i've been listening to news radio a lot more lately. i'm finding the old adage to be true: no news is good news. of course, i'm finding this by way of inverse, as the string of heartbreaking stories aired every hour on the hour is one without an apparent end. in five minutes, my heart gets pulled from plane crash victims in buffalo to marketplace bombing casualties in egypt to emotionally traumatized soldiers in iraq. and then to the hundreds of politicians, ngo's, writers, economists, and social theorists offering solutions without any promise of success. even obama doesn't know if we can, after all, solve our economic problems.

this isn't me complaining. it's just a tough world to live in. and that's easy for my upper-middle class self to say. at the risk of sounding like a sign-carrying doomsday prophet, it makes me feel all the more sure that we weren't meant to solve all of our problems, that this world just wasn't meant to last.

i saw an ant crawling across the bathroom floor today. watching it amble aimlessly - left then right, right then left, forward, backwards, now retracing its steps, now standing still - i thought what a worry-free life this ant must lead. she doesn't listen to the radio. she doesn't pay taxes or vote on wars or make plans for international travel. what news could she hear that would disturb her peaceful meanderings?

but then the thought occurred to me that the ant was not at peace at all. in fact, her brain is probably too tiny to even allow her to comprehend such a notion as peace, or any notion at all, save hunger. hunger, pain, danger. this is the ant's entire world, the whole of her inner life. i blew on the ground near her head. she turned the other direction, not out of whimsy but out of instinctive fear. there is no rest for the ant. her instinct won't let her stop. of course, that made me think that we weren't so unalike after all.

tonight, i watched a victorious mixed martial arts fighter declare to the world on the other end of the television camera that Jesus was his Lord and Savior. moments later, the referee lifted the fighter's bloody, sweaty fist in the air, and the stadium roared. i'm not sure what to make of that. is that all Jesus is good for?

i just listened to a radio piece about a radio dj and his request-driven show. the dj has been in the business for quite some time, and over the years has noticed some interesting trends. most of the radio requests he gets have something to do with the requesters' romantic lives. songs are dedicated to crushes, heart-breakers, exes, lovers, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, and wives. other loved ones are often serenaded as well: the dj shared a story in which a five-year-old called in with his mother to dedicate a song to his incarcerated father. it was the first time the father had heard his child speak. after his sentence had completed, the father reunited with his family and they called the radio show together to thank the dj for the connection.

the dj shared that his callers would often break down into tears while requesting their songs, admitting things they never would admit to anyone they knew and explaining secrets they'd kept from everyone close to them. one woman, for example, confessed that she had cheated on her boyfriend and was hoping that the airing of a certain song would help bring the two back together.

listening to this radio piece reminded me of this website that i check once a week called postsecret (should be the first hit if you google it). i've mentioned the site before, but in case you forgot what it was or never knew, it's a site that scans and posts hand-made postcards mailed in by readers that each contain an anonymous confession of a secret. the confessions range from things like "for the first time in my life, i finally feel loved" to "i enjoy peeling the protective plastic covers off new electronics" to "i began cutting again when you said those things to me". once i read a postcard containing an anonymous confession to the untried murder of a man who had sexually abused the writer when s/he was young. many others confess the circumstances and contemplation leading to suicide attempts. in all of them there is the startling honesty the radio dj spoke about, a radical revealing of the heart.

somehow, the anonymity of a radio show phone call and the blogosphere enable people to cut through the underbrush of social normalcy and facebook community. the honesty beneath is earthy, real. and it is deeper than the honesty of complaint, the supposedly counter-cultural attempt to bring "realness" back into the world by simply saying whatever you want. the kind of honesty i found on the radio and on the website speaks of a person, not just a feeling. and that is what makes it possible.

the people pouring out their hearts on the radio and in homemade postcards aren't just confessing a feeling or a secret - they're presenting themselves as whole people who are remarkably un-whole and utterly broken. the anonymity makes this possible, because the face and name we want to attach to their words would only obscure our sight of the person behind them. we have become such a visual, information-loving culture. but we've replaced pictures and data for understanding and solidarity. is it really such a surprise, then, that the second life of facebook is so shallow, that it is filled with activities, gadgets, boxes, and mini-apps to help pass the time and convince us that we are, in fact, making a real connection with another person? that is not to say that facebook and other such networking tools are bad things. i use them myself. but they don't quite provide the genuine community that we need.

