Vicarious Superman

Posted on by
1

My heart races as I dash across the dark corridor. I’ve only got two minutes left, and if I don’t make it… well, I don’t even want to think about not making it. As I reach into my jacket pocket to check my GPS, I feel an unfamiliar warmth. Blood.

I’m wounded.

I burst through the narrow door at the end of the hallway with an abrupt blow to my shoulder. I’ve reached the compound entrance, but the clock is quickly ticking. The next moments will decide the fate of countless lives.

Click-click

I press pause and slowly slide off the couch. I’ve been watching  re-runs of 24 for three hours and desperately need a snack and a bathroom break. As I take my eyes off of the TV, I can’t help but wonder: Why do most guys (and many girls) love watching Jack Bauer race through blood-pumping conflicts in near-identical plots lines over and over again?

I think the answer is we want to experience greatness without sacrifice. We want to live meaningful lives, but we don’t want to experience the hardship of risky endeavors, tough donations and gritted determination. In other words, we want to save the world without getting off the couch.

As a result, we’ve become vicarious Supermen.

Image

When we were children, few of us doubted whether we would live meaningful lives. Rather, we faced the dilemma of deciding whether to become space explorers, professional athletes or some variation of Indiana Jones. If you’re reading this though, chances are you now spend a large portion of your school/work life staring at a computer screen and turn to blockbuster films, TV shows and the occasional weekend road trip for your fix of adventure. I do the same. In this way, we’ve traded our daring aspirations for Hollywood productions.

Of course, popular narratives have their place. Storytelling in all forms (novels, movies, TV programs, magazine articles, podcasts) can inspire our minds, challenge our world views and trigger our passions, but the key resides in allowing these narratives to supplement our real lives, not replace them.

The moment when Iron Man saves a dozen Air Force One passengers with a Barrel-of-Monkeys strategy or when Katniss rescues Peeta with the perfect shot  should inspire us to worry less and sacrifice more. Unfortunately, we often settle for the imaginary and let these pretend acts of heroism quench our desires for the real.

We can’t all become FBI special agents and African aid workers, nor should we strive to. But rather than living vicariously through the sacrifices of fictional characters, we should find ways to live outwardly and intentionally within our own respective spheres on influence.

The Bombing You (Probably) Don’t Care About.

Posted on by
16

As dozens of runners crossed the finish line full of purpose and passion, horror exploded through the crowd and forever changed the lives of hundreds.

The Boston bombing shocked all of us.

Of course, this is the worst form of tragedy. Hatred manifested itself in the form of a physical weapon and wounded more than 170 people.Three people died, including an 8-year-old boy.

Shortly after, millions of people began praying for the victims and their families, the president made comments, press coverage ran wild and thousands of good citizens donated dollars and blood. The response has been monumental.

This type of catastrophe rightly merits a flood of tears and donations, and yet as another bombing occurred today (also horribly destructive) no one seems to notice.

Less than 24 hours after Boston’s tragedy, members of an anti-Taliban political party met to promote their hopes for freedom and reform.

During the meeting, a suicide bomber flipped a switch that killed at least 18 innocent people and wounded dozens.

Image

As Americans, we pride ourselves on defending innocence and despising evil, but since this happened in Peshawar, Pakistan, few of us care.

While we should naturally feel greater remorse for an attack within our borders, outrage for one tragedy and indifference toward another is a serious issue. Here’s why.

The reason many of us do not care about the bombing in Pakistan is rooted in the same reason someone insanely sought to terrorize Boston.

We stigmatize the ‘other side’ and deem those who are different from us as having less value. Obviously, indifference toward the Pakistani tragedy and an intentional terrorist attack are not comparable. Yet stigmas lead to racism and racism leads to hatred and hatred leads to extreme violence.

Life has the same value everywhere, and if we desire to strive for peace, we have to start by acknowledging God-given value in every person.

Is Social Media Killing Our Focus?

Posted on by
2

Like most other mornings, I wake up early to the sound of a digital wind chime. I roll over and unconsciously slide the unlock bar on my phone, briefly checking my e-mail and scrolling through last night’s Tweets and Facebook statuses. Moments later, I’m at my desk with a cup of coffee, ready to meditate on scripture and pray before rushing off to work.

Father, I ask for grace to walk in Your peace and presence today. 

