the cause of humanity

“If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men.”

-Oswald Chambers

who are you?

You don’t often pick up a biography and start reading in Chapter 8. I don’t at least, if you do I stand corrected.

But that’s what we do with almost all of the people we meet every day, isn’t it? We start reading on page 582, at that very moment. We get written into their story as anything from an extra to a main character. That means that we don’t have the whole book at our disposal yet - and so, from time to time, I think about the best way to get to know people.

If I could have the honest answer to one question, it would be simple. “Who are you?”

Not every detail about your personality, not your likes and dislikes, not your style or your attitude. Not even “Who do you want to be?” Take a look at what your life says about you - how would you sum up who you right now are at your very core in just a few words? Words like: disciple of Christ, encourager, leader, listener, peacemaker, adventurer, artist, loyal friend…

Most of us want words like those to describe us. I would argue that more often than not, my story and those of many others paints us as selfish, unoriginal, preoccupied, lazy, insincere, fearful, negative, uncommitted, misguided, opportunistic…

My challenge to myself and to anyone else who is willing to be honest is this: allow God to change you, making your story align with the answer to that question that he created you to give.

read.

It’s amazing how easily I forget how much I enjoy some of my favorite activities. Reading, for example – I was a bookworm of a kid growing up, and it’s probably my favorite relaxation technique still. Unfortunately, it tends to be one of the first things I give up when I get busy. A couple of weeks ago, with the craziest semester I’ve had in the last few years coming to a close, I intentionally picked up a non-informational novel and buried my face in it for a few days. It surprised me more it should have that I immediately felt better. I don’t think I’ll ever find anything that will replace the therapeutic effect of curling up in a soft blanket with a cup of coffee and the creative inner workings of someone else’s mind.

Reading makes me feel like myself. I become more attuned to the reactions of people around me after analyzing even fictional characters, and I’m almost instantly more observant. I actually feel like a more interesting person to talk to. There’s something about filling my brain with someone else’s carefully edited vocabulary and sentence structure that improves my ability to express myself.

How many times have you heard someone defend a film adaptation with the line, “Trust me, the book is SO much better…” I think the truth of the matter is that movies and television really do act like anesthesia. They force pictures complete with color and tone and inflection and detail and context into your head, requiring nothing beyond sensory acceptance. You are an incredibly inactive link in the transmission of information. When you read a novel, the thing you need is your eyesight to take in the typed words on the page. The beauty of literature is that a good writer can use simple language to create multi-sensory world entirely conjured by the reader’s imagination. Ink and paper actually inspire a more intense experience than hours of light and motion on screen because almost everything has to be invented by the reader. The greatest writers are those whose works have the ability to lead you into exactly the places and feelings they plan for you while maintaining a heavy dependence on individual imagination.

When I get too boring, please hand me a book. I think I’m starting to understand how effective a cure it really is for my occasional mathematically-induced comas.

good…

We have lost much of our ability to believe in fairytales.

We know and believe in heartbreaking tragedy, loss, horror, and pain. We readily accept the worst, comforted by the idea that life never was fair to begin with.

Yet somehow, we can’t allow ourselves to believe in outright goodness. We used to imagine that beauty, peace, loyalty, honor, and love existed untainted - somewhere, at least. Poetry was not considered a waste of time and emotion. It was possible to look at the immensity of creation and find yourself breathless. Sometimes the prince really did rescue the princess and live happily ever after.

No, nothing is scrutinized more thoroughly than what claims to be good.

I’m not suggesting that perfect fairytales are reasonable or that disappointment doesn’t exist. I would just like to imagine that people are capable of compassion, that love can be found in a true soul mate, that friendship can be selfless, and that laughter can heal. I have to believe in those things just as I believe in their opposites.

“It would be nearly impossible to bear the most hideous of evils if not for the most beautiful of justices.”

happiness.

-Whether it is or is not possible to be happy I cannot say. I see varying levels of happiness as corresponding levels of blissful ignorance of one’s misery.-

I took a basic ethics course my freshman year of college for which I was assigned an article on the issue of subjective happiness, stemming from the issue of whether an absolute right and wrong existed. This statement was made, and it stuck with me. In a strict sense, it is true - my dog loves having her ears scratched and seems to consider it the utmost source of happiness, but I could make the argument that the happiness I experience in the beauty of a spectacular sunset or in wonderful close friendships is so much more desireable, and she is simply unaware that she is missing out. Are we experiencing similar levels of happiness only because she is not aware that such things can be enjoyed? Are we experiencing similar levels of happiness at all? Is there any way to know or any reason to ask that question?

Ultimately, I don’t know and I don’t think it’s vital that I try to understand it. But I will say this - I have been blessed with a life full of joy, even in some of the worst circumstances. If I even try to use someone else’s life as a standard for happiness, I will either end up too satisfied or too discontent. So many times I get “the grass is always greener” syndrome, where I assume that if I had THAT __________ , life would be better. Other times, I have the reverse problem when I assume that since I don’t have to deal with __________ or didn’t get mixed up in __________ , I must be so much happier than the person to whom those blanks apply.

Truth is, it doesn’t matter. I could spend the rest of my life analyzing whether or not I am happy living it. Ultimately, I would NOT be happy because I really don’t enjoy philosophical thought beyond a reasonable point. And the point of life (though I can’t give you a short and sweet philosophical definition for that either) is not my happiness - that’s just a byproduct.

I’m going to spend the rest of my life enjoying what I can and intentionally avoiding situations in which I might find myself becoming discontent based on my perception of someone else’s life. Call me escapist, I don’t care - I have much more important things to live for.

joy

This week, I and about 500 college students experienced what I can only describe as the most overwhelming joy I have ever known.

