The morning TV shows are an archetype in a lot of ways of all TV. That is, they're fast moving, shiny, noisy and pretty nearly completely vacuous. I'm willing to stand corrected as to "completely" by those who like "educational" TV, as long as it's not the ironically named Learning Channel - which used to carry John and Kate Plus Eight.
This morning, my wife and I were watching a couple different morning shows using the commercial avoidance mechanism (aka. the remote control). Sprinkled in with the cooking, burps of news and a weepy feature or two, were the daily shots of the hosts out on the street with "The People." Most days, some of the People of the Street hold up signs. From time to time they get to meet Mr. Microphone in order to talk about what their sign means, say where they're from and "meet" Matt Lauer et al. In the middle of this, my wife asked a question about the hosts. "I wonder what bubble those people live in?"
That is an excellent question. She comes up with excellent questions all the time. It's one of my favorite things about her...except maybe when the questions are about me but that's a different blog entry.
I was thinking about it while I was watching all the noise ("watching the noise," huh, guess I wasn't paying much attention). The thought crawled into my brain that they live in the same kind of bubble we all do. If there's a difference, I think it's that there's more shiny and reflective stuff on the inside of their bubbles than for People of the Street. There might even be a ratio or proportion that says that the more people you have looking at you, the harder it is to see out of your own bubble.
Still though, all bubbles are shiny enough on the inside. So much so that sometimes their reflection makes it hard to see other people. Bubbles seem to reflect back sound as well so that way too often, we hear ourselves quite clearly and others only through the muffling of both their bubbles as well as our own.
The great thing about this kind of a bubble is that when it is ignored consistently, it goes away. Ignoring your bubble is difficult because it's shiny and distracting and can even be protective.
At another point this morning, my wife muted the Bubble People and read to me from a book she's reading. The book is "A Testament of Devotion" by Thomas Kelly. It was published in 1941. At that time of course, the world minus the United States had gone to war and we were soon to follow. Even with 24/7 media constantly feeding our paranoia and countless rumors of medical, social and political anger and angst, I believe 1941 was a more fundamentally frightening time than the present. Curiously, our ancestors of that time did not seem to exhibit the quaking fears and self loathing that we tend toward today. Maybe this was because they didn't have nearly as many tools to help them shiny up the inside of their bubbles. They were after all, only slowly emerging from The Great Depression. They were in many cases, too busy staying alive to worry much about their bubbles.
Partially no doubt in response to the times though, Kelly was writing on the good, even extreme good that's to be found in suffering. His thoughts are beautiful and complex and do not reduce well. However, I did hear something in them to do with bubbles.
It seems that there is something that can encourage us and even compel us to ignore our own bubbles, even when those bubbles have hardened into something more like prison bars or maybe chains. In fact, that "something" might even be the only thing strong enough to readjust our focus outside ourselves, such that we can truly and clearly see and hear others, and even see and hear God, who spoke us. Of course, this often happens only when our reflections become such a horror we can no longer bear them. And that I believe is both the core as well as the extreme value of suffering.
The work of suffering over time erodes the walls of our bubbles, until they grow so thin they pop and are completely gone. Suffering compels us to listen carefully to the voice of the God that spoke us. And it also forces us to look into the eyes, listen carefully and receive help from those who would offer us from themselves.
If this doesn't sound crazy or maybe even sounds like something good that's a little too scary to want for yourself because you might get what you ask for, that's absolutely fine. We weren't made to want suffering. Kelly's point in part is that suffering comes of it's own accord. His point also is that it is not to be feared and that it can even be embraced and thereby eventually redeemed...along with everything else Jesus and his brothers and sisters embrace. We are however moved toward completion of our best possible selves not by avoiding suffering but by traveling through it...and that we cannot do successfully by ourselves. The world is such that suffering will arrive for each of us at one time or another. The Good News is that the possibility life is eternal and redemption of both us and our suffering is infinitely available.
POP!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete