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What does it mean to counter the culture? Our friends at Wikipedia tell us that "it is a sociological word used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day,[1] the cultural equivalent of political opposition."

What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive? (Irv Kupcinet)

Our well-trained American minds immediately think of hippies smoking weed in the back of the VW, war protesters burning American flags... unproductive actions like that.

But what is culture? "All the values shared by a society" is the key phrase here. Our culture consists of those societal structures, traditions, and values which we accept as normal (thus, right) simply because they are. Everyone around us accepts them; they are familiar and comfortable. We do not question their rightness. Read the rest of this entry »

Expelled is really about refusing to let The System dictate your life. Even if I didn't have any interest in evolution and intelligent design theories, I would want to see the movie. But I am interested in the beginning of life and especially interested in how we live, now, with freedom from dogma. Read the rest of this entry »

Alex and Brett Harris wrote a book called "Do Hard Things" which I probably would know nothing about but for an excerpt in TPE, the magazine of my church's denomination. (Yep, I'm one of those crrrrazy Pentecostals. Are you scared? Are you making assumptions right now? You are, aren't you? That's okay. I love you anyway.)

I was impressed. The book is directed toward teenagers, which, strangely enough, is a group that no longer accepts me as one of their own. (I am still a little hurt by this.) The book's premise seems to be (understand, I have only read an excerpt, not the whole book, so I'm sailing a little blind here) that the "Myth of Adolescence" has turned a group that should be vibrant, energetic, unstoppable into a lethargic and rebellious one.

What a waste. As the book says, "We waste some of the best years of our lives and never reach our full God-given potential. We never attempt things that would stretch, grow and strengthen us. We end up weak and unprepared for the amazing future that could have been."

I'm 26. My husband is 25. We've both been working since we were about 14. Of course, it was part-time during the school year, and some of my earlier jobs were just baby-sitting. But at that tender, adolescent age, our parents expected us to begin to take responsibility, to pay for stuff we wanted, to contribute. We didn't have to put grocery money into the family pot or anything, but that probably wouldn't have been a bad idea.

We're not rich, by any means. But we have worked for and gained an independence that many of my peers seem unable to find. And we're not talking teenagers! It starts then, back at 13, or before, maybe at 10, or 6, when the whole world revolves around a child's happiness. At what point do you let the child know that the point of the world isn't to make him happy? It's a sad awakening, and I have friends who are still fighting that knowledge as hard as they can.

Some people manage to avoid acknowledging that truth their entire lives, and they are the ones who Alex and Brett describe on their blog as " Peter Pans who shave." (This article they wrote describes more about "adultescence.")

I see that in my generation, now in our mid-twenties. I see that in the one coming behind me, the teens with shiny laptops and enormous libraries of music on their iPods, but with no vision for the future, no library of skills or knowledge or character from which to draw.

We're going to be playing catch-up for a while. We better start getting over our own lies and pointing the way.

Flipping through a magazine the other day, I stopped on this ad: A woman is surrounded by happy looking children, all eating from colorful paper plates. The tag line is what gets me: "I deserve a paper plate that is as strong as I am."

Really? Do we think we deserve any kind of paper plate at all? How is this a question of merit? Where do you go to earn the Paper Plate Badge? And how do we end up with an attitude of entitlement about disposable serving pieces?

What else do we think we're entitled to? The answer: lots of things. Clean grocery stores. Smooth roads to drive on. Affordable gas. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What's that little P word doing in there? Who said anything about pursuing happiness? Don't we just get to have it doled out to us along with social security, strip malls, and no-down-payment mortgages?

The pursuit of happiness is something I can consider an inalienable right, but not happiness itself. Not material success, a fat paycheck, great health insurance, great car, great spouse, great kids, great vacations... Not a paper plate as strong as I am.

I am "entitled" to life: no one should take my life by force or violence.

I am "entitled" to liberty: no one should keep me from following the dictates of my conscience so long as they do not infringe upon the life and liberty of another.

And I am "entitled" to use my life and liberty to pursue happiness, however I define that elusive goal.

And really, people, that's it. We're not entitled to anything else our Western culture proffers so freely. We may be used to it. We may not want to live without it. But we don't get it because it's a right.

We can be thankful and enjoy abundance without being victims, and then, if we lose something, we can let it go without whining.

Here's to a whine-free America!