Monday, January 31, 2011

RE:Imagine - Your Destiny Redefined part 1



The Search for True Significance

We look up and ask questions – it’s in our nature

Ever since man first looked up in wonder at the skies we have been curious. It seems to be almost a required attribute of the creature called human. After enough years we begin to seek more sophisticated and satisfying answers to these longings. We seek those closest to us, our elders, parents, teachers, and pepper them with the whys and hows of our existence. As soon as a child is able to speak this desire to have understanding is evident. In the lyrics to the Bobby Timmons jazz piece "Dat Dere" the child is continually asking wonderfully absurd questions:

"Hey mama, what's that there?
And what's that doing there?
Hey mama, up here! Mama, hey look at that over there!
And what's that doing there?
And where're they going there?
And mummy can I have that big elephant over there?"

It seems this childish curiosity gets it's answers, but this only leads to the inevitable next question. The looks of befuddled, bedraggled parents all over the globe attest to the power of this stage of a child's life to exhaust, annoy, and occasionally, to delight.

     - We look outward at others and compare ourselves to them
Next, of course, is the inevitable step of looking to external factors and to compare ourselves to others. You're tall, I'm not. You're different in a hundred ways to me. In children, of course, this is not usually a problem. Remember the stories of black and white children playing together happily in the playground of South Africa during apartheid. They had no idea they were so different until their parents informed them. Of course, our comparisons grow up as we do. They become more subtle, more damning, more condemning and secret.    


We seek for achievement to distinguish ourselves

And so, we seek to be known for something good, unique, powerful, so we can look good on our own comparison meter. It starts in the school yard, where we realize we are taller, or smarter, or gifted differently from the other kids. We appreciate ourselves because we are the ones who are good at math, or sports, or singing. And as the years go by the comparisons get more elaborate with spelling bees, science projects, sports team championship, and all of the other myriad ways we acknowledge achievement. Of course, a wall full of trophies from Jr. High don't guarantee a successful, fulfilling life, do they? One of the most humorous moments in the movie Napoleon Dynamite was the scene of Uncle Rico video taping himself throwing a football and fantasizing about going back in time to win state. It's funny, but in a pathetic way. And the reason it's funny is it is all too true of us all. We all relate to Rico and his sad fantasy. We want to be special, significant. We all desire to be champions or beauty queens of some kind, admired by adoring crowds. When this desire is turned into an adult desire for success many of us find a challenge worthy of our greatest attention. We exchange the trophies, awards and crowns for houses, cars and status. But within all of this is the very real desire to be significant. 


We seek to love and be loved

As we grow older our attentions turn to the possibilities of reaching some fulfillment in relationships with others, in friendship, marriage or dating relationships. This is by far one of the most rewarding and worthy things to pursue in a life lived well. Much has been said and written about the importance of a strong family and the benefits it accrues to the individual and society. Looking at the lives of great men and women of history confirms that those that have a solid, affectionate and nurturing family ultimately become the great leaders of society and the world. 
     But not all of us had such an atmosphere to grow up in. Most of us, truth be told, were in a less than perfect family. Even this desire of one member of a family to have an ideal family has been the ruin of a family. Think of the families where the appearance of this ideal for the public has become more important than the actual people in the family. We have all heard of the senator or business leader whose family was out of control and even violent in private. And while most of us don't experience this level of dysfunction, we would probably all agree that this is an area of great pain for many people. 
     Then we seek fulfillment through another in relationship. The volumes that are printed on a daily basis about all of the various relationships between actors, singers and 'reality tv' stars are a testament to the importance attached to this in our day. Why else would a person buy a copy of multiple gossip magazines every month? And of course the answer is to feel better about themselves. They look at the Hollywood couples and say either, "Man, my life is great compared to this mess," or they dream of their perfect royal wedding to Prince Perfect. And so while they are fantasizing and comparing they are also desiring something better and higher for themselves. 
     This desire to be loved and to love finds it's  most common attempt to be fulfilled in the riches and ditches of romantic relationship and marriage. From the beauty of the Biblical narrative in the Song of Solomon to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to Titanic we have made much of the ideal of love and romance in our Western culture, and rightly so it seems. For even the most tawdry and illicit relationship has at least one moment of bliss and excitement that points to something greater still. Something that seems to say, "Keep seeking."      
        
