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Thursday, October 26, 2006

escapism

As I try to balance my three fantasy football teams, two pick'em leagues, while suring the blogosphere and watching TiVo was wondering:

What keeps us from seeing God?
Do we pursue these escapes in order to avoid the reality of our lives?

Recently I have been aware how much we long for Heroes. Back on the 5 year anniversary of 9-11, I was watching CNN where the anchorman at the end said, "Hey, let's pan on this guy [a firefighter] so America can get a good luck at a true hero."
At that moment, I realized that we desperately seek heroes.
If you notice Holywood's recent trend of Spiderman, The Hulk, Superman, Xmen, and even "nonfictions" like World Trade Center and United 91, you can see that our culture is seeking heroes.
Not to mention NBC's show called, Deal or No Deal...er...no I meant, "Heroes."

But in doing so, we search for heroes, whether in books, in sports or in the movies in order to hear about another's journeys, another's battles and to escape the reality of our lives.

And if you notice that most religions also try to escape reality by teaching us how to attain zen, how to leave this world for a better one.
But strangely, in the story of Jesus Christ, we do not see an invation to escape, but rather a God who decided to intercept reality.

Therefore, as followers of Christ we need to rethink our concept of Fellowship. Stanley Ott this past week lectured at Princeton and made a wonderful point that fellowship is more than "friendliness" but "hospitality."

Friendliness means we have greeters at the door who shake hands and smile. Friendliness means when you run into someone at the grocery store you ask them how their children, how their family, how their day is, and then quickly leave. You avoid the reality of life by trying to remain on the surface.

But hospitality asks the question "would you come into my life?" Or better "can I come into your life?" Can we grab a cup of coffee and talk about the reality of life rather than seeking surface and escapism.

This is the model of Christ, a God who broke into the reality of the world wanting to transform the here and now of our lives, and not just help the really good people escape into heaven by wearing plastic smiles and pretending everything is okay right now.

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