The City of Blinding Lights

(Photo by Justin Bowman)
“The more you see the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then than I do now”
-U2 City of Blinding Lights

All I can say is that I love New York! I never really traveled much growing up, but the one place that I always wanted to go was NYC. I used to dream that one day I would move away and live in the big apple because the more I saw and read of NY, the more I was intrigued and wooed by the singing sirens of the city.

I have now had my dreams fulfilled by visiting NY not once, but twice in the last year. I thought that visiting the city would satiate my craving once and for all, but I have found that the more I have seen, the more there is to see!

Bono sings about this very feeling in The City of Blinding Lights. I feel the same way, now that the more I’ve seen, the less I feel like I know about the city in all of its aspects. I have been overwhelmed by what I have seen and heard, for there is something so magical about the place. After two visits I have fallen even more in love with the beauty of the city.

My wife would say, “What’s beautiful about a place that has soo little grass?” and I think that many people would prefer to travel to see natural beauty, like the Grand Canyon, than the canyons of concrete, steel and glass. But there is something beautiful about it! Seeing the color reflected off of the faces of the people in times square at night, or watching friends and families play together in central park! We went one night to a rooftop restaurant and had a view of many buildings (Empire State, Met Life, and Chrysler Bldng.) from twenty stories up. The night was beautiful, and so was the view!

However, it is more than the architecture and flashiness that draws me to this city of blinding lights. It is also the people. The people captivate me, and I can literally sit there and people watch for hours on end. It amazes me how many people there are and how little interaction there is. You pass hundreds of people every day without a smile, a hello, or even a touch unless it is someone bumping into you on the sidewalk. Not only is this the city of blinding lights, but it is the city of ipods, solitude, and loneliness. How is it that one can be around soo many people, yet at the same time be so lonely?

Yet i realize that you can't blame the city for this! People everywhere are becoming more and more isolated. It is just so much easier to see in the city. Why do we do this? When we have a basic need for others, why do we barricade ourselves off from those things that we need most? hmmm...a topic for another day!

The city captivates me because people captivate me. I love people! I love getting to know people. I am addicted to trying to understand people, and psychology and biology can only explain so much about humanity. The more I see of people, the less I feel like I know. The more I learn the more I realize that I knew much more about people and about this wonderful city (at least I thought I did before I interacted with the city) than I do now! This city, just like people, remains a mystery to me. The more time I spend with each, the more I realize that there is a lot more to experience, observe, and understand. I can't wait to get the chance to do it again!

“oh you look so beautiful tonight,
In the city of blinding lights.”

Plugging the Blogger Buddies

While I am hard at work on my next post, I thought that I would draw your attention to a new Blog site that i have linked to under Blogger Buddies. This is the Blog of my best friend, Jamie, who will be leaving the good-ol US of A for a whole year! He is heading to Peru as a missionary for a year. I am both excited for him and sad at his departure. I talked him into blogging so that We can keep up with him while he is gone! Please check out his Blog regularly, as well as the other Blogger Buddies in my links! Come back soon for an update to my Blog!

Jamie's Blog: Mi Vida en Peru (My Life in Peru) http://www.missionmindedtarheel.blogspot.com/

fighting our fear

We have recently been spending time individually with our five newly adopted nieces. The other day we had one that had never been roller-skating. Alison and I decided to take her to our local skating rink only to find that after 15 minutes of trying to teach her to roller-skate she realized that she was too scared to try to learn any longer. We kept telling her that the key to learning to skate was simply to let go of the person holding you, get out there, and do it! The goal is to stop thinking and analyzing and to simply get out on the floor! Before you know it, you will be skating and will feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment!

Our wonderful niece, like most children, allowed her fear to rule her decision-making abilities. We offered to tighten her skates for her to make it easier, but by that time fear had its hold and would not let go. Instead, we went home and her and Alison baked cookies because our niece knew how to do that and was comfortable doing it!

Is there any Christian correlation to this? I think so! For many centuries most of Christianity has taken on the attitude of being Reactive as apposed to being proactive! The one thing that I herald more than anything else in the teachings of Christ is the building of the Kingdom of God (KOG). All of my life the KOG has been referred to as heaven- something that happens in the afterlife. However, if we look carefully Christ is quite ambiguous about the KOG. At times he refers to the KOG as something that will happen in the future; perhaps heaven perhaps not, but there are many occurrences where he refers to the KOG as being “at hand”.

“At hand”? What does that mean… it doesn’t exactly mean already here, but it doesn’t necessarily mean something in the far off future either. When Christ speaks of the KOG, many times he is referencing something that is being built. When Christ entered into the world, one of his messages and purposes was to begin the foundation of the KOG through his teachings, and then to had over the project to God’s children to build the KOG here on earth!

This is a PROACTIVE task. It is the charge to make the world a better place! It is the responsibility that we all have to make this world look like the picture of the KOG that Christ painted. We are really good at being reactive in this world! When someone decides that they are pro-choice, against the death penalty, supporting the rights of homosexuals, or support any other number of hot button moral issues that many Christians see as amoral, they RE-act in outrage. Sadly, this is really the only times when we hear about Christians in the media.

We are not supposed to be reactive, but proactive! These above mentioned moral agendas are meager at best from a biblical basis (although I know many would argue with that statement, so be it), especially when compared to the proactive charges given by Christ. Christ doesn’t speak on Gay marriage, but he speaks a lot about helping those who can’t help themselves! He speaks a great deal about the poor, meek, needy, and oppressed. Yet we really don’t hear much about Christians out there (Bono excluded) working to end world poverty/hunger, helping Aids victims in Africa, or even working to get the homeless in their local community off of the street and into a self-sufficient way of life!

Instead, we remain reactive because we are scared! It takes trust and (gasp) faith to go out on a limb and be proactive and make a difference in the world around us! Like our niece and roller-skating, it is easier to give up, go home and bake cookies from pull-apart dough than it is to stay on the floor, let go of our hand and learn to skate.

It is easier to yell at the daily clips on Fox news and agree with the Right Wing that Gay Marriage is Bad, than it is to go out and befriend the Gay community who is being oppressed in the name of Christianity! I am not trying to make a moral argument in that statement; I only use it to ask which of those two actions work towards building the KOG? One is reactive, while one is proactive. One is easy and comfortable, while the other requires faith, a level of awkwardness, and most importantly ACTION!

One of my favorite passages accredited to Jesus is found not in the canon of the Bible, but in the Gospel of Thomas:
“His disciples said to him, ‘when will the kingdom come?’ Jesus said, ‘It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying, ‘here it is’ or ‘there it is.’ Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.’”
(Saying 113)

When we call ourselves Christians, and operate only in the safe realm of the reactive, then we continue to blemish the Christian name because truly to follow Christ is to operate proactively in this world and do our part in building the KOG! Stop acting out of fear, and begin to act out of faith!!!!