Why do so many of the non-readers at my high school suddenly want to read Twilight?  How come the aprons in the 1800s were all made from calico prints? Why do some Christians believe that Obama is the anti-Christ?

In his best selling book The Tipping Point (2000), Malcolm Gladwell explores the parallels between ideas and viruses. He uses an epidemiological motif to promote his thesis—that human behavior is shaped suddenly and powerfully by viral influences in their communities. If ideas are viruses, then my proximity to both Christian skepticism and Christian trendiness is bringing me dangerously close to getting the flu.

I’m going to admit something very honest: my Christian faith has suffered from my chronic reading, interfacing, and networking this past year. I'm rather shocked by this. I thought I was doing myself some good by jumping into the conversation. I’m not talking about the good and beautiful result of knowing all sorts of people. I’m not talking about exposure to new ideas, or being challenged to examine the credibility of my beliefs. But I’m suffering from some information inflammation—the relentless sound bytes, articles, videos, jokes, books, concepts, marketing, and opinions that my spiritual antibodies must filter every day. I don’t think my soul was designed for this much discernment.

It's nice to see what some churches are doing this holiday season. Check out this video: 

Last week the stick joined the cardboard box as honorary members of the Toy Hall of Fame.  The message is obvious: even primitive things have value, especially when the imagination gets involved. Who needs a Wii when you have a Tree?

So it got me thinking. Having spent some time in no less than nine states and at least 15 evangelical churches in my lifetime, I’m considering a proposal for a Church Accessories Hall of Fame. I’m not sure where to build it, but I can picture the architecture in my head: a monstrous mega-museum with maybe a hydraulic collection plate spinning on the roof?

Anyway, some of you can go way back, but for now, let’s start with some inductees from the 1970s: varnished oak tables from the foyer, the faux-leather hymn book, saltines on a tray, and maroon choir robes with giant zippers down the front. Long, padded pews, Sister Hannah’s flannel board with Caucasian Bible characters, and the plastic snack trays from the downstairs Fellowship Hall. We would have to include a collection of staff photos and their pyramid arrangement: pastor on top, with his wing men in dark suits in descending order according to their seminary degree and paychecks.

When my house is dark and my children are asleep, sometimes I fantasize about earning a Ph.D.

I dream of thesis projects, dense reading, pretentious poetry recitals, and most of all, that super cool graduation robe and hood—part Opus Dei, part Frodo Baggins— that I could hang in my closet and show friends. My other degrees are just fine, but I stopped short of the Big One, relegated to pitching Triple A ball when I really wanted a shot at the majors.

So on some days, I fantasize.

But this year, I might be closer to accepting my fate as a minor league member of the intelligentsia. While I love the world of reason and higher thinking; while I love the pleasure of great books, old and new, and the electric atmosphere of a university; while I’m addicted to epiphanies that strike when I least expect them, I doubt I will ever identify with a subculture that defines itself almost exclusively by its ability to reason.

Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage? Moreover, this manager frequently bids the same actor to go back in a different costume, so that he who has but lately played the king in scarlet now acts the flunkey in patched clothes. Thus all things are presented by shadows. -Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly

Let’s just call it a dormant childhood fantasy. Technology has whisked me back to Octobers in Connecticut, the let’s-pretend-I’m-someone-else phase of childhood. But instead of my mother sewing me into a polyester princess costume for Halloween, Photoshop lets me be whoever I want for a brief, narcissistic moment (yes, that’s my face strutting down the catwalk).

My high school students have no idea how to die.

How do I know? In class this week we’re reading an old school emo poem with the puzzling Greek title “Thanatopsis.” A seventeen year-old poet named William Cullen Bryant wrote his “vision of death” in 1813, a time when teenagers were apparently thinking about death more often than their modern peers. With the Puritan legacy in his rear view mirror, he defies the Christian worldview of his ancestors and basically says that when you die, that’s it. Young Bryant suggests that you shouldn’t worry about dying because you will join the gazillion other corpses rotting underground who are part of one big annihilated family—and he feels this should be rather comforting to you.

Quite frankly, it isn’t.

I just slipped my very first cell phone into my pocket this morning.

What, you ask? Your first cell phone?  

Yes, fifteen years after they became part of our cultural requirements, I finally caved in and let some man wearing a polo shirt and khakis at the Ministry of Cellular Affairs assign me my very first personal phone number. I half expected him to engrave it on my forehead in some apocalyptic show of authority.

I’m not a luddite; I’m highly attached to my technology, indulging in just about every other digital resource available today from Facebook to Flickr, and my husband has carried a cell phone since the beginning of time.  

But something about a personal cell phone has always felt invasive to me. The notion that someone should be able to find me at any moment is creepy. I’ve raised three children so far without one. When I slip out of the house to buy some milk, I’m unavailable for comment—no absentee refereeing of arguments, no  oops . . . put M&M’s on your grocery list, no emergency announcements about finding an ant on the counter.

Artists are strange people. They are pretentious, hyperbolic, given to making a big deal out of small things. Artists have a dish antenna on their heads tuned to a very high frequency. If their antennas sense something unoriginal or clichéd, their radio waves buzz and crackle like crazy. If you like your sculptures by Precious Moments, your poetry by Mary Engelbreit, or your theater by Black Bart’s Mountain Playhouse, look out for these antenna-wearing snobs because they’re coming for you.

I understand that some of you reading this are artists and you might take offense at these characterizations. Perhaps you are gracious and tolerant of creativity in whatever form it takes. Maybe you can go to an Arts and Crafts Faire and not whisper patronizing thoughts under your breath as you pass by the booth with Andy’s wooden cutting boards in the shape of farm animals. Maybe you can give encouragement to the garage band of amateur musicians covering Miley Cyrus next door. Maybe your love of fine art has more to do with reflecting God’s creativity than bullying the have-nots with your refined taste. But chances are you’re an insufferable critic.

A good essayist is not supposed to hold his subject in contempt. But today, I’m setting aside my characteristic politeness and good humor in order to tell you the absolute truth: most people are idiots.

In the past, I’ve been accused of being too soft. I’m a good girl, a forgiver, a pleaser. If mankind were an alcoholic father, say, I’d be the classic enabler, making all sorts of excuses for his bad behavior. But today I’m breaking all my rules of good-girl graciousness to declare that the human race, taken as a whole, is completely stupid.

I have some evidence in case you’re interested.

Exhibit A: Our current political race. Political campaigns, combined with digitized high-speed ignorance racing along the misinformation superhighway, can make a thinking person run screaming into the streets. Internet folklorist David Emery claims “Information abhors a vacuum,” and in the case of Palin and Obama (both a novelty of sorts), a rush of idiots have filled the void with conspiracy theories and rumor. Give us a list of detailed policy positions and we’ll promptly check out; give us 30-second, context-free video clips and a “forward” button on our email, and we’ve got a night’s worth of cheap entertainment.

I’ve come to an interesting conclusion. If helping your fellow man is like buying a car, you have two basic options: purchasing the sexy late model edition that makes heads turn, or going with the clunky used car that few notice and even fewer covet.

Without judging this trio’s motives, Barack, Brad, and Bono belong to the first category whether they want to or not. So do the high school kids who fatten up their fancy college apps with obligatory volunteerism and the pro athletes who, through “giving back,” score twice as many endorsement deals as the ones who don’t. You could also include entire political campaigns, blood drives that get you out of work early, and your sister-in-law who uses the Thanksgiving meal at the homeless shelter merely as a photo-op for her family scrapbook.