Freedom

Living on the Roulette Wheel

7 Comments / change, Contemplation, Freedom, God, Privacy, Stories / By

I went to visit an old friend in his new home a few days ago. I found “Fred” sitting in a semi-circle of 12 other people gazing at a TV. The others drooped, drooled, gaped or groaned in various depths of indignity.

But Fred, true to his nature, sat tall and regal, ignoring the TV and silently pumping hand weights; at 77 he still resists the inevitable trajectory of aging. He continues to fly above the lowlands.

Some would say that Fred lives “in community.” But he really doesn’t; he lives in a warehouse with other unique characters who all happen to fit into a box called “Alzheimer’s.” I understand; the system does not have time to get to know everyone. Of necessity, it looks past the person and focuses on the category.

Over recent decades the pace of American life seems to have become a centrifuge, spinning all of us away from a quiet, local and personal life. Like a roulette wheel, the centrifugal force throws us into the outer rim pockets of group identities – liberal, conservative, Muslim, paraplegic, gay, Gen-X, African-American, etc.

That force squeezes individuality, creativity, privacy and freedom as our larger institutions – government, business, media, religion, health care, etc. – press us into conformity with “higher” objectives. One result of that dynamic is that we are losing sight of the people right in front of our eyes. We all tend to see group labels.

When and why did that happen?

It seems to me that once upon a time, and when the pace and cadences of life were slower, our shared community values assumed that the universe was created. We didn’t “believe;” we knew that people and animals and plants and seasons and orbits did not just happen. It was self-evident; it required no proof or reasoning.

We also knew that every human bears the signature of God. And we granted respect to people because of the God Who created them. However subtle and silent, that respect recognized that the person beside you was created, and is loved, by God. The wise heart sought to find the true value and beauty of God’s design and love in that very distinctive person.

I think the loss of that assumption is a large part of why we no longer take the time to get to know people as individuals. We’ve all moved from the organic to the organizational, from relationship to productivity. Things move so fast that we have to make snap judgments; you know, for the common good. So we just identify them according to their group pocket on the roulette wheel.

Systems seem to say to us, “Yes, we know that your mother is a very distinguished lady and has a beautiful story. But we just can’t take the time to get to know everyone like we wish we could. Please understand; it’s just more efficient this way.”

David wrote an opus of our origins in a few simple lines.

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place… (Psalm 139:13-15 NIV)

Everyone should soak in that Psalm. Those words will help us to take time to really consider the beauty of God’s intimate and elegant creation of people. I think it also helps to turn it outward. “God knit you in your mother’s womb…you are fearfully and wonderfully made…your frame was not hidden when God made you in the secret place.

Think about those verses the next time you look at your spouse, children, parents or siblings.

Meditate its meaning as you spend time with your neighbors, friends, associates, or the police officer writing you a speeding ticket. Remember it when you see the President or Sarah Palin on TV.

Get off the roulette wheel; take time to get to know people as individuals. Ignore his or her politics, race, religion, age, illness or other labels. Interview her; find her story.

From that place you just might find the road back to the high ground of human respect.

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One Man

4 Comments / Book Review, Freedom, Respect, Stories / By

Stephen Talty’s book, Agent Garbo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2012), tells a spectacular story of one man’s enormous contribution to the Allied victory in World War 2. Viewed through the lens of today, this story is unbelievable.

Here’s the short version.

In 1941 Juan Pujol Garcia was a 28-year-old chicken farmer in Barcelona. Unalterably opposed to Hitler and the Nazis, he walked into the British embassy in Madrid and asked for a job as a spy. Of course they rejected him. So he went to the Americans. They were not impressed with him either.

Then Pujol asked the enemy for a spy job!

After hearing his emotional and bombastic profession of love for Hitler, the Germans accepted him…if he would relocate to England. Instead, he moved to Portugal and convinced the Germans that he was writing reports from England. When they told him to hire some agents, he created a fictitious network of 27 spies.

At that time, British Intelligence was an oxymoron (they were seriously considering staging the Second Coming of Christ as a means of defeating the Germans). But they soon had enough intelligence to realize that a very proficient Nazi spy was undermining the Allies. Finally, Pujol had gained the respect of British Intelligence!

When he went back to them, they accepted him as a double agent and code-named him “Garbo,” for he was surely the best actor in the world. He was theatrical, emotional, daring, and brilliant. And maybe nuts.

Agent Garbo’s greatest role was his support of D-Day. To create the illusion of an Allied strike 200 miles from the real one, he contrived a completely fabricated million-man army, led by General Patton. Under Pujol’s direction, the British built thousands of wood or inflatable decoys of tanks, boats, airplanes, hospitals, and other wartime necessities. Patton, like an actor, even made a speech in his fictional role.

