Don't Leave Heaven Without It

This reflection is the result of a mistake I made yesterday morning. I hit the road to drive to a customer, only to realize a few blocks down the road that I had forgotten my wallet. Oops. So, what did I do? I suppose the wise move would have been to return home and get it, but I didn't. I decided to save myself a few minutes and keep driving.

Well, friends, the good news is this: I never did get pulled over. Furthermore, I'd like to point out, before proceeding, that the last time I caused an accident was some ten years ago, and on that day ice on the road was the main culprit. That having been said, I'm not always the most cautious and law-abiding of drivers, where speed limits are concerned. Like most drivers, I speed "reasonably", however I am on the upper end of reasonable (which is itself a term capable of a wide spread of interpretations).

But without my license? I became a more tame driver. I still broke the posted speed limits, but much more cautiously than I would normally. I made a point to keep with ordinary traffic. I couldn't afford to stand out, and that got me thinking about the fact that I'm a safer driver when I have fewer rights and privileges. As a white, male, native-born American carrying a valid drivers license... yeah, I have privileges. Without the license? Not so much.

It struck me that driving without a license gave me a glimpse into the ordinary day-to-day life of someone less privileged than myself. Be that person Black, Hispanic, an illegal alien, or a wanted fugitive, all of them have reasons to drive as safely as possible, and push no buttons.

In the current politically charged Trump-as-spectacle world, perhaps all of us would do well to know what it's like to find ourselves without passport in a foreign land, at the mercy of a people who owe us nothing but can definitely make life difficult for us if they so choose. It would be a searing experience. Maybe attitude-changing. If you cannot think of a better way to experience this feeling, I highly recommend driving at high speeds without your driver's license as a reasonable proxy.

Yes, the more I reflected upon it, the more I realized how convenient my legal status is and what benefits my passport and driver's license give me. Things I take for granted. I was then reminded of a biblical concept that overlaps with my American citizenship, and that is my citizenship in heaven. I am, in fact, principally a child of a different kingdom. I have rights as an American, and I exercise them often enough. But what rights do I have as a citizen of heaven? And do I exercise them very often?

Hmmmmm.

Hmmmmm!

Our rights as citizens in America give us the courage to stand up to criminals and other wrong-doers. We can take them to court. What's more, because we're citizens, we've got a good shot at justice if anyone tries to accuse us of a fictitious crime. We have good standing with the judicial system. Even when we screw up, we can hope for kinder justice.

So... how does that play out with our heavenly citizenship? Well, friends, no crazy-deep insights here except to say that we have the Power and Authority of heaven behind us, if we want to take on the evil powers and authorities in the spiritual realms of this earth. They can accuse us, but we are in good standing with the King of the Cosmos. And if we so choose, we can intervene and speak with the Authority of Heaven into earthly mishaps. It's called prayer and action.

Well, the rest of what I might say here is probably clear. It's just a good reminder to me that I should do more than remember my wallet in the morning.

I should also remember my heavenly passport. And at all times behave like I have it on my person.

What Is It We're Trying Not To Think About?

There are a great number of things we desperately don't want to think about. That may sound like hyperbole, but since we're usually successful in not thinking about things we don't want to think about, the number of things on that list may be larger than... well... larger than we want to think about.

But let's draw this wandering claim down to earth and tie it to something. Shall we start with the Cultural Revolution? Not being Chinese, this is not a delicate topic for me, however I was inspired to write this reflection as I read this morning about Youqin Wang and her efforts to document the lives of people in China who were killed during those dark years. Here are two chilling quotes from the article:
1) "It's not known exactly how many people died, but estimates range from 500,00 to several million."
2) "...and while a handful of the people who participated in the violence have apologized..."

Let those numbers sit next to each other in your mind. Maybe a million people died. And a handful of people have spoken up to apologize. Welcome to human nature at its nadir, to my mind. Where are the other people responsible for that uncountable carnage? My guess (and I'm comfortable with it) is that they're trying not to think about it too much. Many of them quite successfully, though surely not all.

All well and good since we westerners don't hail from China. But let's make it personal. We'll do so by means of a three-course meal.

First Course: The Appetizer

The full article is here, but here's a snippet worth pondering for two reasons:

It is always hard to draw a line between the wickedness of the times and the evil of individuals, especially in the case of the Cultural Revolution, and when presented with such a grave issue, most people have chosen to keep silent and forget.

