The Times of India Sunday supplement a couple of weeks back had an interesting theme: “The who, what, why of cool” (Sunday, June 10, 2012) It was a special edition dedicated to featuring cool things – ideas, projects, people and products that are not populist but cool. The thing I found most interesting was that they had defined what “cool” means as opposed to “hot.”
I quote:
The difference between hot and cool
Besides the obvious reference to temperature, the Urban Dictionary defines cool as the best way to say “something is awesome. (The description) is convenient for people who don’t care about what’s ‘in’.”
Cool carries with it a host of implications, primarily centered around not caring enough about what others think; popular, but not populist.
Hot, by contrast, would be populist, lacking the edge of cool, but desirable, nonetheless.
I read it and kind of forgot about it, till yesterday. I was thinking about Christianity, Jesus and the perception of it all in this day and age. I would think Jesus was cool rather than hot. Anyone who has read the gospels would definitely know that Jesus was certainly not out to please man. His life, his teachings, his parables…everything was always different and truthful and shocking to his audience.
What about Jesus’ followers – us? The Bible is full of verses about not pleasing but man but God. In Galations 1:10 Paul says if he were still pleasing man he would not be a bondservant of Christ. Jesus Himself spoke about the pharisees and warned us to be more concerned about what God thinks of us than what man thinks of us.
Am I really “cool” today? I ask myself and think about my choice of words, clothes, career, entertainment, music, thoughts, friends…am I really cool? How much of my life is ordered by what I think will please others!
Lord, make me cool like you! Amen.
womenwize 