Here among the heretics

At first, I thought he was just a guy who sold shoes.

Turns out I was thinking of the wrong Rogan…

Life as a lot simpler when there were only three TV networks and everybody watched and listened to the same things. A guy could keep track of what was going on. But now, with all the stuff out there it’s easy to be outpaced by pop culture.

So when I got wind of the brew-ha-ha around Joe Rogan I had to get on Google, download Spotify and spend a bit of time trying to figure out what all the fuss was about.

Now I’ve gotta admit there was a certain low-grade thrill to the prospect of coming face-to-face with the latest version of the devil incarnate, but all I came across was a loud-mouthed bald guy who talks too much. As far as I can tell there are half a dozen guys living within two blocks of me with just as many interesting and outrageous things to say.  I sure hope the good and sensitive progressive souls who want to shut up Joe Rogan for saying bad words and airing bad thoughts don’t get wind of that and come around trying to put the kibosh on the neighborhood barbeque for the same reason.

Then I noticed sort of an odd thing. The same folks who were trying to get Joe fired because they didn’t like what he had to say seemed to have their undies in a bunch over parents and school boards banning the books and censoring the ideas our kids might encounter in their classrooms.

Hmmm…

Even odder, both Joe Rogan and Mark Twain were on the blacklist for using the same word… I can’t help but notice that we all know exactly what word that is, which makes for a strong argument that that is a word that every last one of us has used as well.  Yeah…ye who are without sin…

But I digress.

It’s not too much to say that life has generally lodged me among the heretics. In fact, if thought crimes resulted in court dates I’d be keeping at least one judge busy full time.

I guess I strayed from the beaten path early on in life. I was six when Mrs. Baker taught me to read and once I got past Dick and Jane I discovered there was all sorts of interesting stuff to know there in magazines and books that grown ups weren’t telling me about … all just waiting for me to figure out.

So I cut my literary teeth on the Readers Digest, figuring out the jokes first, then moving on to decipher stories about outer space and animals and other stuff that a kid might take interest in. When I stumbled across Mom’s old junior college biology text in the bottom desk drawer I came face to face with Neanderthals, tyrannosaurs and a host of other critters Mrs. Hefte couldn’t fit into her Sunday school lesson on Noah’s ark. I was sent to have a singularly unsatisfactory chat with Pastor Hansen that essentially set me on course for life.

I was nine when I read Rudolf Hoess’ testimony at Nuremburg when Readers Digest serialized “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and Auschwitz became a psychic counterweight to Disneyland – the ultimate cautionary tale of human behavior.

These were things I wasn’t supposed to know when I knew them, but they whetted a lifelong insistence to find out what else is out there that I’ve yet to know, what comments are outrageous because they reveal aspects of reality that make us desperately uncomfortable, what comforting myths mask brutal truths.

The only way to find truth is to freely compare it with falsehood.

The Gospel writer quotes Jesus, “The truth will set you free,” but Jesus didn’t often teach what made his hearers comfortable. Truth is often uncomfortable. Freedom is often frightening.

And that explains a lot of things.