The best I can describe it … an all-consuming energy that makes you feel that when you jump you’re defying gravity. When you laugh it sends shock waves through your soul and you can’t stop. When you sing at the top of your lungs you are joining what has been echoing through the earth from the beginning of creation. And when you look around you at a perfect celebration of grace and rescuing love, you can’t help but smile knowing who all of that is for.

If everyone experienced the presence of God that way - when you can almost tangibly feel God showering the children he gave everything for with an overwhelming love, when you can look into someone’s face and that alone gives you an inescapable impression that this religion thing has more to do with joy and hope and romance than with rules and guilt -

the world would begin to understand Jesus.

someday

Never look back, and look forward only when necessary. Instead, look around.

I think it’s safe to say that just about everyone has had to get over things in their past. We know that those things can shape you, but they should never control you. Don’t walk forward while looking back. We KNOW that. What you hear less often is a warning about walking forward while straining to see what’s far in front of you - so impatient to chase the horizon that you miss the view on the way.

What you’re going to accomplish one day doesn’t make up for how half-heartedly you perform today. If you chase your dreams too hard, you’ll miss the awesome adventure in the journey between here and there. If success is all you’re looking for, you’ll arrive at it (if you make it) and look back on empty, wasted time. You’ll always find an excuse to be distracted, to be busy, to overlook beauty in what is common or unnecessary. Life will not force you to appreciate it. Your dreams aren’t always worth the sacrifices you make for them.

Don’t count on your “someday” to fulfill years of missing the view.

anchor and adjust

Psychologists tell us that most people presented with a decision tend toward the “anchor and adjust” method - take what you think you know (your “anchor”) and make small adjustments until you arrive at a desireable answer for the question at hand. For example, if you are asked in what year Pocahontas died (and you do not have access to Wikipedia), you will most likely start with some related event that you know the date of and make a reasonable and logical adjustment from that point to arrive at your final guess.

What’s wrong with that? Nothing.

Unless your anchor is off.

When participants were asked “Is the population of Chicago more or less than 200,000″ and then asked to give their best estimate of the actual population of Chicago, the responses were typically not far from 200,000. When another group was asked “Is the population of Chicago more or less than 5 milion” and then asked to give an estimate, Chicago suddenly felt a lot more crowded. Because most people don’t have much relevant information stored in their memory for the population of Chicago, the only anchor they have is what is suggested to them in the question itself.

The human brain is much better at relative/comparative reasoning than absolute, so most of us naturally seek an anchor when confronted with a decision or problem. While this often helps us adjust to logical answers rather than making a guess with no information, assuming that information is correct can become a problem.

Behold the power of suggestion - be careful what you anchor to :)

ideology

I’ve recently been made fun of/criticized (I don’t know which, perhaps both) for being “young and ideological.”

Apparently that will all end when I grow up. Right now, I’m just too inexperienced to know that my opinions are impractical.

That might all be true, but of course my young ideological brain cannot accept it. This is probably just me being ideological, but isn’t that a GOOD thing sometimes? I hope that when I turn 30 my mind doesn’t automatically revert to the factual and the realistic. I refuse to allow myself to stop evaluating what I think and what I believe and instead settle for what has always worked. What if the conventional takes you in exactly the wrong direction? What happens when you reject all new ideas because they’re not what you’re comfortable with? What if you become so disillusioned that you mistake habit for truth?

I believe that you can see someone’s life change with one conversation. I believe that my job, especially as a Christian, is to give whatever I can of myself to others without an ounce of selfishness (which I will be working toward getting right until the day I die). I believe that it is those who are naive who usually accomplish the most positive change in this world - because they’re too unseasoned and unaffected by realistic limitations to know what they can’t do. I believe that God is bigger than any church or any person or any generation or anything we’ve defined him as, and I want to know him better because I’ve seen enough to know that I know very little. I believe that Christianity demands infinitely more of us than we (myself included) have ever been willing to admit. I believe that I should love people no matter what they did, are doing, or will do. I think that the American political system is disappointing, but it has enormous potential. I think war is terrible on many levels (though I will most likely never become a protestor) and I really wrestle with what to do with that concept as a follower of Christ. I believe that my education is my responsibility (and that it is important) and that it is healthy to learn things I don’t agree with and respect the opinions of others if I want them to respect mine. I want to adopt at least one child because I believe that I (personally, as this is not for everyone) can do more good for that individual child by getting my hands dirty and giving them a real home with a lot of love than by donating to an orphanage.

I could go on and pack this poor post to the brim with what I believe about the world. But the basic bottom line is that I would hate to imagine my life marked by a resignation to the realistic instead of a search for what more there could be.

So please don’t dampen my excitement or my inquisitiveness because you think I’m too ideological. You might be right - but I think the minute I stop looking at the world that way is the very minute I will lose the desire to change it.

don’t give up so easily

As an intern, I was expecting to get experience that would teach me that people with more experience are smarter than I am - and it has, to some extent. More than that, I’ve learned to have confidence in my own ideas.

I have a tendency to rely heavily on the advice of those I trust, and to place more confidence in the ideas of others than in my own. I’m having to learn that it’s okay to disagree with someone who “should” be more intelligent than you are if you are truly convinced that you’ve arrived at your conclusion the right way.

And I don’t think I’m alone. My advice is this: trust your mentors, your supervisors, your friends, your parents, your investors, your customers, the author of the book you’re reading, your pastor, and your professors - but know how to stand your ground if you really believe you’ve got the right idea, and don’t just give up because they have better credentials.

Of course, don’t take that advice if you still disagree with me. You might be right.