these days, you can be anything you want to be. and so names and photos have lost a dimension of their revelatory power, often obscuring rather than revealing. if we are to love this world, as children of light, we must reclaim our vision of the person behind the words and the pictures. as people who have seen truth and light, who know the Christ and have come to see things as they truly are, we must regain the ability to look past the facebook status and the away message and see the person standing behind them, to see their heart beating and bare our own so that they might beat together in solidarity. how can we love this world when we do not know this world? when we do not let its people in? when we do not ourselves push beyond the superficiality of our well-defined networks with their rules of propriety and begin listening for a heartbeat? we have souls to win and hearts to feed, not just weekend plans to change and facebook statuses to substitute. this world is aching for love, truth, and space for honesty, and it has been forced to resort to anonymous call-in radio shows and websites for places where it feels safe.

my own vision is so clouded. it has become foggy with materialism and comfort - which i love dearly. i love distance, i love strength, i love simplicity. i hate intimacy. i hate caring. i hate thinking beyond myself and my plans for today. but my God, my God, has a different plan for today:

"today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put Me to the test
and saw My works for forty years.
therefore I was provoked with that generation,and said, 'they always go astray in their heart;
they have not known My ways.'
as i swore in My wrath,
'they shall not enter My rest.'"

take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

-hebrews 3:7-13

Lord, help me repent so i can see. Lord, forgive me that i might see.

i am addicted to sales. there. i said it. i don't know how this came to be. i'd like to attribute my addiction to the endless hours i spent at the mall with my mother and sister. she was getting into the shopping age while i was still in the dragged-around-everywhere-by-mom-because-she-can't-leave-me-home-alone stage. whatever the case, something caused/allowed this part of my heart to grow into a little monster with a mind of its own that just goes crazy whenever it sees "--% OFF" and "[season/time of year/holiday] SALE" signs. it goes crazy, and then attempts to convince the more sober parts of me that i really do need that plastic bb gun, or that two flashlights for the price of one is really an awesome deal, or that i'm never going to see another xbox 360 for $150 again. it comes THIS close to winning ever single time. i'm addicted to sales. and i think it makes sense, however bad it is. deep down, this addiction is really just the manifestation of the hollow dream that satisfaction is not at all costly, that happiness can be had on the cheap. it just isn't true. happiness is the most expensive thing you can ever attain. it'll cost you your life, and more. but even then, it's a pretty good deal.

i think slumdog millionaire is one of the best movies i have ever seen in my life.  i wish i had the skill and training to do a full-blown critique of the film, but i'll let this next sentence sum up how i feel about it.  the greeks had homer, odysseus, and the odyssey; the indians have boyle, jamal, and slumdog millionaire; the rest of us get to enjoy both as testaments to our world, where, ultimately, truth does find its justification in hope someday realized.

you have to go see it!

christianity is not difficult because there is so much to do.  christianity is not exhausting because there are so many things to avoid.  if christianity was simply a set of rules to follow, it would be, in a devilish way, terribly easy, with built-in affirmation and self-esteem boosts.  if christianity could be boiled down to a list of do's and don't's, every type-a overachiever in the world would be cramming the churches with perfect attendance every sunday.

but as it is, christianity is difficult.  and it's exhausting.  in fact, christianity is - and by all means must be - impossible.  christianity is impossible because it is not primarily about doing.  christianity is about being.  it is about being, in the understanding that being precedes act.

actions can be cultivated, habits formed, and disciplines observed.  but to be is something altogether different.  if we are something, we cannot suddenly - or gradually, for that matter - make ourselves into something else.  if we are, then we are.  if we aren't, then we face an impossible gulf between what we are and what we long to be.

but herein we find the hope of christianity, the hope of true christianity:  that in Jesus Christ, what isn't can become what it ought to be.  the hope that we have in Jesus, the one through whom all things were created out of nothing, is that we who are not at all what we long to be can become more than just pretenders and do-gooders.  in Jesus, we become what we were meant to be, instead of being left to act as though we already were.

what is impossible for us is natural for Jesus.  to accomplish this change is not at all difficult or exhausting for Him, though it may prove difficult and exhausting for us to submit ourselves to it.  but the promise is that when we are, when we finally are what we long to be, we simply will be, and we will be happy.