I’ve been watching a documentary – Two Years on a Bike – about a man’s journey from Vancouver to Patagonia by bicycle. I see his deal – his bike setup, how he lives, what he takes with him, who he visits along the way. I’ve watched a lot in the same vein by another bike-packer – Ryan Van Duzer (I’ve written about him a few times here). I see the personalities involved – the people they meet on the road and the overall way they go about doing these kinds of adventures. And when I watch them, the word “hippie” comes to mind. And I’m perfectly alright with that. I know the term can be used pejoratively, but I don’t see it that way. I love the freedom. The lifestyle seems interesting.
But there’s something kind of nagging at me here. I think there was a time when adventurers would partake in the same freedoms, but for them it was a matter of survival. There was a danger to it. I’m not denying that there’s any danger in the present, but it seems different today. There’s a certain sentimentality involved in who I’m watching. I certainly don’t begrudge them this. There is no right way to do what they’re doing, only our own preconceived notions of how it’s done. But the nagging is still there.
Maybe it’s the niche within which I’m viewing. It’s only natural that if the people I’m watching have the means to take so much time off and to own so much expensive video and editing equipment, they’d be more inclined to live a more “hippie” lifestyle. I’m sure there are survivalists out there, gritting their teeth as they live off the land. It’s just that they might not be the types to invest $15,000 in equipment and two years off of work to document their travels. Then again, maybe I just fall within those circles.
But I think about how far the hard-core conservative off-gridders (I’m not talking right-wing nationalist militia here) are from the hard-core “hippies” living pretty much the same way. I really don’t know. They all come to the same result, but see the world differently. Could it be that one lives in the respect of nature, while the other lives in the love of nature? Definitely a little bit of both for each, but different. The tendency lately might be to think that the conservative off-gridder would greet the liberal with hostility, but I’m not sure that would be the case (except in that extreme, militia-esque scenarios). I’d like to think that, in general, the one would not turn the other away in a time of need.
That’s how we see pretty much everything – different viewpoints of the same problem. It’s been getting harder lately for people to think that a lot of us are quite complex in our way of seeing things. To get more personal for me, I think people misunderstand sometimes because I’m a Christian who says things like “humans are at heart selfish.” They think that means I’m judging and condemning people.
I’ve had to come to grips with this – to face it that some people will not wade through that attitude to get what I’m really talking about. The hard reality is that I pull from the Christian view that we are all fallen and selfish and rebellious against God, but that it’s not my place to condemn anyone. I’m very clearly called to love. And how far is that from the hippie? Hey, I can live in a cabin in the woods, ride a bike, love my neighbor, and still love God. It’s just that I would go as far as to acknowledge that the God I love is the one who created me and loved me enough to die for me.
And maybe so far you’re tracking. But here we might diverge. Maybe you’re thinking “God really didn’t have to do that. I’m doing fine. My love for others and his creation [even if I call it “Mother Nature”] is good enough to get by.”
But my point is that it isn’t. Why would it be? I mean, here you’ve got someone who’s given you every moment of your life – every breath you’ve taken; everything of beauty you have even known – and you’re responding with, “I’ve got this, I don’t need you,” without so much as a “thank you.” Or even more, without even acknowledging that he’s done anything for you at all. Especially the part where he dies for you, saying, basically, that the death of Jesus on the cross was actually a mistake – because that’s what “I don’t need you” means.
But God having a reason for Jesus to have died such a horrible death is either there or it isn’t. If it isn’t (if “I’ve got this, I don’t need you” is actually true), then the charges of “cosmic child abuse” leveled by those who protest the existence of God would be well-founded. But here’s the thing – he’s God. By very definition, his ways are true, perfect, and just. To be blundering about playing it all by ear is just not a possibility for the one who created the very universe and system of conscience and sense of justice by which we judge the true meaning of Jesus’s death.
On top of that, there’s something here that I think seals the deal. Paul says it in the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 17, with my emphasis) – “For he has set a day when he [not me] will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” Paul actually really nails it in the 15th chapter of his letter to the Corinthian church: “12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
There it is. This is the key to the Christian faith – either Christ was raised, and in that resurrection proved his power over all judgement against us, or he was not and the whole “Christian” thing is a sham. The latter is the view of the one who doesn’t believe God’s position on things – who thinks they can get by by being kind and loving and living off the land. And maybe that’s what nags at me. That there are some who seem so close. That they’re doing it right. That they’re loving people and taking good care of the land and caring about the right things. But they’re missing the point. That so many who take that perspective think the point is “I’m checking all of the boxes – I’m doing all of the right things – so God’s good with me” is bothersome. It leaves out the part about Jesus’s death and resurrection and leans toward “the whole Christian thing is a sham.”
In the end, I have nothing against hippies and their lifestyles. Like I said, I love the freedom and love in it. But there’s this one big difference in perspective that I see through a verse in Paul’s letter to the Galatian church. He says right at the start of the 5th chapter that “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” and that’s a wonderful sentiment for everyone. But he’s talking about a different kind of freedom. A freedom informed by the rest of what he (and the story of Christ from beginning to end) continues saying – “Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” It is a freedom from falling back again into the old way, of thinking that “I can do this on my own [or with the help of anything but God].” For some, “I can do this on my own” is as dramatic as living a life of crime – a life your typical hippie certainly wouldn’t live. But for others, “I can do this on my own” means something that sounds so innocuous as saying “God, I don’t need you and the sacrifice you made for me. I’m fine as is.” No biggie for some, but in God’s eyes, there is really very little difference – either way it’s still a rejection of the one who gave us life.
I love the hippie. I actually think God would want us to be quite a bit like them – loving others, giving, caring. But he also wants us to do it with the clear mind that it is God who gave to us more than we could ever give others, and that we owe all we have and see and experience and love to him. Is this so hard to understand? Would it be so hard to love someone who did that for us more than anything else in the world?