[Editorial aside: The author of this blog is nodding vigorously]

On this point, Wang Youqin loves to tell a story she heard from a science teacher. The teacher worked on a farm during the Cultural Revolution, and he was in charge of a herd of cattle. There was a patch of thick grasses below a big willow tree, which was a favorite food of the cattle, and, one day, the villagers slaughtered an old cow under the tree because it was too old to work; ever since then none of the cows would go anywhere near the willow tree even though the grass was delicious. The chickens, however, upon seeing the innards of their fellow hens chucked into the yard, would all hurry over and peck at the guts of their own kind.

“So mankind is somewhere between cows and chickens,” Wang says. “But now that we have a choice, we need to decide whether to be the cow or the chicken.”

Did you see it? I am betting not. Sure, there was heavy food for thought there, regarding humans and human nature... whether mankind will remember or forget what has been done to other humans. What we have done to other humans. And that is indeed the main point. But for those who eat meat regularly, a second heavy thought regarding food should have left us with indigestion: The cows missed their dead. They abhorred the slaughter of their own. Sure, one may pooh-pooh it as a lonely anecdote, but my own father once related to me a very similar story. He once witnessed the killing of a cow by bullet. After the cow hit the ground, all the other cows gathered around and silently encircled their departed fellow cow. And stared at it.

Ummm, I didn't want to think about that while eating my Big Mac. And yet we do. Eat the meat, that is. As for the cows? We try not to think about them too much. More serious consideration might leave us feeling too guilty to enjoy the meat. And that would be a shame.

That just goes to show how many times a day we avoid thinking about any number of things. However the vegetarian digression seems out of place, it being so trivial when compared to the evils of the Cultural Revolution. But that was just the appetizer. The next dish served will not similarly disappoint.

Second Course: A National Disgrace

We Americans have our own "Cultural Revolutions" that have been both ignored and forgotten. Sordid history that we don't think about too often. Or was it never? An example (but let's not forget that there are others!)... Watch this TED talk and tell me if we've honored our treaties with the native Americans who owned America for thousands of years before we Europeans came along. Oooh, have I touched a soft spot? A log we don't want to turn over?

Here's a picture from that TED talk. A picture we oughtn't forget.

That's a map including the land that the Lakota Indians legally own. Never seen it before? If we don't recognize it, then we have successfully forgotten what our forefathers didn't want us to remember. (I am sure there area a lot of grandparents in China hoping their offspring will be equally forgetful.)

Here are some words from that TED talk. Words we oughtn't forget.

"1980: the longest running court case in US history, the Sioux nation vs. The United States, was ruled upon by the US Supreme Court. The court determined that when the Sioux resettled on the reservations and seven million acres of their land were opened up to prospectors and homesteaders, the terms of the second Fort Laramie treaty had been violated. The court stated that the Black Hills were illegally taken..."

The facts, friends, are cold on this matter. It's their land. And we took it. Illegally. Our own Supreme Court said so. But we'll forget the map and the ruling. Just as have our forefathers before us. The Lakota Indians are still waiting for us to remember. But we won't. We're trying not to think about it.

This is tough stuff to stomach, and those wrongs lay heavy on my heart when I drove through that land myself just last summer. But there is at least that wonderful out: It's a national problem, and not one I, as an individual, can remedy on my own. That's very convenient thinking, and it does help things go down more smoothly. But one dish remains to be served.

Third Course: It Gets Personal

Jesus called us to take up our crosses. I know a few people who have really gotten closer to this kind of radical life. But I haven't. Have you? There is an awful lot about my life that does not reflect the radical teachings of Jesus. Do you feel the same? Here's a word: Incarnational. We love to talk it. Jesus didn't stay in heaven. Jesus became nothing. Became like us ants, as one analogy works it. Yada yada yada. But that yada yada is not derisive of Jesus. Yada yada is for me. For us. Because it's so many words. We say it and love it. But most of us, myself included, don't do it. I live in a comfortable suburb outside Chicago. Living incarnationally in the inner city? Yeah. Didn't happen. I'm just very much in favor of it. In theory.

We like to leave big problems as theoretical. National. Nothing I can do. In practice, however, the solution is personal. Individual. Each of us responding as Jesus would. And therein lies the problem, because my life doesn't look nearly enough like the life of Jesus. That's something I'd rather not think about it, and I certainly don't want to reminded of it, either!

But people have this annoying habit of breaking into our protective amnesia. On the national scene, Wang Youqin reminds China of their past. Aaron Huey (of that TED talk) reminds us Americans of our own. Aaron, it is worth noting, incarnationally went and dwelt among the Lakota. Shared in their suffering. In doing so, he proves that theory can become practice, if we're willing to give up our own comforts. That reminder is annoying.