We seek experiences of all kinds

For many the search for meaning and significance leads to a kind of eclecticism of experience. Thrill seekers, chill seekers, and adrenaline junkies of all types go for the style of life best described in our day as the Just Do It mindset. Some go into the mystical and spiritual areas of life and develop deep, spiritual lives, seeking the highest and the best humanity can achieve. Others  develop their experience orientation around health and fitness, or sports. Of course, there are the extremes of the extremes that lead to destructive lifestyles and even sickness and death. Stories of drug addiction and sexual exploits gone wrong and leading to the ditch of disease and debauchery, and the exploitation of young people in cults are all too common stories we know of in our own lives or someone we know. Experience is valuable, but in itself is no answer to the true call of the wild in our souls. 

We seek achievement through our children or others

And if all of these previous things seem to have passed us by, we can put the responsibility of our significance onto someone else in our lives, whether a spouse or a son or daughter, small group of people or those we work with or that work for us. I always get the picture of the parent yelling at the kid when they are not playing well at the little league game or soccer tournament. "Eyes on the ball, Danny, dog gone it! That kid, I swear." This is followed by silence in the car on the way home and an hour of throwing strikes or free throws before dinner. This is a destructive pattern that is all too common in our competitive society where there is no place for losers. First place or no place. Nobody ever remembers the second place runner up, they say. The worst place I have ever seen this kind of behavior was not at the ball field or concert hall, or a business, but in church. Kids told that they are the next "Apostle So-and-So with a call to reach the Nations" without being given the tools and training and nurture necessary to really fill those kind of shoes. It's hard enough to be a teenager or young person these days, much less to be responsible for the whole world. Even if they are the next great generation, they need to see it before they can be it. Parents and elders are responsible to model greatness, and not just push it upon young people without a commitment to help them when it gets hard. Placing the responsibility for our personal significance and worth is a destructive habit if not done right. However, when a true vision is presented and made available, and healthy mentoring and modeling are present, then this is not abuse, it is passing on a multi-generational legacy, which is something so rare in these days of extreme fatherlessness as to be almost apocryphal. 

We are wired for significance – the image of God

What could possibly be the source of all this energy, all this desire, all this frenzied search for a place of purpose and significance? The image of God. E. Stanley Jones, the Methodist evangelist and friend of Mahatma Ghandi so eloquently put it:  

"Three writers, all important and prominent - John, Paul and the author of Hebrews -all say in varying terminology that man and nature and the whole universe were made by Christ and for Christ, that a destiny is therefore written into the structure of new things, and that structure and that destiny is a Christian destiny. Whom he did "predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Rom. 8:29). We are destined by our makeup to be made into his image. When we work in his way we work well; when we work in some other way we work our own ruin.
     Can anything more important and more consequential be said about human nature and human destiny? If so, I do not know of it, nor have I heard of it. It sounds too good to be true, but it is too good not to be true."

According to the original Owner's Manual for human beings, the Bible, it is clearly stated that God deliberately made us in the same class of beings as himself, able to understand right from wrong, able to communicate and express thoughts, able to be creative in many facets, and able to express love and be loved. God is the one who gave us His desire to express ourselves in actions of creativity, love, and passion. He is the one that one that said "Go ahead, whatever you think of to do, go for it. Fill the whole Earth with the signs and evidences of the image of God in man. Fill the earth with art, music, families, nations, and swimming pools. Write code, write novels, write constitutions, and live according to this constant divine push to live, love, and show forth the fruits of your brilliant mind , heart and soul. And everywhere you do this you are showing forth the Glory of God, as well as the ingenuity of man.

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