Used: The Gospel as Participation - Thoughts Part 1

I had lifted weights for five days straight in seventh grade and all that hard work was now paying off sixteen years later as I lugged three storage boxes up our treacherous basement steps. My two year old son’s face lit up as he saw some new treasures emerge from the ominously intriguing “down-stay-eeze.” I opened the first bin to reveal dozens of …“STAR WARS Daddy oh WOW it’s STAR WARS.” Kaeden bounced frantically with excitement as I explained “these are Daddy’s special Star Wars toys Kaedo and because they are special we don’t take them out of their packages.” “No Open” asked Kaeden. “That’s right bud we just look.” “OHHhhhhhhhhhhh” As I carefully displayed the great spoils of my bachelor years to my young padewon I noticed interest was disappearing at light speed. Just two minutes after the star wars collectibles unveiling my son had left and begun playing with a Snapple cap in the corner. I had broken the kid in on Star Wars a little too early for his age and he had begun getting nightmares from the movies so we had to stop watching them altogether. Realizing he was probably on at least a three year star wars film fast I thought maybe seeing my humble collection would put me in the running for Dad of the year. I was wrong.

It’s used. Those words usually cause a hand to retreat in disgust from what it was reaching for and the searching eye will move on to find the sexy hot new item. For a collector the word used means a great deal less of worth is assigned to the item. What you want is something in mint condition or even still in the box so it can go up on display in all it’s faultless glory. But not taking a cool toy out of a box makes as much sense to a two year old as getting your favorite bands new CD and then displaying it still packaged up on the mantle in your house. Music is meant to be listened to, toys are meant to be played with and star wars figures are meant to collide in galactic battle all over the living room carpet. Who cares if those action figures will be worth $100 bucks a piece someday (maybe!); they are worth much more then that if they are well used.

Since that night I went down a notch in coolness with my son I began discovering a renewed and empowering meaning for things that are “used.” You would think someone who was one of the three lead singers for the incomparable underground punk/ska band “The Thrift Shop Junkies” would know better (Interesting sidenote: Punk/Ska is probably far too gracious of a genre label the best I ever heard was Spazz/Punk). My high school friends and I had discovered Value Village as a mine of creative dressing gold long before it was even remotely popular. One example would be after a purchase at Goodwill I showed up to school my junior year sporting my sleeveless baby blue extra small t-shirt with the words “World’s Largest Source Of Natural Gas” plastered across the front. A couple years after high school some of my friends joined forces with several others with second hand store tendencies to form the band. I joined the band early in the career and appear on the first full length album (Gap is the Enemy) that was recorded by a junior at a neighboring high school who had access to the school’s equipment. Well, let’s just make a long story short; “used” is a word I am very familiar with but only lately have I begun to get a glimpse of all that word could mean in life.