Quite understandably, I have been criticized for being “too hard on myself,” especially after a post like the one prior where I explained I lacked courage to “get comfortable being uncomfortable” because I “earned” an inferiority complex because as a lad I chose thought patterns, behaviors, and activities in direct opposition to achieving my life’s Essential Purpose (EP).
I really do believe what I’ve experienced thus far in life is not that much different from your story. Quite by accident, as none of these posts are ever planned out in advance, and in looking back over the past year, I realize now their underlying theme to date frequently hinge on we as humans too often not being willing to honestly examine who we really are becoming (or not!) and what is it that really drives us day after day on the treadmill of life?
I’m going to share an experience I lived recently. We had some friends visiting last week end and after touring Holmes County on Friday afternoon, they began quizzing me over dinner at Mrs. Yoder’s about my childhood in west central MN. Being ten years younger, they were raised in Cincinnati and found it difficult to comprehend the daily rigors and perils I experienced on the farm prior to college where I enjoyed my first daily showers (even multiples if needed); where the closest electricity was three miles away until I was three; and when indoor plumbing finally arrived during seventh grade. What the Cincinnati folks could not comprehend was that these three deprivations were still the norm on many of the farms they had just driven by minutes prior, but now, more insidiously than merely the print, radio and TV of my era, were the Big Tech slot machines in our pockets (phones) powered from space.
So I tell you this bit of history not for sympathy nor an identity with Thoreau, but as the idyllic event it really was without today’s compelling distractions. In stark and riveting contrast, I dare you read Chapter Six titled “A Slot Machine in Your Pocket” from Rana Foroohar’s new book “Don’t Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles and All Of Us.” I’m warning you this chapter may make you physically sick with its 52 minutes of examples such as how the “designer of “Fortnite” with its more than 200 persuasive technology design tricks to purposely draw kids in to their “web,” admitted to the Wall Street Journal that it was his goal to create a game that would engage kids for hundreds of hours if not decades.”
“And then there is the craving for social approval that most of us will recall from our teenage years. This phenomena is not new. What is new though is how Instagram and Snapchat platforms have elevated this need to the level of full-fledged addiction. Consider the average teenager who spends 7.5 hours per day playing with screens and phones. Is it any wonder they are more isolated, less social, and more prone to depression than previous generations? It is even scarier that these conditions can be monetized by the platforms that create them. In 2017, Facebook documents leaked showed that executives had actually boasted to advertisers that by monitoring posts, interactions and photos in real time, they are able to track when teens will feel insecure, worthless, stressed, useless and a failure , and can micro-target ads down to those vulnerable moments when young people need a confidence boost. Think about that for a minute. It is an endless wanton commodification of our attention with little or no concern for the repercussions for individuals. This is how today’s devices create desires we didn’t even know we had, at least not to this degree making us feel anxiously incomplete without them, almost as if we were missing a limb.”
So folks, here is my bottom line. If a kid like me, growing up in such a positive mentoring village with every opportunity in rural MN during the 50’s-60’s, could go so far wrong for so long, what can we expect for our youth today given the “traps & webs” referenced above, not to mention much of the US male population up to and now approaching their 50’s and even beyond?
Jesus frequently told stories as perhaps should we. I love to both read and tell stories, especially true stories. Matthew Kelly tells one of each beginning about page 232 in his Rhythm of Life book that indeed provides hope for our honestly truth-inquiring minds today. Enjoy.
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Perhaps you are familiar with Leonardo da Vinci‘s famous painting The Last Supper. Leonardo was living in Milan at the time he painted it, and when he committed himself to that particular composition, he decided he wanted to approach it in a unique way. He wanted to find thirteen men to pose, one for each of the disciples and one as Jesus. He wanted each of his models to look exactly as he envisioned Jesus and each of the other disciples to have looked. And so his search for these men began.
One day while sitting in church, the voices of the choir were so angelic that he turned around and looked up into the choir loft. As he did, his gaze fell upon one young man in the choir loft. He perfectly matched how Leonardo had visualized Jesus to look. After church Leonardo approached the young man, explained his project, and inquired as to whether he would be interested in posing for the painting. The young man agreed, and the following week he spent four days posing in his studio in Milan.
