Running from Shadows

One of the teachers at school approached me at the end of the day.  We sat at a picnic table, backs to the bench, overlooking the rugby field at school.  The warmth of the sun was still being soaked up by the northern hemisphere and we sat side by side allowing the cold of the aluminum seat to leech through our clothes to absorb what warmth we might have generated throughout the day.  I sat with arms crossed, chin pushed into my scarf-filled collar breathing warmth into my neck while Kevin gave a running description of what was occurring during the game.  Rugby can be fascinating, but it was difficult to concentrate that day. 

After a few moments of undisguised discomfort, Kevin turned to me.  He pointed to one of our school rugby players and said, "I've got some really talented nephews who are like those boys."

"Yes?" my muffled voice was filtered through the purple scarf.

He nodded his head enthusiastically.  "They're quick.  Really quick.  Because of their speed, they are being recruited by professional teams already."

"Fantastic," I replied still lost in the wool.

"I've got a funny story about the youngest one.  He was playing a game a few weeks ago, one of the first in which he was being scouted, and he stole the ball from the opposing team and started to run towards his goal."

"Mmmm hmmm."  I turned towards him noticing his passion for the game and his smile which beamed in spite of the chill.

"I've already mentioned how fast he is, so as he is running, he is outdistancing the other team by a wide margin.  He could have stopped thirty meters short of the goal and walked in for a try, but he continued to sprint right up until the goal line where he flopped between the goalposts."

"Isn't that what you are supposed to do?" I asked.

"Sure, but when you are that fast and that far ahead, you can probably slow down a little bit."

"Okay."

"That's not the funny part.  After the game I asked him why he kept running so hard to the goal and he said, 'As I was running, I kept hearing the noise of pursuit and I turned a little bit and I saw that there was someone behind me, but it wasn't till I had actually scored the try when I realized that the pursuit was so far behind me and...'"

"And," I said, knowing that he was drawing this out for dramatic effect.

"And... I realized that I was trying to outrun my shadow."  Kevin slapped my shoulder and laughed.  "He hadn't played under the lights before and as the light was in front of him, he looked back and the flash of his own shadow urged him forward." 

Good story.

Perhaps we all do that.  As Christians, striving to keep our eyes set and firmly fixed on the Light of the World, we glance back sometimes and recognize the shadow that we are casting.  It's easy to let that darkness motivate us; it's a frightening thing what shadows can do.  We can make them out into all sorts of boogey men; we can see in them many things that aren't there, but in essence, they are just an outline of who we are in deference to who the Light is. 

Knowing there is a perpetual shadow can be a scary thing.

In class the other day, we were discussing social justice versus selfish justice and as we walked the well-trodden road of poverty, I brought up that a 'gentleman' once told me that 'poverty occurs in countries where they breed like rabbits.  It's not our job to help them.  They need some kind of control - birth control, or get them jobs so they stop breeding all the time.'  This is a paraphrase of the colorful language this man used, but my jaw dropped nonetheless.  So I mentioned this comment in my Religion and Ethics class and asked them how they would respond.

After a long pause, one student responded, "I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion."

There, my friends, is the shadow of the contemporary western world.  The light that shines on our faces outlines the darkness that is silhouetted in our hearts.  Our utter addiction to the justification of selfishness with regards to 'freedom of speech.'  Entitlement to our own words, no matter how hurtful; The 'right' to offend as some kind of guarantee for pseudo-progressive society.  Everyone's opinion is equally valid even if offensive beyond measure because the greatest sin of a contemporary society seems to be censorship.

In fact, if we dig a little deeper into the shadow that races after us, we find that the word 'sin' is meaningless.  Forget, for a moment, the foray into the politics of contemporary issues of marriage, the willful sins of pride, envy, sloth, greed (you know what I'm talking about) are not vices but socially glorified acceptable behaviors. 