The Germans bought it. Furthermore, Pujol had the audacity to convince the Germans that the real D-Day invasion was a scam. Even after D-Day! Although they assigned an army to Normandy, they kept a far larger force at the fake site. Clearly, without Pujol’s masterful deceit, D-Day would have cost thousands more lives than it did.

It is one of the most astonishing stories I’ve ever read.

How was it even possible that a man who had no training as a spy and failed at everything else in life became an essential voice to, both, Hitler and Churchill? He, a double agent, is the only spy to be honored by both Germany and England.

So many contributed to the success of D-Day. But Juan Pujol Garcia probably achieved more than any other individual.

Beyond my high recommendation of the book, Agent Garbo really challenged me. Could one person achieve such bold and sweeping things today? I don’t know. But it’s an important question.

It seems that today we live inside a screaming wind tunnel that blows everything into conformity with acceptable patterns. As a result, the distinctives of individuals are contoured into the most “aerodynamic” uniformity possible.

Progress seems to take as much as it gives. I love living in this age; I would not want to live in any other time or place. But it does seem that we’ve lost our view, and our honor of, grand individuals. We all seem to identify with our group.

That is why Agent Garbo is such a mesmerizing artifact. It gives the reader a clear view of a time when individuals sure seemed to matter more than they do today.

Perhaps the leveling of structures in our time will release individuals to achieve great things again.

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Confidence

6 Comments / Culture, Freedom, Respect, Sex, Uncategorized / By

We all ride a ball that is 8 thousand miles in diameter and moves 67,000 miles an hour in its perfect orbit around the sun. Our whole solar system is traveling about 45,000 miles per hour through our galaxy, a galaxy that is 100,000 light years wide and contains about 200 billion stars. And all those stars move in their own orbits. And never bump.

How was or is it ever considered wise (or cool) for humans to swagger around our planet, insisting that the vast and synchronous universe, darnedest thing, just came blowing in one day? Just as a great martini doesn’t just happen, most people know they and the universe didn’t either. They are instinctively confident about a creator. Of course, individuals have the right to deny it, but how could belief in creation ever be viewed as stupid or scandalous?

Let’s look at another issue, sex. Consider that people are born male or female. The mosaic of sensuality, desire, love, compatibility, lineage, and the transmission of values and identity through family is obvious and sweeping. That some may dispute sexual design or choose to live in same sex relationships does not invalidate male and female sex as pivotal in civilization.

Come on, folks; it is not ignorant to assume a Creator of the universe or the familial pattern of society. It is fine for individuals to dispute or deconstruct such ideas. But for a whole culture to do so is like losing confidence in gravity or osmosis.

This is not a free expression issue. And I don’t have a problem with the contrarians. My real question is, “how does a society lose confidence in reality?” For example, gender is no longer assumed. People in academia, psychotherapy, sociology, and other professional areas know they can lose everything by writing or speaking in “male” and “female” terms. How does that happen?

To answer that, we have to first look at the basic units of a society – human beings.

Humans have wondrous capacities – moral, ethical, spiritual, physical, intellectual, computational, etc. A mature person is one who keeps them all in some kind of balance and perspective; after all, they are gifts, not sources of identity. They are adjectives, not nouns. We would never call a person “an ethical” or “a spiritual.” Uh-oh. It seems that one of those, intellectual, did somehow become a noun.

And “intellectual” does have a weird effect on those who take it on as an identity, similar to the grotesque human sculptures of extreme bodybuilding. To overemphasize anything creates an aberration.

Now, I know people who handle their intellectual gift with grace and humility. But they are like a stripper at a family reunion; they keep it on a chain. That gathering is just not the appropriate arena for showing their stuff.

Family reunions and other micro-societies should reveal and reflect the Apostle Paul’s words to the Philippians, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3 NIV). Too many intellectuals do not seem to know that. They and other elites (like journalists, politicians, and entertainers) pretend to possess “secret knowledge.” So they grab the microphones and presume to become our guides into their esoteric wisdom.

But, wait a minute. Life’s big question is “Who am I?” It is not “How do I display dazzling logic?”

Stephen Covey wrote, “People cannot live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key…to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about, and what you value.” Restoring cultural confidence requires that we first know who we are. That solid foundation is essential to navigating change.

Change comes through many voices, even those we call intellectuals. Yes, of course, Rachel Carson changed the way cultures and nations view the environment. We will always need those voices, but those voices also need to think, write, and argue within cultural confidence. That is a “keel.” It keeps our vessel from capsizing in strong winds.

