From the Heart

Warning: this is a different sort of a blog post, a musing on our culture. It is meant as a starting point for thought and discussion. I offer it here because it's been rumbling around in my head for some time now. It's time for it to rumble in yours as well!

In the midst of several conversations over the past couple of months, something has been weighing heavy on my heart. I wake up praying about it and often return to those prayers throughout the day. I'm more and more aware of how discontent we are as a people, and how quickly we are to blame "the other" for our discontent. I hear it in conversations I'm a part of about racism, about denominational issues, about what we call "equal rights" (whether the intent is truly "equal" or not), and even about the way churches participate together. We are discontent, moreso than ever before.

This is, ultimately, not about race. Or politics. Or denominations. It's about us as a people.

I remember when President Obama was elected the first time, and there were many who had high hopes for "change," though not everyone agreed on what the "change" was to be. The President was inaugurated mid-January and by mid-March I remember particular so-called "special interest" groups already complaining loudly that change had not come fast enough. I'm not even sure whomever we elect this November will have that long before the complaints start coming. We are discontent. We want what we want right now, and not a second later.

One evidence of this discontent has been our growing penchant to protest anything and everything. You cannot, it seems, do or say anything without offending someone—even the dead are not excluded from offending groups of people. The Catholic Church this past weekend canonized Mother Teresa, a woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize and was honored around the world for her work with the ones no one else would have anything to do with in Calcutta. And yet, the newspaper and online headlines focused on some study in Canada that disagreed with her supposed "theology of suffering." Not on the good she did, but on what they disagreed with. Most likely, Mother Teresa's "theology of suffering" was taken from the Apostle Paul, who wrote that "suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Romans 5:3-4). So those who are offended by Mother Teresa actually need to answer to someone above her.

My point, though, is not to debate her theology of suffering, but rather how the reaction to her becoming a saint points to our discontent. Is there nothing that will satisfy us? Can we not take a moment to celebrate someone's life work without tearing them down? Is it true that, at the roots of much of our racial, economic and social distress is a great discontent, a longing for something more than that we have now?

C. S. Lewis said that longing (discontent) is a sign that we were made for another world. Here's how he put it: "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” So perhaps the solution to our discontent is not found in protest, anger, violence or defamation of someone else's character. Perhaps the solution to our discontent is to name it, to figure out where it is pointing us, and to seek a solution rather than a scrap.

There are really two choices when we find ourselves discontent. We can give up, give in to despair, grumble, complain and gripe. Maybe protest. Maybe take our frustration out on someone or something else. Or we can let our discontent push us toward excellence. When I am unhappy with something I have done or, more often, something I have written, I will keep working at it until it does or says what I want it to say. Jesus pushes me in the direction of excellence, working out his good, perfect and pleasing will until it is done on earth as it is in heaven. What might happen if we all let the discontent inside of us spur us on toward creativity? I don't see that happening much these days, but I have hope that it can. Lord, help us!