Painkillers

My life has been focused on pain recently. Pain pills. Pain management. Pain reporting. I had surgery a week ago that left me with a healthy amount of pain. A significant portion of my waking hours is dedicated to preventing, avoiding, chronicling and treating that pain. And although the pain medication keeps my thoughts in a bit of a knot, here are some things I've been able to tease out of the experience.

Pain Consumes. It eats up everything around it. When you're in pain, the pain becomes the most important thing in your world. Pain is always urgent. It demands your attention. And in doing so, it consumes hopes, comforting thoughts, relational connections, and faith. I know many great heroes of our faith have encountered God most intimately in their suffering, but I seem to find only one thing in pain — a desire to escape pain. Pain makes it hard to plan ahead, to enjoy beauty, or to listen or empathize with others. Pain is the ultimate trigger for selfishness.

Pain Gets Lonely. It wants to spread. It longs to be shared with others. When we hurt, something in us longs for someone else to recognize our hurting. I don't know if this is primarily about our selfishness or about our deep need for connection, but I think we all instinctively understand that enduring pain alone is pitiful. That's why pastors make hospital visits. It's an act of compassion and sacrifice to expose yourself to someone else's pain.

If Treated, Pain Is Temporary. My pain is an effect of my treatment. Actually, my ailment (papillary thyroid carcinoma) didn't cause any pain at all; it's the treatment that brought me pain. But my pain is temporary. Eventually, the wound will heal and I'll be better off for having endured the pain. In other cases, the ailment causes pain and the treatment relieves it. It occurs to me that the only pain that endures is pain that is ignored. Pain that's being treated (assuming a treatment exists) or pain caused by treatment are temporary. They are hopeful. Pain that is ignored continues to hurt precisely because of its hopelessness.

You may not know anyone recovering from surgery, but these pain points are worth noting anyway. The pain I'm dealing with is physical, but these axioms apply to all pain — emotional, relational, psychological, physical. If there are people in your life, your family, or your workplace who seem to always be focused on themselves, who complain a lot, or who have a nagging negativity that won't go away, it's likely because of pain in their lives. People in pain are hard to deal with (just ask my wife!) The question is: how can we help relieve, share and treat their pain? How can you, as an ambassador of Jesus, help people experience pain in heathy, hopeful ways?

The Church of Cultural Interpreters

I recently heard journalist Cathleen Falsani speak. Penning under the nickname "The God Girl", Falsani is possibly the most successful religion reporter of our time. Now on staff at the Orange County Register, she was the lead (read: "only") religion reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times from 2000 to 2010. In 2004, she conducted an interview with then-senator Barack Obama that remains the most in-depth audience the president has ever granted regarding matters of faith and belief. She has written four books, the most recent one — Belieber! — about the faith of Justin Beiber, and one I'm dying to read called The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Cohen Brothers.

So I was eager to hear her speak. Unfortunately, to be honest, I wasn't impressed. She seemed self-conscious, distracted, and maybe even a little pandering to the audience. But this article isn't about Cathleen Falsani's speaking abilities, nor even her writing. It's about her title. As a Christian in a staunchly secular business, Falsani has carved a niche for herself as a "cultural interpreter" — a translator in the halting conversation between Christians and American pop culture. When I first heard her say that, I thought, "How cool is that? What a great gig!" And Falsani certainly seems to be doing a good job with it. But the more I considered her self-proclaimed office, the less I liked it. It represents, I think, a failure on the part of the church.

Have we really become so insulated from our culture as to need a translator? I imagine a sort-of tour guide for Christians in years to come...

"Howdy Christians! Welcome to the Secular America Tour! I'm Simon and I'll be your guide. Glad to see so many of you coming out of the church building to see more of the sights today! Now, a few ground rules before we get started: here in secular America, we drive on the right side of the road and we all watch cable TV. Also, please refrain from any laying-on-of-hands while we're together. That's cause for a lawsuit out here."

I guess we're not that bad yet, but the need for a "cultural interpreter" seems to have us pointing in that direction.

Decades ago, Christians started to retreat from politics because of the corruption and excess there. Then there was a swing back toward involvement in an effort to bring a "Christian voice" to the political square. Something similar has been happening with pop culture, specifically the arts.

I read a quote somewhere that I can't seem to find again so I'm going to give you the meaning but butcher the prose. It was about how to conquer a culture, sort-of an apolitical Machiavellian scheme, and the author, the would-be conquerer, said "If you want me to change a nation, you can keep its politicians. Give me its songwriters." If the soul of our nation is going to change, it will happen because it has been captured by the beauty of the gospel. It will happen as we reach the songwriters and storytellers of our age. And I doubt that will happen if we can't speak their language.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get to work finding a way to keep my nine-year-old daughter from knowing that Belieber! exists.

Fighting For A Good Story

I remember a Saturday Night Live sketch from years ago. It was an Irish talk show co-hosted by two guys named Patrick Fitzwilliam and William Fitzpatrick who did nothing but drink, then fight, then hug and make up in an endless loop. I searched for it online and couldn't find a trace which means either a) it has been scrubbed from the web because it was offensive to Irish, or b) I never saw it but only dreamed I did, in which case I should stop writing this blog and call Lorne Michaels right away. In any case, it was a funny premise — the prototypical Irishmen drinking, fighting and remaining best friends. I wonder if there's a lesson in that as well as a laugh.

I spent most of last week at the Storyline Conference in San Diego. Storyline is hosted by author Donald Miller and it's about the story God is writing with each of our lives. Miller walked us through a process of identifying their own character and ambitions in an effort to help us live a better story. It's really a terrific exercise. I recommend the conference. I also recommend hanging out in San Diego, but that's a different story.

A big part of the conference was about conflict because, frankly, that's a big part of any interesting story. Miller asked us to think of our lives as a movie. If the highest ambition of our lives is to make a comfortable living, send our kids to college, and buy a Volvo, that doesn't make for a very good movie. When the hero drives off the Volvo lot in his new ride, having achieved his ambition, and the credits roll, no one is reaching for the Kleenex. Too often, our lives get hijacked by small stories. And the reason that's true is that we tend to avoid conflict. We want a story where everyone gets along, but that's not a very interesting story, so it's not a very ambitious life.

Imagine your friends at your funeral one day. What eulogy would you like them to give?

"Ryan was a swell guy. We hung out a lot and had lots of laughs. We never disagreed and never failed at anything. I never saw him tested or stirred. Just calm and comfortable, just the way we wanted it."

or

"Ryan and I laughed, cried, prayed, confessed, fought, and served together. We sweat and bled together. Sometimes we disagreed but the disagreement made us better. I always knew he wanted the best for me. I always knew he had my back. And that was good because we tried some pretty impossible things together — some might say foolish things."

I'd take the latter any day. We have to learn to love one another, but not for the sake of loving one another. Our purpose is that the world will know us by our love, that we will unveil the kingdom reign of God by our community. Sometimes that means persevering through conflict. Sometimes that means fighting fair with your brother and then making up, instead of choosing to be martyred for your convictions and giving up on the relationship.

What story is your life writing? What story is your church writing? Is it a story about making schedules work and figuring out what to do with the kids? Is it a story about Bible knowledge? Or is it a story about transforming lives, bringing shalom, iron sharpening iron? The best way to write a good story is to imagine the climactic scene — the consummation of the story just before the credits roll — and then address every decision along the way through that filter. Is this a scene that fits with the end of the story I want to tell?