An Instagram image of my friend’s birthday party flashes through my mind. Was my ex-girlfriend there?

Teach me Your wisdom and help me share it with others. 

I wonder how I should respond to my brother’s Facebook message. I need to do a better job of staying in touch.

Help me to honor Your name and remember Your ways in all that I do.

My next thought is replaced by college jocks doing the Harlem Shake underwater on YouTube… How do they hold their breath for so long?!

As I integrate more and more social media into my daily routine, I find it increasingly difficult to clear my thoughts and focus on one subject, and I doubt I’m the only one who struggles with this. Twitter feeds and Tumblr dashboards condition us to engage in multiple conversations at once. Instagram trains our minds to rapidly jump from one subject to the next in less than a few seconds. Our brains effectively adapt to process the most common forms of sensory perception they receive, so this begs the question: Is social media killing our focus?

Image

More than half of the world is now on some form of social media. Today, one out of every seven minutes spent online is on Facebook. Twitter receives about 300,000 new visitors daily. Not coincidently, a study by Lloyds TSB Insurance showed that attention spans have fallen to an average of five minutes, down from 12 minutes in the late 90’s.

Culturally, this loss of patience is seen clearly in the growing popularity of speed dating. A friend once invited me to go with him to a quick round downtown, saying, “You’ll meet 20 girls in an hour.” Since I had no other plans for the night, I lackadaisically agreed. Later that night, I found myself zipping down a line of tables, making fast-paced comments like, “I love dogs, too!” and “I thought about studying anthropology.” It seemed like a conveyer belt of conversations, and although I had never speed dated before, it felt oddly familiar to my online interactions. Sadly, I made no genuine connections and walked away with nothing other than the knowledge that most girls like dogs and anthropology.

Of course, this is a goofy example, but a serious problem arises when our relationships with our friends, family and God parallel our interactions on social media.

Throughout scripture, we see examples of God leading His people to listen with patience and focused attention. When God calls Ezekiel to wait for His presence on a mountain in 1 Kings 19, for example, Ezekiel must resist the distractions of the wind, earthquake and fire before he hears the Lord’s voice in a “gentle whisper.” Had he let his mind wander, he may have missed the God of the universe speaking to him. Today, if we allow social media to deeply influence the way we think outside of digital space, we run the same risk of overlooking the most important voices in our lives.

Inherently, social media platforms are neither good nor bad. They are tools that allow us to globally share our thoughts, ideas and creative works with others. When used wisely, they have enormous social benefits (think Arab Spring, NGO fundraising and breaking news coverage).

The key therefore is not unplugging altogether, but rather examining how each platform affects our minds, and then creating balanced approaches to minimize damage on our focus. Because really, Harlem Shake videos should never take the place of deep conversations.

The Problem With ‘Happy’

Posted on by
1

The moment you got the nerve to ask her out and she said, “I’d love to.”

The week you spent at the lake reading your favorite book for the fourth time.

The day you and your college roommates hopped in your car and took a road trip ‘just because.’

We all have moments of contentment that we hold in the back of our minds as benchmarks of true fulfillment, and often these memories drive us to continually work for new experiences of joy, laughter and peace. I’m talking of course about the universal pursuit of happiness, something hard to describe but universally understood. Image

The Princeton Dictionary defines happiness as the “state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.” Regardless of where you hope to fall on that range of emotions, the fact remains we all chase this elusive concept, as if we’ll wake up one day and say, “Found it!”

When I think about happiness, I think about the luxury vacation I took with my family last year to Nassau, Bahamas. We stayed at a swank Atlantis villa on the beach, bathing in sun every day and eating four course meals every night. We had all of our needs met at every moment, and we did whatever we wanted whenever we wanted to do it. On the last day, I even remember thinking, “Wow, I’m finally happy.”

Unfortunately, the next day I returned home to my under-paid job, a stack of paperwork and a slew of tough decisions to make. That quickly, I lost it.

As Americans, we know this juxtaposition all too well, and we’re determined to find a solution. We work harder for job promotions, we commit ourselves to tighter schedules, we save money for bigger purchases and organize our lives with better technology, because, dammit, at some point we are going to achieve it.

Happiness.

A London-based think tank recently released the top 10 rankings for happiest countries in the world. Where do you think America fell on the list? Not on it.

