I recognize and apologize that I've been so MIA. I'm not sure if anyone really missed me but here I am. I'm back. I'm still alive. To be honest, it hasn't just been my blog, it's been all of social media that I've been pretty absent from, and even a good chunk of my actual social life.
I started graduate school in January and am still working full time, so needless to say I've been busy being a grown-up and haven't had as much time to spare for fun stuff like blogging. Or hiking. And since I live next to beautiful mountains now, hiking usually wins out against sitting inside typing away, which I'm doing plenty of for school already.
But this morning I'm chilling in my pajamas and slippers, sipping coffee and munching scrambled eggs. It's a good morning for blogging.
ANYWAY.
In Sunday school a few days ago we talked about The Fall. In case you're not familiar, the Fall is the part of the Bible where God created the world and then the humans ate the forbidden fruit and ruined it for everything and now we live in a rotten universe because of it. You'll hear all about it in Genesis 3.
So for someone who grew up in church, I'm familiar with the Fall and I'm no stranger to the pain and suffering of the world. Nobody is. We've all suffered, simply because we're all part of the post-Fall universe.
But what I hadn't thought about as much was how so many people react to the Fall: they pretend like it's not real, or at least they try to. They make blanket forts in their rooms and take their little dolls and create their own tiny universe that the "bad" stuff can't get into.
I was surprised when my mind went to the home magazines I'd seen recently. (At work during rec therapy I need to watch the patients but can't really get anything else done at that time so I often sit and skim the magazines they have available.) Some of the magazines are more for the laywoman, with DIYs and decorating tips. Some of them are far more upscale, with thicker pages displaying photos of elaborate living rooms and classy-looking dining rooms and mansion-cabins on a mountainside and the occasional ad for a six karat diamond necklace.
To be completely honest, I love looking at those thick-paged upscale home magazines. Even the writing in them is more luxurious. Reading them, I can be transported into a fantasy world of wealth and glamor and perfection. If I lived in a home like that, nothing could touch me.
But when I step back and think about the people that live in those homes, and how many hours they cleaned (or hired someone to clean) that kitchen until it was spotless, or took great care to arrange the vase of fresh flowers and that little pile of books on the marble coffee table, all because they knew the photographer was coming tomorrow, I have to face the truth that even these beautiful homes probably look lived-in most of the time.
And then I think about how these homeowners got their five minutes of fame for being in a fancy magazine and maybe they feel a little self-congratulatory about how well they played off their glamorous dollhouse under the blanket fort, as if their world is perfect and protected.
Of course, it's not just with homes that people do this. Middle-class people who don't have that kind of money have to fake it in other ways, by portraying a perfect social life or a perfect family or a perfect job or you name it.
One thing I've noticed, though, from working with people in the lower class, including some homeless people, is that none of them are under any illusions that their world is or could be perfect. They are forced to face the fact that they are poor, struggling, and hurting. Some of them may imagine a more perfect world if they had more money, but many of them are wise enough to scoff at that ideology. They know what the Fall looks like first-hand and they know that it touches everybody.
I guess I'm okay with what church people call "pushing back the effects of the Fall," i.e. doing good and showing kindness to make this world a little better and a little brighter. We can't undo the evil that we've all been plagued with, but we're promised total redemption through Jesus someday, so I don't think a little temporary redemption through our feeble efforts is in vain.
What I'm not okay with is selfish pretending. I'm not trying to call out the rich folks of course. I myself am often tempted to believe that if only I had [blank], everything would be better and I wouldn't have to worry anymore.
It helps that I am faced every day through my work with the brutal truth of suffering. But where is the balance between total despair and covering my eyes and ears screaming LA LA LA EVERYTHING IS PERFECT!
Where is the in-between that fully recognizes the Fall but realistically asks, what can we do to help?
I'm searching for that place.
God bless.
