You already know that if the right kind of ice cold beer splashes into your glass, you always get the girl, or guy. What you may not know, is that if you wear Levi’s, the gods wait to delight in you. You heard me right. I was half-watching the beginning of the Monday Night Football game last night until this Levi’s commercial came along. The wording grabbed my attention - a poem by Hank, which can be found on The CrimethInc. Ex-Workers’ Collective website. [Post-production note: The poem was written by Charles Bukowski - see the comments]
“The CrimethInc. Ex-Workers’ Collective (CWC) is a decentralized anarchist collective composed of many cells which act independently in pursuit of a freer and more joyous world.” (I’ll let you figure it out – their web address is: http://www.crimethinc.com/. It’s an interesting site.) (emphasis in original)
Here’s the poem, and the accompanying video:
Your life is your life. Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. There is light somewhere. It may not be much light, but light beats the darkness. Be on the watch. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. You can’t beat death, but you can beat death in life, sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight in you.
They’ve certainly got one thing right – you can’t beat death. But your life is not your life, it is God’s, who created you. And light does not come from your own anarchic actions, it comes from a different source:
For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6 ESV
Real life does not consist in liberation from “executives, politicians, pop stars, economic systems, or deities” (ref.), it comes from liberation from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Real life consists of resting in Christ, living out your life in the certainty that your sins are forgiven and that you are free to live joyfully in that certainty.
In Jesus Christ you can beat death – not sometimes – now and forever. He beat death for you and for me on a cross. He became sin for us. Our sin is forgiven through our faith in Christ and His promise,
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26 ESV
Therefore, the one true God does delight in you, because of what God the Son has done for you.
The next time you’re squeezing into that chic pair of distressed Levi’s, you can thank Levi Strauss & Co. that through their rebellion-inclined commercial the Gospel can be preached, and that in Jesus Christ the Light has come into the world.
2 comments:
The poem is "The Laughing Heart" by Charles Bukowski. So how cynical is this? Levi's is a favorite target of the anti-capitalist, anti-corporate left. So the Levi Strauss Foundation doles out millions to left-wing causes (Google: Levi Strauss Pioneers in Justice) and then hires mega ad-agency Wieden+Kennedy to make commercials that ape the anti-corporate aesthetic and attempt to align Levi's brand with it.
In other words, the anti-corporate left is all for big corporations as long as some of the loot falls into their pockets. And corporate America has gotten very good at purchasing indulgences from its judges.
As for me and my house, we wear Wranglers.
We need inspiration from Charles Bukowski?!!? He is the raunchier, male equivalent of Nora Roberts. Soft porn at its best!
*Sigh* Yet another lame attempt by a corporation to portray a countercultural image. The Chinese workers sewing the jeans for ten cents an hour are not amused.
The message in the ad sounds like something out of a Rick Warren or Bill Hybels sermon.
Post a Comment