Here are a few unsettling facts:

-Americans are more likely to experience stress than people in 144 other countries.

-We consume nearly two-thirds of anti-depressants in the world.

-US life expectancy is 50th in the world, shorter than any other rich country.

Combining these facts with experience, I’m beginning to think our relentless, over-ambitious pursuit of elusive happiness is actually what’s leaving us unfulfilled.

In other words, our selfish fight for contentment is leading us farther from it. 

Sure, Will Smith experienced ecstatic joy when he got the job and achieved his dreams in the famed movie about this topic. But what do you think happened a few weeks later?  His son probably got sick, or his ex-wife created more drama, or maybe he realized signing the contract to make Men In Black III was a terrible decision.

My point is this: A life of pure happiness would be a life without conflict, and a life without conflict is a bad story.

Freedom comes when we thankfully embrace life with all of its ups and downs.

Stop believing the lie that one day you’ll obtain permanent happiness. Instead, leverage the inevitable conflict in your life to live a better story, loving God and those around you.

Pride Is Like A Knock-Off Ed Hardy Shirt

Posted on by
5

Pride is a funny thing.

We often carry it like a six-foot golden trophy, waving it in other people’s faces to show them we’ve successfully one-up’ed them on the social ladder with some accomplishment, skill or possession. The odd thing is social status always comes down to perspective.

sunglasses-1

I saw this clearly in a putrid slum in East Africa. While partnering with a youth ministry seeking to help homeless teenagers overcome their addictions, I walked through a dust-covered alley overflowing with rotting garbage. I noticed a group of boys who looked like they hadn’t eaten in days and may have gone months without changing clothes. They were the face of poverty. As I talked with a few of them, a golden object caught my attention as it reflected light into the corner my eye. I turned and saw the face of pride.

An ox-like man approached with a fancy pep in his step that caused his fat gold chain to bounce against his sleeveless knock-off Ed Hardy shirt. He looked like a scrawny Mr. T with a dose of Swahili swag.

“What’s up brothah? What are you doing in ma town?” he asked me.

I instantly understood. As the local drug dealer, this guy profited the equivalent of a couple American coins by selling dank marijuana and cheap glue bottles to the teenage addicts. By the world’s standards, he is the lowest of the low on the social ladder, but in this East African slum, he is king of the trash heap.

From an impoverished vantage point, this man has authority, control, power, wealth and prestige. From a first-world perspective, he stands somewhere between a pithy criminal and prime example of African poverty. In other words, he reveals the fact that social status is subjective, and from the right perspective anyone can be a beggar or a king. 

When I apply this to my life, I realize how absurd it is to compare myself to the social ladder of my surroundings. In Washington D.C., power and prestige come down to political savvy  and popular sway. People advance in this city by leveraging connections to garner political advancement. This works differently in other places.

In New York, status equals money.

In Los Angeles, status equals looks and fame.

In Nashville, status equals musical/creative ability.

These are certainly over-generalizations, but the point remains that different places and social circles deem status in different ways, and if we live and die by these subjective standards, we will never find fulfillment or inner-peace.

Great freedom comes in letting go of social status and accepting the fact that our lives will always be both enviable and pitiful to different people.

Humility isn’t having a low view of yourself; it’s having a true view of yourself. 

Therefore, if we stop measuring ourselves against our immediate social contexts and start viewing ourselves through the love and grace of God, we’ll begin to walk in peace and truth.

Because really, in the eyes of God, our pride probably looks as dumb as the African drug dealer’s knock-off Ed Hardy shirt.

Cafeteria God

Posted on by
Reply

I once talked to a Rastafarian Catholic who told me Moses reincarnated as Bob Marley to lead the true Israelites (Jamaicans) on an exodus to freedom.

True story.

With four-foot dreadlocks and a rosary draped around his neck, my Rasta friend thoughtfully explained to me how the two religions harmonized nicely to his liking.

Although this made for a highly interesting and entertaining conversation (especially because he also believed aliens created the pyramids and helped humans evolve from reptiles), his perception of God had little foundation in history, reasoning or credible theology. He essentially blended two separate faiths into one tasty God-smoothie.

This sounds offensive and politically incorrect to say, but my Rasta friend is wrong. Bob Marley was not Moses, and I don’t think either of them came from aliens.

