drive

recently in an interview, Bono was presented a photograph of himself getting out of a helicopter in the 80's. in the photo, he had that look in his eye, like his whole life was ahead of him to do with as he pleased and it pleased him to try to change the world. the interviewer posed a very simple question:

Q: what would you say to this guy?

A: I’d tell him ‘you’re right.’

that look… is that the look of a younger man? is it the look of one who is too young, passionate, idealistic, and naïve to be cynical? or is it the look of one who’s ready to live the dream?

of late, a bunch of us have been looking at the whole notion of awakening from our slumber to live God’s dream for us… interesting how, sometime between genesis 2 and last night, slumber has moved from being God’s means of recharging us indefinitely for an ongoing creative partnership that was part of the original creation plan to a place where we would hide from the pressing responsibilities of ‘now’ just long enough to be able to face them for the hours between our waking and sleeping… we have gone from life with no end in paradise to just getting through this day without going crazy.

perhaps it has something to do with the disaster that is chronicled in genesis 3 and the aftermath that we read of in 3.17b-19, 23-24…

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'

"Cursed is the ground because of you;

through painful toil you will eat of it

all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return."

So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

man and maid back slowly out of the garden, only to see the large metal door of God's vault of infinite blessing slam shut, its large wheel spinning as the security system engages and the two infidels turn to watch the ground harden before their very eyes as the sun sinks slowly out of view.

so as stillness and passivity settle upon the newly accursed ground and the rich fragrance of those evening walks with God gives way to the pungent odor of overripe fruit and burning roadside garbage that comes to characterize our dominion and our domain east of eden, the melancholic chill of adult responsibility grips all of creation.

and over the millennia, we come to recognize it

as the sound and feeling of life

and we accept it as such.

so- so you think you can tell heaven from hell?

blue skies from pain?

can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?

a smile from a veil?

do you think you can tell?

did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?

hot ashes for trees?

hot air for a cool breeze?

cold comfort for change?

did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

how i wish- how i wish you were here...

we’re two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl year after year

running over the same old ground-
have we found the same old fears?

wish you were here…

(Roger Waters)

but movement is a sign of life
and to be moving is an indicator

not only of life but of health and purpose…

I wanted movement, not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and a chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I found in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life. (Tolstoy)

perhaps this drive of which tolstoy speaks is what drives a 56 year old woman to swim across the ocean…

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Jennifer Figge pressed her toes into the Caribbean sand, exhilarated and exhausted as she touched land this week for the first time in almost a month.

Reaching a beach in Trinidad, she became the first woman on record to swim across the Atlantic Ocean _ a dream she'd had since the early 1960s, when a stormy trans-Atlantic flight got her thinking she could don a life vest and swim the rest of the way if needed.

The 56-year-old left the Cape Verde Islands off Africa's western coast on Jan. 12, battling waves of up to 30 feet (9 meters) and strong winds.

perhaps this is what drives a 75 year old man like abram in genesis 12 to leave house and home and all that is familiar to undertake a journey to a land that, at that stage, remained a mere promise by an invisible God (Hirsch)

oh but wait a minute.

in the abram story, the drive isn't simply a nomadic restlessness that prompts a man to resume the journey begun by his father a generation earlier. there's a spiritual element that must be seen as far more significant than just basic human wanderlust.

it probably has less in common with the hunger for adventure confessed by tolstoy than with that drive that, in mark 1.9-13, compels a young 30-something messiah, newly anointed by God, into the wilderness to face his greatest fears and insecurities before engaging in a ministry that would change the world forever, bringing healing to the sick, new life to those dead, and new freedom to those in bondage, restoring that look in our eye and that eternal orientation to our perspective…

in a recent talk, erwin mcmanus challenged the crowd
with a rather simple question:

If your greatest dream were to become reality, would the word be a better place?