Truth.

These are the well-known pursuits.  These are the ones that we have come to expect.  The thirty-something has pride on the line as he dons his iPod and prepares for the half-marathon.  It says, “I’ve still got it.”  Somewhere there’s a small-business woman who keeps pushing through levels of exhaustion that would do most of us in to make her business succeed.  It says, “This is what I can accomplish when I stick with it.”  We do our counselors proud when we have a moment of epiphany.  We say, “I’m finding myself.”

We’re deep, spiritual beings, us humans.  Our souls run deep into the existential realm.  We can pursue ourselves for a lifetime, identifying desires and working hard to meet them, analyzing shifts in our passions and aiming our longings at other targets.  Contributing to the notion that the west is incredibly materialistic is this very inward drive. Those scratching the surface in this journey often respond by buying clothes or cars or catamarans.  It’s not hard to understand why much of the world takes this self-centeredness for granted.

At our core, though, I don’t believe that our culture, or any person, is wired to be self-consumed.  I don’t believe that we are designed to be islands unto ourselves, to exist as idealized individuals.

And our rampant materialism proves it.

I would argue that our pursuit of positions and possessions are more an indication of a desire for community than anything else.  Yes, it’s obviously misdirected, but it speaks volumes.  Some will argue otherwise, but I have a strong sense that most luxuries we pursue have much to do with our standing relative to others.  I don’t just mean in terms of comparisons – i.e. Look at my thing; my thing is better than your thing, therefore I’m better than you.

There’s also the desire to fill the role of provider.

We have come to a point in this crazy journey called the “human race” where need and want are nearly synonymous.  Take this completely believable example: Maybe you own a high speed train.  Given that we’ve misconstrued one’s want to ride on a high-speed train with a need to ride on a high-speed train, your offer for me to ride your high-speed train is actually contributing to community.  It may well be driving your self-centeredness and feelings of grandeur through the roof…. I get that.  But we have a notion that the community benefits as well.

You can feel free to replace “high-speed train” with “sailboat,” “awesome sick car,” or “deck with an incredible pool and to-die-for grill.”  It all works the same (except for riding on the grill which could get to be slightly less confortable than the sail boat).

Even in what seems like were being selfish, perhaps we’re being community-ish.

We exist in a culture where the dominant message reinforces a strong sense of self-worth, self-dependance, and self-reward.  It’s impossible not to incorporate some of these concepts into out daily routine and understanding.  But even in the most extreme examples, I argue, that there is an underlying innate sense of community life – dare I say, of communal life.  A world where what I have is (somewhat) yours.

There are plenty of questions to be raised at this point about trust and choice and freedom and liberty and Russia and China.  Even as tribesmen we shared the spoils of the hunt with our tribe while we tried to annihilate other tribes.

I’m simply saying that maybe the fame and fortune and position and possessions that we’re pursuing is not all meant for ourselves.

And if that’s the case, what else can we do for our community?

God of the worn and tattered

All of your people matter

Give us more than words to speak

‘Cause we are hearts and arms that reach

And Love climbs up and down the human ladder

There are three new women in my life that I can’t get off of my heart.  They are loving and kind and beautiful.  The story of how our paths first crossed is an interesting one, involving my wife, a school project that she was not looking forward to, and an introduction by a mutual friend from another country.

It’s never been tempting to say that we met by chance.

My friends are actually a happy, loving family: a mother and her two precious daughters.  The mom has endured some pretty tough circumstances, but her heart has remained soft and compassionate.  Her daughters, 3 and 5, are supernova-energy-balls wrapped up in tiny human bodies with cute little human faces.  They are curious and loving.  It is incredible to spend time with them, hearing about what they did that day and what they want to do tomorrow, deciding what kind of cake they want on their birthday and which Disney or NickJr character is currently the focus of their attention (FYI: it’s Dora).

It’s one of those friendships where you have to be strategic about visiting.  Kristy and I have to been keenly aware of what sort of appointments are bookending these visits, because once the conversation gets rolling time morphs and stretches, shrinks and reconfigures until we’ve missed class or are late for work.  Yet somehow it’s still worth it.

To be fair, one of the reasons why we have to watch our time is because time is far less of a concern for this family.  Their days are much more loosely organized.  They get up, and get some breakfast at no set time.  From then on it’s pretty laid back until dinner, and pretty laid back again until some indeterminate bedtime.  There is no job to interfere with their daily plans.  It’s free and easy.

