Between the Trees

I had one of those experiences today where it struck me. I was driving to school, worrying about the week and listening to the news in order to distract myself. I passively listened to the fact that hundreds of people were going to lose their jobs, to the fact that several dozen people were killed today in a brutal series of suicide bombings, and that an 8-year-old boy was facing murder charges for killing his father and his father’s friend, possibly because they had abused him. The commercials came on. All of the sudden, I felt something twist in my gut. How have I learned to do this? I wondered. How have I learned to be so disinterested? So hardened? How can the world’s tragedies leave me so unaffected.

There is lots that’s been written about the way that 24-hour global news has destroyed our ability to really care about what we hear. I’ve read all the imprecatory essays decrying the evils of the media culture and bemoaning the torpor of America’s youth. I could talk all about the desensitization and information overload of our culture. The thing that still shocks me is how much I am a part of that culture too.

If I have something that grieves me, it is just how small my capacity for grief can be. There are exceptions, certainly - instances in which tragedy or pain in someone’s life touches me deeply. But these often seem to be the exceptions. We have grown up in a world where the only way to survive is to learn to construct walls of apathy which leave us disconnected from the brutality available at a mouse-click. We are all shell-shocked victims of the information barrage.

Think about the entertainment we consume. I’m not out to decry the corruption of Hollywood here, to take up the censor’s pen and try to mark out what offends me with the self-righteous pen. But it’s remarkable to me just how much it takes for a movie or television show to jerk me out of my reverie. There was a time when a knife-weilding sillouette or a long kiss would shock an audience. Not any more. We’re like the substance abusers I’ve known, long ago bored with the G-rated gateway drugs and finding even that even mainlining the good stuff doesn’t give us the thrill it once did. We’re constantly looking for something to break through the chemical resistances we’ve layered on each other and give us the experience, the moment.

To leave it here, however, wouldn’t be enough. It’s easy to be the cultural critic because you always end up the self-righteous victim. We must see what’s happening as tied to our sin. It is utterly impossible to observe the tragic effects of the fall all around us and be righteous while we remain unmoved - even when these effects are at the infinite distance of a television screen. Tears are the true fruit of a compassionate heart.

What’s more, we must start to realize that the deadness of our hearts touches far closer to home than we would like. While I have often felt deeply moved by the struggles of friends and family, even this does not break me the way it should.At the end of the day, I just change the mental channel and watch some funny commercials.

Sin has broken the world, and this brokenness has been all around me - in the newspapers, television shows and RSS feeds - as long as I can remember. I have been so immersed in it that I’ve forgotten that it should ever really be different. I cannot weep for Lazarus because I have become used to the idea of death. This is the real tragedy I mourn.

Many Christians I know hammer on the sluggish state of 20-something men. Heck, I hammer on it from time to time. But I also feel the weight of uncaring diversion tugging down on my own soul. When will we learn to live impassioned, meaningful lives? I’m not sure about the whole answer, but I think part of it is simple: when we learn to grieve again. Cultural retreatists will never carry the day; I don’t know how I can continue to be a Christian influence in a world which I abandon. However, something in our hearts has to change. When the car radio spills forth the wickedness of humanity, I must learn to tear our the stitches in my heart and let it mourn with those who mourn and bleed with those who bleed. If I don’t, I’m afraid that I too will perish.