Reality

Heh Heh. I can't believe that I am writing a post on reality.

I think it is very hard for most Americans, including American Christians, to accept the reality of reality. It is much more fun to create our own.

Calvin, from the Calvin & Hobbes comic series, said, "Reality continues to ruin my life."

Adam Savage, of Myth Busters fame, said, "I reject your reality, and substitute it for my own."

That pretty much sums up the view of reality for most people I know. Instead of dealing with reality we seem bent on creating our own. And we do it with utmost seriousness at times.

I recently watched a news report that told the story of a Somali family who walked 24 miles to reach help at a famine relief camp in Kenya. The mom died on the way and the father and children were very weak when they arrived. That is the reality of the world we live in. That's some serious stuff. Funny how we can turn a lot of other aspects of our life and elevate them to "most serious" status.

Sometimes I hear Christians saying that the end of the world is near because of the bad things they are reading about in their communities. I used to go to church with a guy in Africa who didn't have any ears. They had been cut off by rebel soldiers. I bet he thought the end of the world was long past due. We probably would have given up on church if that happened to us. I guess "How bad things are" is relative.

I don't mean this post to be a downer because we have so much to be thankful for. But I think the more we truly grasp reality the more thankful we become. A book title that really helps me (You can tell I am a deep thinker, can't you?) is Eugene Peterson's "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction." Now there is a dose of reality I can relate to.