Except, it’s not free and it’s significantly difficult.

You see my friends live in abject poverty, at least by American standards.  Now they’re fighting circumstances, consequences, and systemic shortcomings in a effort to find a better way.  The story of how they got her is heart-breaking and filled with abuse and pain.  What is even more depressing for me as their friend is to have to stand beside them and watch as with every positive step they take some mysterious force deals them another blow.

I know how it is.  Middle-classers can say with relative ease that “They’re just dealing with the consequences of their choices,” or “Let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps… America is land of opportunity.”  Few, if any, of their choices landed them where they are.  Pulling themselves up by their bootstraps is only possible if they could afford to buy boots instead of being forced to wear the same pair of $5 Old Navy flip flops that the mother has owned since the first day we met.

Systems have failed her.  Forms that should have been filed in duplicate were accidentally filed in triplicate at some head office and so this mother went without any sure way of providing food because she was suspected of trying to game the system.  Social workers have advised her to stand in line for three hours at facilities that have never claimed to be able to meet any of her needs.  State child care workers have tried to enforce what can only be described as their own petty preferences instead of prescribed policy.

Yet, this family understand that it’s just another day with another adversity to overcome.

I see her and her situation.  I hear her trying to figure out a way to get winter coats for her kids, and who of her friends can help provide meals for them until her food stamps are reinstated (after being mistakingly cut off).  I see her kids attempting to process what it means for a woman to have a loving husband.

More than this I see her desperately trying to make life better for her kids, finding a way out of her dangerous neighborhood, applying at every business that might hire a woman with less than a high-school education while looking for ways to achieve her GED.  I hear the fear in her voice as she talks about what it could mean when the father of her children gets released from prison.

All this happening in the shadow cast by some meaningless skyscrapers where meaningless finances are traded and bought and sold every day for meaningless profit and meaningless bonuses.

Take away everything that I’ve just described about this family.  The government assistance.  The prison terms.  The questionable practices by social workers.  The lack of food.   The high-school drop-out. The abuse.  The five dollar flip-flops.

Laid bare as a generic mother with two generic children, you and I would have no trouble whatsoever in saying that these people have worth and are deserving of opportunities and some basic necessities.  It’s only as we pile on circumstances that we begin to doubt and question and wonder if she should be left to deal with the bed that she has made.  It’s a sorry state of affairs but I’m glad we keep her all but locked away in public housing where I don’t have to deal with it.

By God, this woman still matters.  She is worn and tattered, but she still matters.

And there are millions like them.  And there are $millions frivolously wasted and metaphorically burned each day simply because it’s mine.  What are we doing?  More appropriately, perhaps, what are we not doing?

Give us more than words to speak

‘Cause we are hearts and arms that reach

And Love climbs up and down the human ladder

“I want to expose the wound to as many people as possible because there may be someone who could help the healing” :: Jeremy Current, Watershed Charlotte

There are moments of artistic openness that as a listener you absolutely have to seize, to grab ahold of knowing that you’re likely to learn something incredible. This was made true for me this past Sunday at Watershed when Jeremy Current, a guest vocal artist, began telling some of his story. While exposing some of the wounds that birthed one of his tunes he shared the quote above.

I was absolutely captivated, evidenced by my leaning forward in my chair and widening eyes. What I felt was a combination of a deep connection with this truth and yet an amazement at the succinctness with which he was able to verbalize truths that have taken me 30 years to even acknowledge. There are still chasms to cross before I begin to understand it.

It is not that I was unwilling to be vulnerable for fear of showing weakness. There are not enough über-masculine bones in my body to justify this. Essentially vulnerability required me to be satisfied with being embarrassed about the nature of my wound and required others to be at all interested in my being wounded and needing healing. Neither were realities that I could comprehend.

What I’m learning about vulnerability, though, is that it is provides the fuel for inspiration, transformation, and even revolution. Consider the concept of famous last words. When faced with challenge, defeat, looming destruction it depths of your soul, your heart, your core desires are the things that come out. The most well-known response when staring down the barrel of a gun is: “Please … I have a wife and family.”

These things come from down deep. It’s unfiltered soul-speak without any pretense or filter.

These are the important things.

The “I don’t want to be here anymore” things.

The “I don’t know what to believe” things.

The “I’m sure we can make it if we just have one more chance” things.

