Unemployed Theologian

There are a thousand different ways to hear God speak. So overflowing with His common grace is the created world that you really must close your eyes and ears tight to totally prevent intrusion of the Divine Beauty. And if you're not careful, even then you might actually hear God whispering to you. Still Small Voice and all that. Sometimes hearing God is as easy as flipping on the car radio to that "secular" pop station. Here in Eugene it's called KDUK (get it?), and from time to time when I'm too rushed or lazy to attach my phone or iPod to the stereo I settle for a little Top 40. Mostly it's bubblegum, dancey, wubwuby fluff, but occasionally I'm caught off guard by a legitimately moving melody, or a haunting bit of poetry. Sometimes I even hear a little Truth slip out between the hooks and drops, and I remember that a good pop song can say more about what it means to be human than a hundred sermons. Enter "Beneath Your Beautiful" by Labrint...

In the pilot episode of HBO's Newsroom Aaron Sorkin, pontificating through his curmudgeonly protagonist, calls Millennials (those of us in our late teens or twenties) the "worst. generation. ever." In his own tirade on the woes of our culture, Louis C. K. joins in on the fun, calling us "the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots." Geeze guys, tell us how you really feel. Is that fair, though? Do we really suck so terribly as that? Critics of the Millennial generation often cite our laziness and entitlement as reasons why we're the worst, which... I don't know, maybe that's fair. I certainly don't have much ground to argue we aren't self-obsessed or work-averse. We are, in fact, the "selfie" generation, infamous for compulsively sharing every thought, shoe, food item and hairstyle for the wide internet audience. It's as though each of us assumes the world would be worse off without our unilaterally compelling subtweets and ...