The dark, shadowed fruits of the human spirit.  Opposite of peace, patience, kindness, (you know what I'm talking about) self-control, and we no longer run from them but we embrace them and say, "I'm working on them.  I'm visiting my counselor and she is giving me a strategy to live with those 'issues.'"  Talking through them with a counselor is a great idea, helpful, for sure, but the great tragedy of our time is that the scriptures actually speak about the cure for this Balrog that we keep summoning from the pit.  In the book of Mark, they are Jesus' first words:

'The time has come,' he said, 'The kingdom of God has come near.  Repent and believe the good news.'         (Mark 1:15)

Jesus first words to the shadowed world are an explosion of light into the darkness.  The kingdom has approached - it's a moving thing!  It's not a static, far away land that is only the stuff of imagination and DreamWorks, it is hear right now in front of you and it moves and breathes and you can catch it if you stop turning back to look at your shadow!  Repent!  Recognize that the reason and purpose for your shadow is you (plural). Y'all, in Southern speak. 

The entire existence of a shadow is dependent upon the light and we who get in the way of the light.  Turn around, Jesus says. 

And believe. 

So our addiction to free speech, and free will, and freedom to selfishness has come with a dark shadow.  Instead of standing up for those who are disadvantaged, we say, "Their opinion is valid because it is their own," and we leave the marginalized in the lurch gazing after our shadow as we run past.  We, as a community of believers who stand strong in the promise of the Word, God's light into a darkened world, are called to repent, believe and then to act - act in a way that is cognizant of the fact that when we are baptized into Christ's death we are also baptized into his resurrection and then it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us...

And the shadow disappears.

Surely, it is not that easy.  We make multiple mistakes along the way and our 'freedoms' - which in reality can become chains - become idols which need to be torn down at various times.  But the more I read Jesus words, I am convinced the more often I turn back to him, I will see the kingdom at hand.

True Colors

Last week I went to a football game with Greta and my father-in-law, Robert.  In Australia, there are four different kinds of football and each of them is shortened to 'footy.'  Only two of them use their feet extensively: soccer and Australian Rules Football (AFL) where as the two types of rugby, league and union, or under the same misnomer as American gridiron which the foot is mostly used for locomotion.

I enjoy the AFL; some who are die-hard rugby fans (of one or the other kinds - it's difficult to find someone who professes love for both, kind of like the mythological creature the Yankees/Mets fan), call the AFL 'aerial pinball' with the activity looking like men bouncing around in the air being thrust by the flippers of a pinball machine.  AFL players have to be some of the most athletic, agile and fit professionals in the world of sports.  On average they sprint over ten miles per game and can contort their bodies to catch a football ten feet in the air, while at the same time absorb full contact tackling without pads.

It's insane, but it takes your breath away when it is done well.

We went to see the Brisbane Lions play the Adelaide Crows.  I may have written this before, but choice of mascots sometimes makes me laugh.  Unless my assumptions are incorrect, a mascot should be bold and tough; a character one might be afraid of in real life.  Here are some of the team mascots that I'm sure instill fear in all who hear them:

Yankees.
Dodgers.
Cardinals
Metropolitans (I hate to say it, but what kind of mascot is that?)
Nationals
Marlins:


And some from here in Australia

Crows
Magpies
Kangaroos
Blues
Dockers
Swans (I'm quaking with fear! The Swans are coming!)

Intimidation factor- negative

But as with each team, the collective fan base has colors associated with it.  The followers are identified by the colors they wear and their support is outwardly obvious - any other fan can sidle close if they are in need of commiseration or community.

Even though we live near Brisbane, the Lions are not my team, but Greta is interested in the game and I like live events, so Robert gave me one of his season passes and Christine dropped us off at the game.  Like all sporting events, there is a buzz - a low level hum that surrounds the stadium.  The smells of deep fat fried things, beer, cigarette smoke and body odor hung like a fog around the exits of the stadium.  Robert arrived via the train and as we approached our own entrance, number five, Robert bought a program for the week's game against the mighty Adelaide Crows.  Robert was dressed in blue jeans and a scarf - he wore a shirt too, but scarves are, for AFL fans, the real source of identifiable pride in a team.  The Lions' colors are maroon and gold, while those from Adelaide are strangely not black, but navy blue, red and yellow.  The two sides are close enough in hue that it is disconcertingly difficult to see which person is on your 'team' unless you get quite close.