On the personal scene, occasionally a Jesus freak (or a Lakota freak) will challenge us to become more like Jesus (perhaps among Native Americans) and radically enter into the suffering of our world as ambassadors for Christ. Our response as Americans and as Christians is well described by Henri Nouwen, who here encapsulates the distinctive character of secular prophets Wang and Aaron as well as the Christian variety—and then goes on to describe our typical response to such prophets when they cross our paths.

"There are people in our midst who have allowed the pain of the world to enter so deeply into their hearts that it has become their vocation to remind us constantly, mostly against our will, of the sins of this world. There are even a few saints who have become so much a part of the human condition and have identified themselves to such a degree with the misery of their fellow human beings that they refuse happiness for themselves as long as there are suffering people in this world. Although they irritate us and although we would like to dispose of them by labeling them masochists or doomsday prophets, they are indispensable reminders that no lasting healing will ever take place without a solidarity of heart. these few "extremists" or "fanatics" force us to ask ourselves how many games with play with ourselves and how many walls we keep erecting to prevent ourselves from knowing and feeling the burden of human solidarity."
– Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

When Vices Become Virtues

Last night we broke from our standard digital-free Sunday tradition and watched the Superbowl. Not being big on football, I used to watch it mainly for the commercials, but those days have passed. Now I pass through commercials like a 10-yr old passes through cemeteries on dark and foggy nights. With fear and trepidation.

What will my children see?

Sadly, more than they should have. A commercial overtly built on a theme of sexual bondage S&M–for cell phones, obviously. A woman getting horny with "Mr. Clean"–yeah, the household cleanser just tried to darken my soul. The best that could be said is that Mr. Clean was, apparently, her husband–helping around the house on stain-removal tasks. The tagline, however, must be noted: "Mr. Clean gets dirty."

A few years ago, in one memorable sequence along a highway, I noted three violations of the Ten Commandments in just two miles.
1. Something suggesting loose sex, the details of which are not necessary to recount here.
2. Tagline for some product being flogged: Creating neighbor envy for XX years
3. Tagline for some tough-guys movie being flogged: The Best Don't Rest

Today I flipped open a Dell computer catalog that came in the mail. And here came the motivation to finally just jot this ridiculous stuff down in a blog post.

GETTING LOST ISN'T THE PROBLEM. IT'S THE GOAL.

Wow. If that doesn't just capture how lost our society has gotten. So lost that being lost has become a desirable destination. Why? Because we're so lost, of course. If we weren't so lost, the notion of getting lost wouldn't be so tempting.

But we are lost. And when life gets that bad, escapism starts to look good.

A friend showed my his latest purchase a week or two ago. Oculus. Virtual reality. The game was of the shoot-em-up variety, but I'll be honest because I'm male and any adult with a pulse would know it without my saying it. I knew and I know where this will go. It won't be too long before quite realistic harem experiences will be available. A bit more time and they'll be able to add physical sensations to the visual cornucopia. A new temptation around the corner.

Why not get lost in a harem, after all?

Enough said, but even if we know to avoid virtual harems, the siren call of getting lost is still well-sold. My own smart-phone is a continual distraction to me, and much worse to many others.

For these reasons I was thankful to put down the Dell advertisement and pick up my latest Nouwen purchase: Reaching Out. Truth pours out on the page before me. "When, after a busy day, I am alone and free I have to fight the urge to make one more phone call, one more trip to the mailbox or one more visit to friends who will entertain me for the last few hours of the day. And when I think about the busy day I sometimes wonder if [what I did today] has, in fact, not become one big distraction-once in a while entertaining-but mostly preventing me from facing my lonely self which should be my first source of search and research."

Nouwen wrote that some thirty years ago. What would he have to say about our habits today? I can say this for him: if he checked his mailbox then as often as we checked our digital inboxes today, he'd have had no need for a gym membership.

Dry humor aside, Nouwen would never have made it far in the advertising world. He calls out our disease and hopes for himself and for us that we seek not more of it but rather the cure.

As to what that cure entails, I would suggest that Nouwen's book is a great start for those who care to know. As for me, I have some work distractions beckoning, so I will end this blog simply recognizing that my world has become so lost that the very notion of being found out is a worrying one to it.

PS—that advertisement about getting lost?

Yeah. It's for Dell Alienware computers. If alienation is the goal, it's only fitting that Alienware should get you there. We're an alien nation, indeed.