MAD Across America
“I cannot think of one reason why anyone not raised in the faith would choose to be a Christian. The mythology is silly–a virgin birth, wise men following a star to a single geographical point, a crucifixion–by the time I was 10 I knew this didn’t make sense. And I was raised in the faith.”
This is a comment found online, written in reply to the following question, “Why aren’t you a Christian?”
While I write this I am eating a peanut butter chocolate chip brownie for lunch at an outdoor coffee shop where all the seating is mismatched patio furniture. As I eat this delectable treat, I am aware that 90% of you reading this will never get to experience eating this peanut butter chocolate chip brownie at this coffee shop with mismatched patio furniture on an 80 degree January day in Los Angeles. Not because this particular peanut butter chocolate chip brownie is something spectacular (far from it, in fact, because there’s nuts in this thing), but because you’ve found your own peanut butter chocolate chip brownie somewhere else. Maybe it’s just as good as mine, or better. Or maybe you’re not crazy about the nuts, but you can look past it so you eat the thing anyway. Maybe that particular brownie just isn’t good enough, and you’re always asking yourself: what if there’s something better out there?
Which is a fair question because there is so much life to live. Seemingly endless highways and skyscrapers that touch the clouds. There are hot air balloons to ride and planes to jump out of. Mountaintops and canyons. Fields of flowers and clovers soaked in the harsh orange light of a setting sun. All of it going unnoticed by the majority of us.
What does a chocolate chip peanut butter brownie with nuts have to do with the above claim that the mythology and story of Jesus is preposterous?
Nuts.
That’s what.
Yeah, this is really about that.
Have you found something worth getting mad about lately?
A few weeks ago my friend Chris asked me, as well as some friends, to pray for the current state of the world because God seems so absent in it. Senseless violence and destruction. Floods, earthquakes, and landslides. Human trafficking, pornography, and kidnapping. Women sold into slavery, child abuse, and famine. People are dying of thirst on a planet that is 70% water. We say we can’t find God in any of these injustices, but is this God, or is this us? Has the current state of the world taken our faith captive?
What if God isn’t asking to be found in the current state of the world, but instead within the design of the world He created? In the peanut butter chocolate chip brownies on lazy Tuesday afternoons? On mountaintops and in sun-soaked fields? What if He’s left His signature all over this place? So when a burning hot sunset dissolve into the liquid depths of the ocean, filling our pallet with color like cans of paint being tossed into the clouds, we can’t help to feel anything but miraculous belief in something far greater than ourselves, only we’re too distracted to see it?
So we miss God getting our attention again and again.
Maybe He keeps letting us eat peanut butter chocolate chip brownies with nuts in them because We. Don’t. Like. Nuts. And He knows we’re going to get so sick of them, that eventually we will spit them out declaring, “Man! I hate the nuts in this brownie! There has got to be something better out there. Something without nuts.”
Well I’ve got bad news for you, the world is full of nuts.
But the idea of something better? That we have a choice to no longer stomach what the world is giving us? That’s good news.
I was on my bike the other day running a few miscellaneous errands, headed to the Trader Joe’s market for milk. By the time I reached my destination, I was acutely aware of everyone around me and what they were doing. A man at the checkout arguing with the cashier. The little girl in the middle of the aisle crying for her mother, the homeless man begging for quarters out front. How many stories were there to tell right inside of Trader Joe’s? Stories of broken lives and hearts, redemption and loss, debilitating pain and unbridled joy.
Were any of them dying and cursing God for their misery? Who in the checkout line was living life to the fullest without consequences, but oblivious to the idea of an afterlife?
How many of them were happy? Truly happy?
If there are this many stories to be told at the local grocery, how many stories are there to tell in Los Angeles?
In California?
Across America?
How many other peanut butter chocolate chip brownies are out there to try?
My story may not be over, but it’s not the only one to tell here on Make It MAD.
So on March 1st, Make It MAD is going on the road to find these stories; to show that God still exists in this mad, crazy world that’s growing more and more convinced He is absent.
I started this blog back in June of 2010 after quitting my job managing a Starbucks in Beverly Hills. I started out with 50 readers that month following the misadventures of my life as a recovering addict, writer, filmmaker, quitter, believer, relapsing addict, and dreamer.
As the months went on unemployed, readership grew, but life got harder, work became scarce, and everything I thought I believed was challenged as I lost every. single. thing. I owned and coveted. Cars broke down, bikes were stolen, hearts were broken, and bank accounts were depleted. Then, for the final act, I lost the apartment, giving away everything I owned save for three boxes of books and a desk lamp that’s still yet to produce any genies.
Nothing but God and the blog remained.
And everything has lead up to this.
Never happier living on the raw essentials of life.
Now I am hitting the road, driving from Los Angeles to New York City. (Matt Lauer, that means I’m coming for you and the Today Show.) I will blog my way across America in search of faith and the people who’ve lost it; as well as the ones who cannot live without it. I will encounter the homeless, the orphans, and the widows. I will connect with individuals, churches, and organizations; radicals changing the world piece by piece. I will while connect with other bloggers, photographers, writers, and artists along the way with influential voices such as the Fusionist blogger and filmmaker, Josh Lind; the beautiful and talented writer, photographer, and Love Bomb team leader, Lauren Nicole Lankford; and, of course, my sister, Calling All Cool Moms author, Julianne Gulu. I am looking for the maddest towns, the maddest cities, and the maddest people.
I will tell their stories right here on Make It MAD every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in March creating awareness and provoking change. Igniting a revolution. And every blog will have photos of the places I have been, the people I have met, and the world I have seen.
I want to see the existence of God in the world, in your lives, not through the ways of the world that have us distracted.
Hundreds of thousands of readers are stopping by Make It MAD each month for the content I deliver every Wednesday.
You’ve been coming to me every week, and now I am coming to you.
And I intend to try every peanut butter chocolate chip brownie I can handle.
On March 1st, 2011, get ready to get MAD Across America.
Don’t miss a thing as I blog my way across America. Follow me on Twitter: @maxdubinsky
So you’ll always know where I am and what city I am headed to next, become a fan on Facebook by clicking here —-> Make It MAD on Facebook
Follow me live across the country and help donate food, gas, or shelter at: MADAcrossAmerica.com
© Copyright 2011 Make It MAD
