October 30, 2011
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We Are the World
So it snowed in October. In Virginia. I am not happy.
And on the day it snowed, my heat disappeared (turned out that a part needed to be replaced.) It was a cold night. I am fortunate to have many space heaters to keep me warm. People who have to live routinely without heat crossed my mind. The homeless in NYC. The heatless in Seattle. (OK, I'm stopping myself.) I started to wonder how it must feel like to freeze to death... not the physical experience, but the emotional one. To be huddled all by yourself... it's painful to think about.
If you had a choice of being born anywhere in this world, where and when would it be? (Someplace that has heat, perhaps?) I mean, purely speculative, since we all know that messing with time/space/destiny/whatever is not really probable. But if you had an alter ego with whom you must eventually swap bodies with (this is a lot more probable than the other statement), where would you have them be born? Personally, I don't think it really matters... I like to think it'll be interesting to see how life throws its cards out. I would, however, prefer to be born in a nice hospital. High-tech. Clean and starchy. Nice doctors. WiFi. (So my baby hands can write emails.)
And while we're there, perhaps a first world country besides America so I can grapple with different first world problems than I'm dealing with now. Like not being able to get on a WiFi network.
It's said that the best way to get to know a person is to know their choices, and how they made them. Maybe this is revealing to me that as much as I claim to be ok with discomfort, I really prefer to think I'm protected, covered, backed up. You know. Not protected in the "I'll-save-you-in-the-back-alley-with-my-macho-skills" protected, but in a different sense. In this case, the knowledge that I don't have to fend for myself. That if something happened, it would be ok. That I wouldn't have to worry about my own safety, or my own development, because someone would be backing me up. Someone who shared the interest that I might have at the time: staying alive. In the end, I know I'm driven by my desire for knowledge and my craving for peace. But perhaps I'm more coddled than I'd like to admit.
But if I really had the choice to take a pen and rewrite my past, reaping the benefits of academic, social, physical, and spiritual health, I would ask for the best in all categories. I'd like to have access to not only the best minds, but the best mentors. No allergies. Friends who will teach me how to be a better person. Spiritual fortitude and leadership. And if I wanted to change the world, maybe I'd coincide my life with those of other Influentials.
And then I think of Jesus.
Sitting in the realms of glory, as He looked with His eyes into the future, in all the ways it could be played out, in all the ways He could have arranged things, He chose a barn. Hay. Animals. Cold. He chose to be born out of wedlock. He chose Nazareth. He could've looked out for Himself just a little better. Averaged it out a bit. Even just one notch.
The differences between His decisions and my own inclinations strikes me. His lack of thought of His own comfort and protection lies in stark contrast to my own self-interested heart. The one that is always comparing and contrasting options to see which would make me the most comfortable. Which would make me better off. Which would make me less compromised in terms of whatever standard I happen to be measuring at that point.
To me, Jesus presents mankind in its perfection. He is the craving of every heart: not only to know Him and to love Him, but to be Him. To be that person who does not get easily angered. To be that person who loves without dissimulation. To be that person who can be bold and beautiful for God and for others. To be that person who thinks it not beneath him to kneel at the feet of his followers and do the job of a servant. And for it not to be a struggle; it not being an "ok, let's get this over with so I can talk about the service of humility." To be at peace with God and with mankind.
It was His decision to be bruised for us. To choose mockery. To choose to be hung in the most humiliating position in a public place, stark naked. If I had to choose, I would have liked to at least be modestly covered. No. Jesus chose.
And I'll never know why.
I'll never know what it means to choose that kind of life. And for me, who really, has nothing of value to offer in return. I am Peter, who recoils from the One I hold in highest regard touching my dirty feet. My dirty life. My dirty soul. Don't touch that. I'll do it. I'll get someone else to do it. And yet He has drawn ever the closer, and His grace has abounded where I have abundantly fallen.
I am reminded again, not only of the character of His love, but the character of His heart. The heart that chose a difficult life, willingly. A heart that did not turn away from the lowest depths this world had to offer. A character I want to emulate, but all my efforts are mere apings.
I can only choose to be loved by this Man. And I choose it. Like Peter, not just my feet, by my entire useless body. But it is enough. I give in. The God of open and closed doors has stood outside mine, and I have opened. And it's been like a flood.
We are the people for whom Christ made these deliberate choices. I am the person on which the eye of the Creator is on. You are the one that is loved enough.
