30 Days

Did you have a chance to catch an episode of FX’s newest reality show, “30 Days?” The show is the brainchild of Morgan Spurlock, who brought us the documentary “Super Size Me,” which was a look at what happened to your body when you ate McDonald’s for 3 meals a day, for 30 days. Well, Spurlock builds on this idea by placing people in unusual circumstances, and letting us watch how their life plays out for – you guessed it, 30 Days. I gotta tell you, I love the show. He has tackled some pretty interesting situations, such as inviting a Christian to live with a Muslim family. Or having a man and wife move to a new town, to start from scratch, and live for 30 days on minimum wage. Good stuff!

But a favorite of mine was entitled “Off the Grid.” In this episode, two resource-consuming folks from New Jersey were plopped down into an eco-friendly community in Missouri known as The Dancing Rabbit. This community tries to be totally self-sustained, and it was fascinating to watch not only how they make it all happen, but how the New Jersey-ites looked like crack addicts searching for a fix. I really sympathized with Vito, who became desperate – full on loco – to get some meat. Armed with a pellet gun, he went off in search of Peter Cottontail. Thankfully, this eco-village was named appropriately, and Vito was sated.

From a Christian perspective, I found this episode particularly interesting as I considered Jesus’ Kingdom message, and how I am beginning to see that His saving work encompasses just not my – our – personal salvation, but also the saving of the created order. In fact, how we treat the planet that God has blessed us with has implications in terms of mission work and evangelism, two areas that the evangelical church has always been interested in, when we consider that we have limited natural resources to meet people’s basic needs with. You’ve heard the old cliché, I’m sure – “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” The plain and simple truth is that if we continue to ravage our world, teaching a man to fish won’t matter if there are no fish to catch.

So I started asking myself some questions. How wasteful am I? How destructive am I? Am I living in harmony with God? Am I being a good steward of ALL that He has entrusted me with? Hmmm. As you can guess, this “30 Days” episode gave me a lot to wrestle with. Of course, when I started thinking about this episode in greater detail, I was sitting in my 12-mpg pick-up truck in downtown Bloomington, having raced there to buy an X-Box game with my son. I am encouraged that it did bother me, and in fact, I’ve started looking for a more fuel-efficient car. And instead of yelling at the kids to quit leaving their bedroom lights on, they’re seeing me turn mine off. I’ve even set my A/C to 74 (if you know me at all, you can picture me sweating!). So, an hour spent watching folks at The Dancing Rabbit have been used to teach me more about what it means to be a child in the Kingdom of He from Whom All Blessings Flow. I want to give a shout out to Morgan Spurlock for creating an insightful, witty show. And because of an hour of television, may I begin to learn how to live a little more “off the grid” and in tune with the Creator.