Joanne once had a doctor who assumed that his area of expertise gave him the right to intrude on our territory. When he grew visibly irritated that we didn’t properly react to his dire assessment, we corrected and bounced him back to the small “box” of his value. In complying, he became a valuable voice. He even admitted later that he was wrong; he saw an illusion.

Over the past few years, we have witnessed a parade of illusions (in all disciplines and across a wide spectrum of philosophical and political views). All were championed by elite voices that should have been tested first. Perhaps a renaissance of recalling our foundations would equip us to better manage the voices.

Remember.

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Circles of Life

Leave a Comment / change, Contemplation, Culture, Freedom, Politics / By

I grew up in the middle of Kansas, in the middle of America, in the middle of the 20th century. Naturally the racial attitudes in our home reflected our time and place.

But over time I came into personal friendship with several African-Americans. I didn’t seek them; they didn’t seek me. It just happened. And as the atoms of their life slowly seeped into mine, the molecules of my identity began to mutate.

I changed, not because of anything intellectual or political, but because I grew to love Lee, Bill, Ken and Gail, Don and Hildred, John, Morris, Lorraine, Roland and other African-American friends. And love taught me to look at life through their eyes.

That may be why I’ve never been able to connect with political or cultural approaches to race. The polemics of a movement seemed cold and loveless. The voices always sounded more angry than empathetic, and the action more symbolic than functional.

Twenty-five years ago author Stephen Covey described life’s “Circle of Concern” and “Circle of Influence.”[1] I think that perspective is valuable today.

The circle of concern contains things like aging, weather, alien invasions, and a wide range of national and global issues – things we can do nothing about. That circle is fairly new in human history; it was made possible by mass media and it tends to be where experts hang out.

The other circle, influence, holds our family, friends, property, health, work and other nearby arenas. It is the circle wherein our influence can and does make a difference. For most of history, it was the only circle. Home, school, church, courthouse, barbershop; these marked the borders of life and “concerns.”

In recent decades the electromagnet of our contemporary culture (media, politics, religion, entertainment) has pulled us away from the circle of our real-life influence, the place where we actually do unto others, out into the amorphous arena of “concern.”

I have friends who live and work in that circle; I know they live out of true compassion. I don’t disparage them or their efforts. But I also know that concern can be a bully as it converts normal and noble human concern into funding bases. I know from my own years of working in social arenas that experts tend to design solutions and then parachute them into neighborhoods, without any real engagement with those who actually live with the problems. That’s because the visible objects of the programs are not the real clients; the funders are.

Using the conditions of some to leverage power or funding from others is a cruel hoax. And it happens every day.

A long-time and highly-respected Washington journalist once told me that Washington had become, within his years there, a city obsessed by issues rather than one focused on solving problems. Issues raise money and build careers. That’s why that system can never solve anything.

An “issue” orientation to race only seems to produce voices in a chorus chant, “Treyvon Martin! Paula Deen! Donald Sterling!” It’s an endless loop.

It seems to me that too many of us abandoned our circle of influence; we lost eye contact with those around us, believing that the circle of concern was the proper arena for “progress.” Maybe its now time for us to walk away from “concern” and return to the arena of hard work.

What if, instead of considering racism as an “issue,” and the property of experts, we considered it for what it really is – a problem? Seeing it that way might release us to work on it with practical and relational tactics. Perhaps we could bring it back to our circle of influence where it could be a focus of networking, collaboration, strategic thinking, seeking favor, rewarding goodwill, and, yes, love.

I believe that there, in that circle, away from the experts, the most perfect social law of all time – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – would operate more freely and be infinitely more effective.

What people do to others is what matters.

 

[1] Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Simon and Schuster, 1989) pages 81-86.

 

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Remember Who You Are

11 Comments / Adaptation, change, death, destruction, Freedom / By

In “The Lion King,” after Mufasa, the King, died, his son Simba was forced to run away and hide in the jungle. Eventually he totally adapted to a much different place and to a carefree life (“Hakuna Matata”). In reality, he became a different creature. And there, in that alien place, Mufasa returned in spirit in order to call his son to remember his royal roots; “Simba, remember who you are. You are my son…”

When people find themselves in a difficult place, they often think that their condition is very complex, strange, daunting and hopeless. But that is almost never true. More often, they only need to remember who they are. When they do, they can just walk out of the jungle of their false identity.

However, remembering is more than mental assent. Remembering who we are also requires that we fight the inertia that tries to destroy us.

Consider this old story.

A wild duck once flew very high with his flock on the springtime return to northern Europe. But he grew tired and dropped down into a Danish barnyard. He ate corn with the barnyard ducks and enjoyed their company into the night. Although he intended to stay and rest for a short time, the hours turned into days and weeks. After a while he decided to spend the summer in the barnyard.