But that's the thing about sporting your team's colors: once you get close to someone, it is a logical next step to see the other color as the opponent (I'm talking about the fans here).  Once one recognizes the true colors of the other, one can make all sorts of non-reality inferences about them - in order to support the team, we good-naturedly rib the opposing side, or in some circumstances avoid them all together.  But the more I thought about the Brisbane/Adelaide match, I realized that even though I am not a fan of either, I found myself inching away from Crows fans because I was in the pride of Lions fans.  It wasn't until after the match, while standing with the milling crowd at the bus stop, that it hit home.

Directly in front of us were two Crows fanatics sporting the red, yellow and navy blue scarves.  The woman nodded at me first - she was in her early fifties (my best guess), with red lipstick and dangly gold loops hanging from her ears.  Her partner was standing close to her, in protection mode, I would guess, and Lions' fans had drawn back a little bit.  She looked a little worried and when she saw that I was wearing no team color, she approached and asked a question about city bus schedules.  I helped her as much as I could, but as we carried on a brief conversation, I got to know a little bit about them, why they were in Brisbane, what they were doing next, why her oldest son was struggling, (once a pastor always a pastor).  Then, the buses came and we were whisked away to our destinations.

But both teams colors stuck with me all of this week. 

They both looked like rainbows.

It's been a week of rainbows.  After the American Supreme Court's decision, at last count twenty-six million people flocked to their Facebook pages to change their profile pictures.  Seven colored stripes overlapped faces and pets and whatever else is used as a profile picture identifying them as a person who supports the decision.

Two things struck me when I first saw the rainbows popping up on FB profiles:

1. Identification with colors is a good thing.  It offers invaluable and invariable support to those who are looking for commiseration or community.  Just like in the football game, the Crows' supporters, small in number, huddled (or should I say flocked?) together behind the poles at the north end of the field.  Together they vociferously cheered their team to victory.  Identification with color plays itself out every where whether national (flags - I was raised the red, white and blue "these colors don't run."), institutional (corporate logos are full of symbolism and meaning including the colors) family (think of the Scottish tartans) and even personal (tattoos and even melanin).  We find comfort in those that sport the same colors.

2.  I felt uncomfortable, though, with the rainbow profile transformations on Facebook - not that people stating their opinion through symbolistic colorful metamorphosis, but when one displays their colors, it seems like it immediately creates a sense of antagonism against those who aren't showing the same 'team' colors.  As more and more of my FB friends' profiles turned seven hued, I thought to myself, "Does this mean that I am now seen as an enemy?  Does this mean that we aren't able to communicate in the same way?  Am I now judged because I haven't changed my FB profile?"

As I viewed some of the conversations occurring regarding the Supreme Court's decision, I was dismayed to see terms like 'bigot,' 'homophobe,' 'intolerant,' 'damned,' 'non-Christian,' come flowing from discussions and genuine friendships were strained by on-line discussions.  Some of those who profess to be Christian were offering invectives to others making it difficult to hear Jesus' words to love your neighbor as yourself.  (even your 'enemy' if you hear the others' colors loud enough.)

Is Facebook the best place to stage active, engaged dialogue on a topic that affects so many people?  Does social media encourage the 'drawing of battle lines' where contemporary ethical blitzkrieg is the soup d' jour?  Does changing our profile colors do anything?  I'm not talking just about rainbows, but I saw a few 'anti-rainbow' people change their pictures to some other color.  How can we engage in the lives of all people who look the same and feel the same if we are establishing them and us by our outward appearance?  I'd love to dialogue with so many people about marriage but social media isn't the best place for me.  I hope that I'm standing in the queue of a bus line with a whole group of people that isn't wearing any other color than the one God gave them and the one God can see. 

Much more to write about this.  I'll have to wait for tomorrow. 

Let me know what you think.