious traps of “So you’re saying . . .” and “But four years ago you said . . .” Elections have hung on the words of such a conversation.

No wonder politicians dislike journalists. Taking communication seriously is a great thing, but taking someone else’s communication seriously is seriously impolite. No one likes to be edited, and societies ancient, medieval, modern and postmodern have sought to suppress the editorial spirit. God help us.

And yet Jesus spoke with great conviction about the importance of personal precision: “Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Anything else is from the devil” (Matthew 5:37). Yikes! How much devil talk have I engaged in simply by typing the last 265 words? And how can I hope to communicate when I live in dread of speaking without thinking?

I’ll admit it: I don’t give thought to every word I say. Overcoming a habit of rambling comes through (1) speaking slower, giving ourselves time to think about what we’re saying, or (2) speaking less, giving ourselves less freedom to weigh in on every subject. The book of Proverbs makes a strong case for holding our tongues: “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech” (Proverbs 10:19).

Yet even in our most heartfelt attempts to discipline our speech we have a limited view of the significance in what we say. Friends willing to risk a friendship in order to help us think more clearly and communicate more responsibly are true friends indeed. They look after us, not merely the pleasantries of a superficial acquaintance. We are, after all, called to “live in the truth,” and we can’t fulfill that calling alone. Our editors are our friends.

We are all subject to the same limited ability to speak with consistency and the same insufficient grasp of all the matters that demand our attention. Once we allow each other to fumble our way into the truth, giving grace for misstatements and fuzzy thinking, we can all safely apologize for wrong comments and commit ourselves once more to making yes mean simply yes, no simply no.

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Haiku: No Sweat

By David A. Zimmerman

Legend has it that Elvis Presley earned a black belt in karate in an unprecedented twelve days. That’s eleven days, twenty-three hours and thirty minutes more training in karate than I’ve had in haiku. Enjoy.

***

I have a fireplace.
I used it two years ago,
But I’m cold right now.

Whoa.

Tammy Faye Messner:
Reality TV star
And sister in Christ.

[No response.]

Breakfast: what to eat?
A bowl of cereal or
Some nice, hot oatmeal?

Mmmmm . . . Oatmeal . . .

On my book table:
The Purpose-Driven Life; How
To Be a Villain.

[Snap-snap, snap-snap.]

I’m very busy.
Why am I writing haiku?
And yet I still write.

[The sound of a hand stroking a goatee.]

This is the coolest.
I want a haiku Bible.
I’m sure one’s coming.

***

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