Then one autumn day he heard the familiar honk of the wild ducks flying south. That sound awakened his true identity. He was not born for the barnyard; he was created for high altitude. His heart reached for the sky. With rapid and loud flapping of his wings he tried to get airborne, but only rose as high as the fence. The barnyard had civilized him; he was fat, soft and weak. Although he knew who he was, he could not return to the sky. For a few years, he held onto the fiction that he would join them “next year.”

Anyone can fall like a rock from his or her true nature. A crisis, a distraction, or a deception can make anyone forget.

Being true to who you are is natural, but never easy. For a duck to fly, it must keep exerting the muscles that allow it to mount the wind. Settling is deadly. In other words, “who you are” is not the same as “what you have become.”

In his book, The War of Art (Grand Central Publishing, 2002), Steven Pressfield examines what he calls “resistance” – that mysterious force that fights our true nature and calling. It is what pulls wild ducks from high flight into the barnyard. According to Pressfield, “Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole…Resistance is always lying…” (Page 9)

“Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give…Resistance means death. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.” (Page 15)

Our identity is a high altitude reality. But it is dropped into a realm that resists it. For example, it has been estimated that for every book that gets written, more than 6,000 were started and never finished. Something tenaciously fights to disable or destroy the gift.

Perhaps the best way to fight resistance is to seal off the barnyard’s allure of instant gratification  – the Internet, TV, food, alcohol, etc. They lie. They promise affirmation and joy, but lead only to death.

Remember who you are. You have been designed for a place far above that lower orbit of bare minimums. And now is the historic moment; the barnyard gate is wide open. Even if you cannot yet fly, you can walk. Sometimes, just walking away is the down payment to flight.

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Sandfish Lizard

The Sandfish and Me

4 Comments / Adaptation, Environment, Freedom, God, Wisdom / By

The sandfish is a lizard that lives in the deserts of North Africa. Its name reflects its nature of diving into the sand and then pulling its legs close to its body to “swim” (like an eel) through sand. It does that in order to hide from predators or find cool relief from the heat.

As I watched a recent television feature about the sandfish, I was struck by how that lizard models conformity to God, Who “made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation.” (Acts 17:26, NASB)

Although the sandfish is not part of “mankind,” it is clearly content in, and adapted to, its assignment to a time and a place. It seems delighted to live in the Arabian Desert – and not in the Artic, the mountains, swamps, South Pacific islands, the tundra, or Tokyo.

Our Creator could have placed that sandfish – or me – in any time of history or any place on earth. But He designed both of us for specific times and places. So, why have I been unable to adapt to my own habitat as freely and fully as the sandfish? Why do I live in a continual critique of my “desert” and its problems?

Perhaps if I humble myself that little sand creature can teach me a vital truth: I am here and I cannot change anything about here. I am also God’s workmanship. He made me; I didn’t. So why do I struggle with all of that? I seem to live in continuous anxiety; I feel the need to change my place, my times, and myself. I imagine a need to live so “prophetically” that “sinners” will fall on the ground and writhe in repentance, or that my government will change or collapse.

Why do I live in an assumption that I must emulate people who lived in other times and other places? I seem strangely compelled to live in, maybe, the Congo (or in the first century). Anywhere but here, anytime but now. I seem to think that He cannot lead His creatures in the times and places that He chose. So I work very hard to be an excellent “witness” of Him.

But wait a minute; He said His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Perhaps living prophetically and excellently should be fun. I never think about the need to live as a Chinn or with green eyes. He chose all of that for me. He also chose and appointed me to go (into my time and place) and bear fruit (John 15:16). All of that is a natural process. Oak trees don’t grunt to push acorns through their branches.

Real life is a thousand miles from religious life. Our simple acts and real words bear fruit. Routinely. Effortlessly. Those ordinary human words and acts leave an eternal and living gift in our time and space. But the gift comes from God, not me. I am a mere conduit; I can’t do it and I can’t control it. He chose that for me. Just as He chose the Arabian deserts for the sandfish.

Could that be why Jesus told his disciples (and us) to take no thought for what they would eat, drink, or wear? Since all of that has already been chosen for us, we are free to live fully, joyfully, and without worry. Kind of like the sandfish.

For example, consider how most people relate to problems. We react, get depressed or angry, fixate, or self-destruct. Yet consider how the sandfish continually copes with a life and death issue of heat; it just dives five inches from the surface to where the temperature can be fifty degrees cooler. Do you think, if we have eyes to see, salvation may await us just inches away?

The same Mind that created the sandfish also created you and me.  So can we find the same freedom and delight in our Creator as that lizard?

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