Am I passing through life with headphones on?
I can see people all around me.
Mouths, eyes, gestures, but all I hear is Foghat’s Slow Ride.
As I sit here in Starbucks, 1st & Yesler, a realization has made its way through my mind. Here I sit next to a lady knitting a scarf, across from a homeless man, next to a young couple, near two men, and a woman on her phone.
I sit with Foghat blaring in my ears and everything around me is like a colored silent film from the 20s without the captions. Everyone is talking, reading, drinking, and I am sitting in the middle…alone…insulated…protected.
Not that listening to music with headphones is wrong in and of itself, but it has taken me into a certain thought stream about who we are as Christians. I have protected myself from all of the babble and rabble as my blaringly sweet 80s rock Pandora station blends from Foghat to Journey’s “Here we stand, Worlds apart, hearts broken in two, two, two. Sleepless nights, losing ground, I’m reaching for you, you, you.” A great divide separates me from so many…
Could this be the same divide that wrecks our Christian worldview? We isolate ourselves with our “headphones” of “Christian” living inside this land, blending in, looking cool, living life big, but separated by the great divide we have willingly placed on our ears to “protect” ourselves…or is it to insulate and isolate ourselves? Are we making it evident that we believe the Holy Spirit, strong and mighty, can’t protect us from those evil people? When the fact is “those people” aren’t evil, in and of themselves. They are however lost in a world corrupted by the evil one, who is himself carrying out a great rebellion against the King. How are we expecting to ever penetrate into the enemy’s kingdom if we do so only with our “headphones” on, protecting ourselves, watching but not hearing.
Today…take your headphones off…hear the world around you…ask God to allow you to decipher, through all the noise, what people are really saying, what is being presented. Parse down, divide out, sift through the noise, focus on the strands of emotion and desire and longings.
Hear, See, Feel.
Here I sit next to a lady knitting a scarf for her grand son whose mother is addicted to Methamphetamines and living on the streets. As she knits she prays, with tears falling slowly down her elder cheeks, for her grandson, that he will be warm, fed and find a better life as he grows. Across from me a homeless man sips slowly on his tall Pike’s Place drip coffee, nursing it along and reading the paper, hoping to stay inside as long as possible because last night was very cold and if he could just warm his feet up he can get through this Friday, maybe getting a bed at the UGM tonight. Next to me a young couple visiting from Boise, ID, newly wed and excited about what the future holds for them as they become a family. Near me are two men openly involved in a romantic relationship with each other, but below the surface is confusion and deep hurt that wars against them. And there at the end of the table is woman on her I-Phone talking to her girlfriend in Minneapolis, pleading with her to explore the truths and freedom that Jesus offers.
Maybe I am here today to pray, to encourage, to listen, to protect, to discuss, to cry, to explore, to respect, to lift up, to hug…but as long as I wear my headphones I will do none of these.
I think a lot of us wear headphones. Thanks for posting this, Keith.
The world will hardly be transformed from the inside of our Christian ghettos…even our electronic ones. People feel wanted and valued when I am present with them. I can’t do that from insulated safeties. I remember Jesus retreating to replenish and commune with His Father, but then He came down the mountain to re-engage the lady knitting, and guy on drugs. He was fully present in the world.
Great reminder, Keith.
Thank you for your willing obedience to enter into the world of those of whom you speak and whose chains cannot be broken, save the power of God’s redemptive love. Your words here speak to my heart of my need to be vulnerable and real in the context of where God has placed me. I have a different demographic but with equally binding chains of addictions and misdirection that keeps people from the true Light.
The call that God places on our lives demands that we enter into the world of pain and heartache to be redemptive love to those around us. What is “cool” is to be vulnerable and intentional in embracing people where they live and demonstrating how different we are from those who would cut themselves off from their world through the isolating means that you mention.