And, it is often in the vulnerable moments when we hear ourselves audibly speak the confessions and fears and troubles and questions that have been floating around in our heads that change can take took.  It’s fertile ground.  It’s shaken.  It’s soft and prepared for new things.

Seize those moments when you or someone close to you is being vulnerable.  Drink in the confession.  Let it stimulate your mind and heart. Let it stir your soul.  Let it connect you to another being.

And while you and I may never stare down the barrel of a literal gun, our hearts will break and our souls will be wrenched. We’ll be disappointed in our self.

Our failure.

Failure, though, and disappointment are the critical components for relationship.  Transparency breeds trust.  It is in the togetherness of life that my vulnerabilities and your concerns become our collective strength.

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come in kicking down the door

This lyric is from a Sara Groves song – When the Saints.  Every time I hear it, it blows my heart to smithereens, and without fail, I’ll get something in my eye.  Without fail.

The song itself, if you’ve not heard it is pretty unassuming – essentially, Sara says she wants to walk in with the Saints, mentions a few Bible characters for comparison and off she goes singing again.

Then this happens:

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

I see the young missionary and the angry spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear

I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sister standing by the dying man’s side

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come in kicking down the door

I see the man of sorrows and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

In all seriousness, that one lyric does it for me.  I’m sure there are lots of reasons why but, for whatever reason, I really connect with the spirit of this thought.  I think about being a guy and about all of the baggage that comes along with that – teenage years of hormone-induced lust and the residual hormone-hangover that most of us experience throughout our twenties.  I think of pornography and how what can start as an innocent curiosity and what gets regarded too often as a rite of passage is, in fact, a mind-bogglingly large profit sector with complex revenue streams and profit sharing.  It is big business that, like all big businesses, are about making money.

It makes me wonder what portion of mouse-clicks support things like sexual trafficking. There has to be some fringe sites and systems that take advantage of men’s addictions. It makes me wonder how many of these girls get into the porn industry because they feel like they have no other options. It makes me wonder how many abductions result in forced sexual slavery – I know the numbers are staggering.

And then I think about us men having our lusts transformed into compassion, motivating us to turn off the computer and figuratively or literally busting down doors with an appetite for restoration, an appetite for rescue.

To me, this is incredibly moving imagery that speaks to me more strongly than I could even attempt to write about here. I’ve written before on this blog about how restoration speaks deeply to my soul and this may be, for me, the ultimate display of restoration.

Here’s the song on Lala.com so you can listen for yourself: http://lala.com/zZu8I

That said, I’ve posted my first post at http://equitasblog.wordpress.com.  It’s entitled “justice” – please check it out.

As we passed through what most uphold as a modern-day, mini Mecca, my heart hurt a little.

I understand that we live in a consumer driven economy and very smart people imply that this is a good thing and that I should be thankful.  I understand that a byproduct of this economy is that we have to put up with long lines at shopping malls and traffic jams entering the parking lot and several lanes of pavement in some parts of town.  And, I understand that having all of these buildings closed for one day (i.e. December 25).

But I couldn’t help but be a little sad that thousands of people were flocking back to Mecca after being banned from there for an entire 24 hours.  These worshippers were unsatisfied with the blessing they’d received just days before and made the pilgrimage back to the holy land in search of something, anything, more.

Are we really so desperate?

It could certainly be that I’m reading far too much into this situation and over-dramatizing a completely benign situation.  I’ve been convicted of similar crimes in the past and have yet to be reformed.  However, the unquenched longing that is represented by these traffic jams and gift receipts and incidents of road rage is altogether depressing to me.  I’m a different person than I used to be, granted, and the prospect of a “cheap” 42″ television would have perhaps called me to a great pilgrimage of my own.

So I am in no position to condemn….

I can simply say this.

This year was the simplest (read: fewest gifts under the tree, fewest days spent on the battlefield of the mall) Christmas that we have ever had. It’s also been THE most rewarding by far.  It’s freeing.  It’s enabled us to be compassionate and generous in other ways – not new ways, simply ways that had been concealed by our own selfishness in the past.

What would it look like for your family to try this?  Plan for Christmas in much the same way – save money, clear the credit card, however you handle Christmas, but instead of trying to outdo the annually-increasing precedents you’ve set for yourself, commit to buying one gift (at the most!) for your immediate family members.  Take the same resources and funnel them towards a family who may have nothing – buy them food, or gas for their car, or presents for their kids, or sheets for their bed.  Try it.  Just once.  See if it’s not the most rewarding Christmas that you’ve ever had.