Today is Tuesday, August 30. It’s been one day since Hurricane Katrina roared onshore around New Orleans. I don’t have to tell you how strong this storm was – most of us waited and watched The Weather Channel as landfall drew closer. And now, as the details of the devastation come trickling in, I don’t have to describe for you the magnitude of the destruction that Katrina has caused – it’s all over the news stations.
It’s a good thing that I don’t have to speak to you right now because words seem very empty. Those most closely affected by the storm – and even us who only received a soaking rain from Katrina – have questions that for now avoid answers. I watched a Yahoo! slide show on the Web of wrecked lives, wrecked buildings, and wrecked creation. But none of that got to me like a TV interview did. A station spoke with a local black man, who in his French-influenced Cajun accent told of climbing to the highest point in his home to escape the rising water, where he held his children in one arm and his wife’s hand in the other. As the water rose, she lost her dry perch, and the water began to suck her in. As their grip began to fail and fatigue set in, she looked at him and told her husband that she loved him. She implored him to take good care of their children, be a good grandfather . . . and she was gone.
At that point, the female journalist broke down and became pretty emotional. The interview ended abruptly, and I was left wondering if they embraced in the “raw-ness” of that moment. But beyond that, I felt a kind of self-preserving numbness come over me. I was glad the interview was over.
My questions, most of which are aimed at God, echo “how?” and “why?” Please don’t lecture me on the immaturity of those questions – I understand those are typical, knee-jerk questions in times of trauma that can be interpreted as a lack of faith. For now, I feel a little guilty that my family and my home are safe. It’s hard to feel blessed in times like these. And for me, today, it’s been very hard to pray. I know God is still God, I still love Him, and He is still on His throne. That’ll have to do for now.
Even though it’s only the preseason for the NFL, I rejoice that the familiar drum and horn blast that we grew up with and can recognize in 2 notes or less will soon signal the arrival of Monday Night Football. “Don don danta, danta don dadum!” You’re with me, right? If you’re close to my age, visions of Howard Cossell, Frank Gifford and Dandy Don Meredith have already filled your head. And it was on a Monday night a couple of weeks ago that Ricky Williams stepped back on to the playing field, sporting the familiar turquoise uniform of the Miami Dolphins. As we all know, sports fan or not, Ricky had some issues (to put it mildly), and took a sabbatical from the NFL. But now, he’s back, and reporters have been trying to pull a story out of him.
In an article by Barry Wilner, AP Football Writer, Ricky apparently was wondering what all the fuss surrounding him is about. Wilner writes that in his interview, Williams made it sound as if he never left football. “It doesn’t seem like I was gone, not even a week,” the former NFL rushing king said. “Everywhere I go, I hear ‘Welcome back.’ But everywhere I have been, I have always been with myself. I’m with myself now more than ever.”
As I read that bit about “everywhere I have been, I have always been with myself,” I caught myself thinking, “What’d he just say? Is he still on the weed?” I mean, to borrow a line from one of my favorite movies, “that don’t make no sense!” I even called a buddy, read him the blurb, and we both laughed about it. I’m pretty good at mocking people, and Ricky was my target of the day.
Then I turned to page 111 of Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis, and I read these words: “There is a great saying in the recovery movement: ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’” So maybe, just maybe, in his interview, Ricky was giving us a coded answer that shows he is trying to get some help with his “issues.” Instead of cutting him down, I tried to remember some things about the dreadlocked running back from Texas. Oh ya, one of the reasons he had trouble in New Orleans was because of a fear of crowds. Hmmm. I bet he sees his share of those, right? And maybe he found temporary reprieve in burning a spliff. So maybe he was running from accumulated issues in his life, bailed on the NFL gig, and perhaps finally sought help and is trying to get his life back on track. And maybe I’m being too generous in my “maybes.” Who knows? Only Ricky, and we may never figure that cat out.
But as I played out this little scenario in my head, I couldn’t help but connect the ideas of a person with real problems, getting to the end of their rope, seeing that there was no way to go but back, and taking those first tentative steps home, to the story that is usually known as The Parable of the Prodigal Son. If you’ve ever been to church, you’ve heard this story, usually from a couple of sides – us as the wayward son, or less often, us as the jealous brother, and always with God as the forgiving father. I love how Eugene Peterson in The Message translation describes the homecoming: “When he (the lost son) was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.”
In commenting on this story, Bell describes for us a truth that we simply will not allow ourselves to believe or live out. Those of us who have been met in our lives by the Father with his heart pounding in his chest, wherever that took place, are “saints” and through mysteries that too many think they have a handle on, are placed “in Christ.” And we’re there because we have God’s favor, which was given after no effort on our part. Way better than me, Rob writes, “We cannot earn what we have always had. What we can do is trust that what God keeps insisting is true about us is actually true.” What is true? We are loved. WE ARE LOVED!
A gifted friend of mine used to lead in a song of worship where we sang, “You are loved by God, and nothing else matters.” Still today, that song resonates within me, and I think it’s because I struggle so much with the knowledge that I know I am not as “good” as most think I am, and usually would expect me to be. But in spite of that, I am loved by God, and nothing – not my efforts, my lack of efforts, my successes, nor my failures – nothing – nothing else matters.
So to Ricky, I’d like to say, “Glad you’re back!” I’m typing this with the hope that my “maybes” from above are at least a little close to the truth, and Ricky is getting his life turned around. If so, he sure sounds a lot like me.
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.
