A 100% Mortality Rate

It may be a difficult thing to accept because so many of us are at a place where our mortality is only theoretical, but it would be foolish not to try to understand what it means. One day you will end. In the words of James Fowler, “This body, this mind, this lived and living myth… will cease to be. The tide of life that propels me with such force will cease and I – this “I” taken so much for granted by “me” – will no longer walk this earth.”.

I know we are all somehow vaguely aware on an intellectual level that many of the things we care about on a day to day basis won’t really matter in the bigger picture of our life as a whole. We wouldn’t die to do many of the things we do while we’re dying. Think about that sentence. You wouldn’t die to do most of what you’re doing. But you’re dying while you do it. Shouldn’t we make ourselves more aware of what this might mean?

Most of the people who find out that they only have a fixed amount of time left to live were already dying before they were told this sad news. A process had already begun and had existed for some time. And they only thing they lost was their illusion that they had a lot more time. I remember reading an article in a newspaper about a woman receiving cancer treatment and the reporter asked her, “What’s it like to live every day knowing that you’re dying?” She responded with a question of her own, “What’s it like to live every day thinking that you’re not?”

It’s no secret that it’s purpose that matters most. The secret is to find a way to find a way to feel the need to act on it now. The secret is to find a way to turn down the volume on that deep and pervading sense that we will all, always have “more time”.

So what do you stand for? What do you want your life’s energy converted into? The steps we take to please ourselves turn our life’s energy into something that is within us – a sensation which turns into a memory – and it evaporates with us, leaving no residue in it’s wake. It could be said of many people after they are gone that they, “Lived for a while and pleased themselves…”

Purpose begins at the point where our life’s energy is used to touch someone else. When you touch someone else you’ve made a “noise” outside yourself – you have created something that can outlast you. In a very real way, you transcend your own mortality. As I said this past Sunday, when it comes to us and our so-called needs, maybe the key is not so much how do we meet them – because this is a daunting task and may not even be possible because it seems that they never end. Maybe the issue is how do we forget them, instead, because the effect is the same (to listen in visit our podcast online). A need met and a need forgotten both go to the same place in our minds where we no longer feel them.

It’s a brilliant challenge from an ancient teacher: use what time you have to touch someone else and you may just find that you set yourself free along the way.

Just a thought.

I hope to see you Sunday and I hope you bring someone with you.

I hope to see you there,

CSW

Your Look Has Got to Go

I think I’ve stumbled on an insight based on the experience of thumbing through a recent copy of Men’s Vogue (I didn’t buy it… I feel it is very important to make this distinction). As you might expect, there are articles in amongst the many glossy advertisements offering products which promise to make you look, smell and feel glamorous. . These articles are about people who have said or done important things and they often begin with a picture. There’s nothing anomalous in all of that (so far). But what I find interesting is that each of these photos contains a small package of text, off by itself, often down by the bottom corner of the picture which describes in great detail what this special person is wearing. Presumably so you could go off and find these clothes for yourself.

Once you train yourself to notice it, it get’s annoying… As though their clothes are an important enough life attribute that it deserves it’s own package of text separate from all the rest… I mean, of all the things we could seek to emulate from the lives of these interesting people, is dressing like them really significant? It’s as if the magazine is saying, “Here’s a person who’s done something special (advanced the cause of AIDS or some such thing). Jacket by Banana Republic, socks by Calvin Klein Sport, shirt by Abercrombie & Fitch, etc…” I don’t know how to put it down to a sentence, but something about it seems a bit ‘off’. Are those two ‘bit’s’ even related? Does the fact of what they’ve done have anything to do with ‘jacket by Banana Republic’?

It’s nothing new to recognize that our culture over-appreciates image. But it’s worth thinking about more deeply when these text-captions have gotten to the place where they not only no longer annoy us, but they blend right into our experience without so much as a thought. Jeans by Seven, sweater by Gap. When it comes to so-called ‘interesting’ people, is it really the case that we’ll settle for the look?

Image creates an impression. Authenticity is the word we use when image is smoothly and directly connected to identity (ie someone does not choose a set of jeans to look interesting, rather, someone is interesting for other reasons and then chooses a set of jeans in order to avoid being naked). What’s the net effect? ‘Image’ and the ‘impression’ are natural appendages of the person you really are. But our culture seems obsessed with completely ignoring identity. It’s cumbersome, time intensive and costly. So we’ll settle for simply creating the ‘effect’ of an interesting identity. That means the real focus of Men’s Vogue is about creating a ‘look’ that creates an ‘impression’. In other words: the magazine says, “Here’s how interesting people look… Do you want to look interesting?... Jacket by Club Monaco, shirt by Guess.

Ancient Christianity is about a whole other kind of story. It’s not about creating an impression by changing your ‘look’, it’s about having a whole new starting point on the inside. In short, it’s about transformation. It’s not about looking interesting, it’s about being transformed. Image over promises and under-delivers (someone can look interesting, but then we find out it’s only a look – pants by Brook’s Brothers). Transformation under-promises and over delivers because it’s all about the part that clothing can’t tell us. Transformation is all about the fact of having made different choices about who you are, not just how you look.

In a world that has been reduced to the 2 dimensions of our ‘look’, perhaps rediscovering that third dimension (substance and identity) will draw people into a whole new kind of living… (Glasses by Dolche & Gabbana not withstanding).

Just a thought…

I hope you have a great weekend,

Chris

Just Because

Our oldest daughter has arrived at the “why” stage full-blown. For any of you who’ve never been there it must be easy to imagine your way out of it. But what you never expect is the surprising difficulty of the simplest questions.. On one side, you don’t want to shrug it off because you want to honor their curiosity. But on the other hand, all of your answers have to fit into the mind of a 3 year old. It’s tough. As an example, how would you answer the question, “But why is it Thursday?” with anything other than, “Because it just is.” Think about it. Why is it Thursday?

I’m caught by this question all the time as I work to assemble the life experiences I think she needs because I can’t always explain what I’m doing in a way that will ‘fit’ into the mind of a 3 year old. The problem is that I’m not just trying to keep her warm, safe and well fed. I’m also trying to lay down a foundation of character, discipline and integrity. I want her to land at the first step of a fully adult life with every possible advantage. In other words, I’m trying to give her a bigger and better life than what I can explain to her right now.

All of this leads me to a very important question for you and I: How can Christ build a life for us which is bigger and better than we can understand – especially when every time He says, “Just trust me” you say, “But why?” I wonder if He’s caught with that question as much as I have been recently. “Just trust me,” I can imagine Him saying, “Tell the truth, treat people well, trust to what you cannot see and do the right thing as often as you can.” Why? Because it’s building something in us that we can’t always see or understand.

It’s something to consider as you put your thoughts together each day…

Chris