if you want to live like a hippie you have to be ok with smelling like one.

christmas evening my sisters (three of the four) were sitting on the floor around the small end table we have in our living room playing dutch blitz (an awesome card game) and as the game got going faster Jane started apologizing for her BO and saying how the deodorant she uses only works for a few hours (no one could smell it but her, she is always saying that she smells. I just don’t think you do Jane). anyway. we started talking about the deodorant that we both use. Toms all natural aluminum-free deodorant. it smells good. and as far as i am concerned it works well. i guess it is a different story with nursing mothers? ha. her point was it is important to her to use all natural deodorant. and even more so when she is nursing. and at the end of the conversation she nonchalantly said “if a want to live like a hippie i have to be ok with smelling like one.”

that got me thinking.

alot.

about my life.

on so many levels.

being a Christian. a “Christ like” person. following the teachings or manifesting the qualities or spirit of Jesus Christ. if i want to be known as a Christian i have to be ok with “smelling like one”. if I actually want to do this… i have to be ok with living like it… its nice to speak it. to want it. even to pretend it a little. but to be ok with the “side effects” of choosing to be that (more like in your face effects rater than side effects). if i want to live like a Christian. i want to live like a Christian. a Christ like. for me that means living like Christ. oh no. so.

what does that mean for me.

it means actually looking. and seeing. and thinking. and maybe even (get this) acting/living like Jesus did. He actually lived. woah. i have a very real. very clear example. there was this man that once walked on this earth. this real man. this man who pooped. ate. drank. spoke. cried. gave. lived. He actually was. who would have thought. i have taken a title (pretty much my whole life)… this very title stating that i am like this man. am i like this man i have read about. woah. failure on my part. oops. and the part that sucks the most (but not really at all) . is now i have thought about this. now that i have looked at this Christ like thing in a different way… or maybe not even in a different way just its actually clicking a little bit. its time to make my mind up. its time to do something. to read. and study. and pray. and think. and tear apart. and decide. and to ask if He actually meant what he said. and if he meant the way he lived. and if was actually for a reason. and if He did mean it. wht that means for me.

if i want to be a christian i have to be ok with smelling like Jesus. not like other Christians. but like Christ. the one who that title came from. (this is not saying that other Christians don’t live like Christ.)


and also.

it got me thinking so much about today’s hip and common(poser) hippie “movement”.

i have never called myself a hippie. And i deny it when someone else does.

forget the hippie-born environmental movement of the 1960s and '70s. In 2008, green is mainstream, fashionable, even luxurious. Ug.

“run into picket fences not into picket lines.all this hippie-shit’s for the 60'sand a cliché in our time” –

but truth be told.


a hippie. some definitions.

-someone who rejects the established culture

-a term used to describe someone who wears long hair, aged denims, fringed and beaded tops, crafty accessories and ethnic looks as a means of defying convention. J

-a group of people who oppose america's role in war. they believed in being equal, and everyone having the same things

-to be a hippie you must believe in peace as the way to resolve differences among peoples.


yeah so i fit the mold. i am cliché. and cheesy. and even a poser. but i think they were on to something. to live like those who came before you is not a bad thing. and im thankful i have examples to follow. i.e. my parents and many of the people i love and trust. they lived in such a way when they were my age that i admire so very much. but Lord spare me from hopping on this fashionable. Hippie because its cool. and edgy. and so very unique. consumer bandwagon.

ever walk by someone that seems to fit the “hippie mold” to a T. as you walk by them you notice a familiar scent. like I don’t know. an $82 a bottle designer perfume. funny eh?

i want to live like a hippie. im ok with smelling like one.