a move

Sunday, June 12, 2005

I like the way that teens are moving these days. I sense some deep, perhaps divine, discontent with the way things have been and the way things are. We want a change. A couple years ago I felt that this longing would soon be extinguished in this world where, well, hope isn't so easy to hold onto. Last night I went to my old church and experienced what I would describe as a renewed sense of hope. Maybe it was there all along, maybe I just couldn't catch a hold of it for a while.

I know that I have been told for most of my teen years that my generation was the one that had the power and the opportunity to change the world. At first I believed it, naively perhaps. After a few years I began to witness too many things that are holding my friends back from real life in community with each other and with God. Too many addictions, too much empty entertainment, too many deadend relationships, too much money, too much stuff. I didn't think that there was much hope for us to crawl out from under that.

Today I feel somewhat differently, with some reservations lingering I must admit. :) I do really see potential in my generation because we are hurt. Through discontent with the status quo, people reach out for change. And change is what needs to happen. We need to move away from a way of thinking where we are the center and the most important thing is what will make us happy tomorrow. We need to find a place where we care as much, if not more, about our friends as we do ourselves and heck why not care about perfect strangers while we're at it?

I see an emerging group of young people who are looking for a different way to live. I see a church that is eager to pray and is ready, maybe even waiting for a revival, a revitalization, a revolution. I think it all starts with a prayer. From there, hearts are changed. It all begins when we realize that we are on a highway to hell... and we reach out to someone, something bigger.

I believe that there is hope. Will you join me? The thing is that it's going to take a little more than hoping to make a change. It's going to take changed attitudes, changed worldviews, greater compassion, greater vision and courage, and way, way less 'me'.

Let's go.

1 Comments:

Lucid Elusion said...: Not only will it take a shift in perspectives, Michigan Little, but it's going to take a pile of blod, sweat and tears. Literally. The most effective revolutions always seem to demand sacrifice. The hard part is that although saying "it'll cost dearly" and saying "I'm up to it" are easy, when faced with the opportunity of putting our money where mouths are, people are far too... well for lack of a better phrase: too comfortable where they're at right now. Prayer meetings are the smallest and the least frequent groups in any Christian organisation.

Beyond this, however, is the notion of the expected norm. People have ideas of what life is like, what it has to offer; what "success" is; what they're supposed to do to be a constructive part of society. It's irritating, because it is only those select few who refuse to swallow the expected norm that actually make differences, that actually impact society & change it.

If you're serious about becoming a "changer," then this blog is a perfect starting point, it seems--from my brief reading. Refuse what's expected of you! Deny yourself the 2.5 children & bungalow in the suburbs! Invest you energy in becoming un-normal & counter-societal. revoluntionary.

Where do I stand? I'm out of the 'in' crowd & into the 'out'. Let's break down walls & tear up streets. Let's get the foundations shaking.; 1:30 a.m.