Leonardo’s search continued, and he quickly found someone to pose as Peter, Simon, and Matthew. Within eleven months he had found and painted all the persons in the scene except the Judas.
Leonardo could not find his Judas. He looked everywhere. He would walk through the streets of Milan, some days for endless hours, searching the nameless faces in the crowds for a man who embodied how he envisioned Judas to have a looked. Eleven years passed in his search when he finally realized he been looking for his Judas in the wrong places.
Leonardo thought, if I am to find a man who has the qualities and appearance of Judas, I must look where such men are gathered. With that in mind, Leonardo went to the prisons in and around Milan, searching for a man with pain and anger in his eyes, with harsh impatience on his face, with the scars of pride and bitterness on his cheeks, and with the marks of brokenness in his features – a man who looked to him like Judas.
After many days and many prisons, he came across that man. He explained to the man what he was doing and asked if he would be willing to pose for the painting. The prisoner agreed, and Leonardo made arrangements for him to be brought to his studio in Milan under guard.
The following week he was brought to the studio, and Leonardo began the final stage of his work. As he painted, Leonardo noticed the prisoner was growing more restless and distressed, even by the hour. Leonardo observed that the man would look at him, and then at the paining, and every time he seemed to be filled with a certain remorseful sadness.
By the middle of the second day, Leonardo was so disturbed by what he was witnessing in his model that he stopped work and said to him, “Is there something wrong? Do you not like my work?” The prisoner said nothing, and Leonardo inquired once more, saying, “You seem very upset, and if I’m causing you pain in any way, perhaps we should stop.” The man looked at the master painter and then at the paining one more time. As his gaze fell away from the painting, he lowered his head, lifted his hands to his face, and began to weep inconsolably.
After several minutes, Leonardo was finally able to settle him down. “What is it?” he asked.
The prisoner looked expectantly into the artists eyes and said, “Do you not recognize me, master?”
In confusion, Leonardo replied, “No, have we met before?“
“Yes,“ the prisoner explained. “Eleven years ago I posed for you, for this same painting, as the person of Jesus.”
May I suggest in each of us there is a Judas and Jesus. Our lives here on earth are an incomplete work unless we can discover the Judas and Jesus within us. We must come to know our strengths and our weaknesses. It is often very easy to find Jesus within us. Too often we shrink from the task of examining our faults. Yet it is only by knowing the flaws and the defects of our character that we can begin to work to overcome them.
Our weaknesses are the keys to our richer more abundant future. Our strengths are already bearing the fruit they can. Our weaknesses are the un-farmed lands of our character. Pull the weeds from that land, till the soil, plant some seeds, and we will yield a great harvest.
Most people don’t want to know about their weaknesses. This is a classical sign of mediocrity. While the rest of us are standing around arguing for our weaknesses, ther heroes, leaders, the legends, champions, and the saints who in all the history books, went looking for their weaknesses. They didn’t hide their weaknesses and they didn’t hide from them. They woke early each morning and went out to face them, because they knew their weaknesses were the keys to their richer, more abundant future.
If you want your future to be bigger than your past, start to transform your weaknesses into strengths.
Are you prepared to face the Judas in you?
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When God was creating the universe, some of the angels were discussing where each of them felt God should hide the truth. One angel said, “I think God should hide the truth at the very summit of the highest mountain.” The next proclaimed, “I think God should hide the truth at the very depths of the ocean.” Another said, “No, I think God should hide the truth on the farthest star.”
God overheard the angels and spoke up, saying, “I will hide the truth in none of these places. I will hide the truth in the very depths of every man and every woman’s heart. This way, those who search humbly and sincerely will find it very easily, and those who do not will have to search the whole universe before they find it.
Well Said! Blessings as YOU GO FORTH APPLYING THE TRUTHS OF THESE STORIES IN YOUR LIFE TODAY WHILE ON YOUR BIG TECH DOMINATED TREADMILL>>>> merlin