ImageThis guy may be an extreme example of spiritual mixology, but the fact is many of us do the same thing.

We pick and choose aspects of different faiths, philosophies and denominations to apply to our lives as if we’re selecting lunch items in a cafeteria line. In other words, we trade truth for our own desires.

Add a little Mother Theresa to some Krishnamurti… Maybe a dash of Ghandi with some Buddhism for desert… 

I’ll be the first to admit I do this.

I really like stories, so I think of God as the greatest storyteller. I also like parties, so I emphasize the point that Jesus turned water into wine. I also really like to travel, so I often reference the way God led St. Paul on many Mediterranean journeys.

Stories, parties and travel are all great, but when we create God in our own image, we’re really just worshipping ourselves. 

I heard a young pastor accurately describe this issue when he talked about giving compliments to his wife. “You know what would happen if I told my wife she has beautiful black hair and green eyes?” he asked his congregation. “She’d probably get upset and call me crazy, because she has blonde hair and blue eyes.”

If there is a true God, then He has to have a true, unique identity, and if we want to understand Him, we have to be willing to lay aside our own desires to receive his truth.

The good news is that God is the greatest good. He is infinitely more than we could every imagine, understand or hope for, and as we seek him with humility and openness, we’ll see that He is much better than cafeteria mishmash.

Conversation with a Modern Abolitionist

Posted on by
1

Tom Davis worked as a well-paid youth pastor in a comfortable church, but everything changed after one experience. He led a short-term missions trip to a Russian orphanage and learned the shocking truth about child poverty, neglect and human trafficking. Now, he runs the innovative orphan ministry Children’s Hope Chest as CEO and attacks human trafficking on multiple levels. I interviewed him about his experience and perspective on this horrific injustice.

How easy is it to purchase a child in the developing world?

It depends on the country, but pretty easy. We’ve gone undercover in places like Moldova and Russia to find underage girls for sale. At hotels, normally the concierge or the front-desk worker is in on it. The taxi drivers are in on it. They take you to the place and they get a cut. It’s unbelievable how these networks have infiltrated every aspect of life. You go to main cities, you tell them what you want, and they’ll take you where you can get it.

In a Russian hotel where we were staying, a night guard told us the elevators were broken and that we would have to wait for them to be fixed. He said, “I know some young girls who would like to meet you.” He took us into a bar area, and there they were. The elevators had nothing wrong with them, but he deceived us. He wanted to divert our attention to these underage girls—they were clearly trafficked. This kind of thing happens all the time. It’s a network.

Image

Children’s Hope Chest uniquely fights human trafficking by connecting churches and businesses in America with safe houses abroad. Can you talk to me about this process?

It’s as close as you can come to adopting without adopting. We are trying to do a community-to-community model, meaning we help churches, businesses and online-blogging communities to sponsor families and orphanages overseas. To prevent human trafficking, we provide homes and ministry centers as a place for girls to go. In Russia for example, kids come out of orphanages at age 15 or 16 and 60 percent of the girls are trafficked. But in the regions where we work, that number is less than a quarter of a percent. Why? Because we get to know all the kids, provide housing, tell them the dangers and get them into universities. Much of this happens through the community sponsorships.

Do you feel in over your head trying to confront this issue? 

Absolutely. Because it’s evil, it’s dangerous, it’s everywhere. But the success stories keep me going. It’s the 11-year-old girl who we recently rescued out of a brothel in India. That’s why we exist. If we keep a handful of kids out of trafficking every year, then it’s worth it. And the more people that get involved, the more we can make a serious dent in this injustice.

How has your faith influenced your role in the anti-slavery movement?

My faith tells me that people have value, that we are all created in the image of God. That includes you, me and the little girl who is trafficked and forced to serve 20 people a day. She has value and worth, and God created her for something much better.

Additionally, my faith tells me that as Christ-followers, we are called to be the hope of the world. God has given us a mandate to go into places of dark injustice and overturn the cycle of events that occur. God isn’t left wondering why there are so many justice issues in the world that aren’t being taken care of. He has given the ideas and strategies into the hearts of his people on how to bring justice, but we must step out in faith. When we do that, the wrongs can be made right.

(This interview and others like it were featured in a longer article I did for Prism Magazine titled– On The Front Lines of Abolition. Check it on pg. 8 )