reality show immunity ...

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. Donald Miller mostly, Searching for God Knows What. It's no surprise to me really that I have taken away some important things from this book, as I have the other 2 of his that I've read.

In particular is one idea he talks about at quite great length. It's his lifeboat theory. Basically it's the idea that since original sin, we have all stopped getting all of our needs met in God, as we were originally designed, and started looking to others to fulfill those needs and for our affirmation. Because of this we all live in this state of mind as though we are all in a lifeboat and there's only room for 10 but there's 11 of us and so we have to decide who we kick out. And we're constantly fighting for our spot in the boat, trying to prove to everyone else how valuable we are, that we have our stuff together, and trying to convince everyone else that they shouldn't kick us out. We all try to get ahead of everyone else to maintain our position in the boat. It's as if this i the most dramatic reality show ever produced and we're competing for immunity in our daily challenges. We hear the narrator as he tells us what is at stake. We aren't just playing to say that we won, there's no million dollars waiting for the winner. We're playing for our lives. Literally. You get voted out of the boat and you die. Or that's what we think and how we feel. We do everything in our power to keep ourselves from being in that last position in the boat: the weakest, poorest, least successful, least contributing person (all by worldly standards) is the one in this position.

This theory has totally changed my worldview, completely revolutionized how I see myself and how I see others. It's changed my behaviors and transformed my heart in some areas, with many left to be changed. It used to be that when someone cut me off in traffic, I would go into a rage about just who does that person think they are cutting me off life that! How dare they?! My heart was against them. Now my heart toward them is softer and I find myself wondering whose lifeboat they are afraid of getting voted out of. It sometimes occurs to me to pray for them and so I do. It used to be that I myself felt the need to speed race everywhere, to be out in front, couldn't stand to have cars on all sides of me, trapping me in so to speak. I would cut people off and weave in and out. Now I realize that this was me just trying to get ahead in the boat, trying to keep as far away from the last position as possible. When I feel anxiety about how others think of me, I remind myself that I am not in a lifeboat about to be kicked out. When I feel as though someone isn't treating me, or someone else, as though I think they should I am able to realize that they feel desperate to cling to life just like everyone else. They can feel that something is missing in them and so they try to do everything in their power to keep others from seeing that they have a piece missing. But really in all their striving to cover up, the truth is revealed.

If one already had all their needs met, they wouldn't feel this desperation to hide the truth behind facades of "Look what I can do" or "Your life would be so empty without me." No pretenses. Just being at rest, effortless being. Jesus lived this way. He was who he was, without giving any weight to what others thought. He was unashamed. I have to say that seems like such a refreshing way to go about life. This reminds me of a passage in 1 Peter chapter 3: "What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in" (The Message). It's an attitude, a lifestyle: to not strive for outward perfection but to live from inner grace, from a place that bleeds of the redemption already completed. That will be a goal of mine in the coming months. To feel secure knowing that I already have my Life Preserver. He already saved me. For good. I don't need immunity because I received mine when I was in about 2nd or 3rd grade and this immunity doesn't transfer to the strongest person next week. It's my immunity and it lasts forever. I'm in the only lifeboat that matters and there's no chance of me getting voted out.

Flashed up in my wildest dreams, the dark red blood streams
Stretching out like vast cracked ice
The veins of you, the veins of me like great forest trees
Pushing through and on and in.

Gliding like a satellite in the broken night
And when I wake you're there, I'm saved
Your love is life piled tight and high set against the sky
That seems to balance on its own.
(Snow Patrol, Lifeboats)

red light redemption ...

I was selling “fabric.” That’s what they told me I'd be doing a few years prior when they brought me here. At the time, I had been looking for a way out of my current situation and met them and they seemed nice enough. And they were going to give me a job and a place to live. So that’s how I wound up on the corner that night, the night I met him. It was the kind of night that aches: lonely, rainy, and full of yearning.

The ground was wet and gleamed in shades of red and yellow where the lights glinted off the rain-soaked cement. I could tell he had been traveling for a while. His dark skin was wind burned and his black hair was long and clumped in dirty dreads. But his hands, though rough to the touch, were gentle as one of them brushed my cheek as he lifted it to sweep hair from my eyes. And his eyes, though heavy with sleep, were kind as they searched my face for something that I didn’t yet know was there. He was familiar and I swore I knew him from some other night or some other life.

I told him that if he was interested I had some fabric for sale but he had to come inside. He said, “The fabric that you’re selling is precious and priceless. It’s the most valuable fabric of all.” It was strange but I didn’t care. He seemed a willing customer and for some reason I knew he would give me more than I asked for. He got off his motorcycle, took off his rain gear, and followed me inside and up the narrow staircase. It always smelled, I thought, like fear in there, passion and violence, hate and brokenness. We reached the top of the stairs and I crossed the room to turn on the lamp. His words fell quiet and tender on my ears.

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Those days are over / You
don't have to sell your body to the night / Roxanne, you don't have to wear that
dress tonight / Walk the streets for money / You don't care if it's wrong or if
it's right

He told me again that the fabric I was selling was too costly to sell and that I should treasure it. “It’s the fabric of your very life; don’t sell it to the wolves.” I was flushed with anger and with embarrassment. Who was he? Who was he to tell me how to run my life? How was I supposed to escape this place? And how would I start over if I did? I was scared though too. I knew they would be watching for the red light through the window. And I reached out my hand again to turn the switch.

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Roxanne, you don't have to put
on the red light / Put on the red light, put on the red light / Put on the red
light, put on the red light / Put on the red light, oh

His voice was like a salve, healing old wounds and soothing the ache left by years of prayers uttered in dark rooms illumined by red lights. He drew me in close to him the way I’d dreamed of someone doing before this nightmare of my life began. His arms embracing me brought old feelings and memories back to me. Feelings of being a little girl being wrapped up tightly in her daddy’s arms; memories of feeling truly treasured and cherished. I felt all of the past escape me and with it all the shame associated with the kind of life I'd somehow found myself in. Outside the door my boss was storming up the stairs, yelling my name. Telling me I had a customer asking for me downstairs.

I loved you since I knew ya / I wouldn't talk down to ya / I have to tell you
just how I feel / I won't share you with another boy / I know my mind is made up
/ So put away your make up / Told you once I won't tell you again it's a bad way

This seemingly familiar stranger knew me, knew my name, and knew who I was and what I was about. All the same, he didn’t care where I’d been; only where I was going and that I was going there with him. We went out the back window. He made bending the iron bars that had kept me trapped inside so long look so easy. We scrambled down the fire escape and had disappeared around the corner across the street under the cover of the night. He was a jealous lover. He refused to share me with anyone or anything. He didn’t want leftovers but rather he wanted my everything. That was made clear to me. A few years have passed since he ripped me from the life I’d stumbled into and hemmed me up into a life much better, one he’d long been preparing for me. Every once in a while he catches me in affairs, pretending to be someone I'm not or forfeiting the distances I've come since that night and I hear him whisper to me:

Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Roxanne, you don't have to
put on the red light / You don't have to put on the red light / Put on the red light, put on the red light.

(Roxanne lyrics by Sting)