Mars

~ swithrowking ~ Leave a comment

I read earlier this year that more than 78,000 people have applied to take a one-way trip to Mars. The nonprofit organization financing the expedition expects to get 500,000 applicants by the time the application window closes at the end of the summer. Individuals selected will travel to Mars for the purpose of colonizing it. They will not be able to return to earth because of the physiological changes that will take place in their bodies.

New Martians will spend their days building greenhouses and infrastructure, along with studying the atmospheric and geologic history of the planet. When I was a teenager, my parents gave me access to new territory, like staying out past midnight, only after I had proven that they could trust me within the existing bounds. We really think that because we have the will and might to go somewhere, it is ours for the taking.

Is it really possible that after thousands of years of wanton destruction of the Earth and its inhabitants by those with power, influence, and money, we think we are ready to start over again on a new planet? The arrogance is so astonishing, it must be a set-up for some catastrophic and karmaic event. If I believed in hell, I would be tempted to believe that we were living in it now, repeating an endless cycle of insane exploitation species by species, person by person, planet by planet, millennium after millennium. So I have to remember that in this puppy-riddled deluge, the jobs of reconciliation are not all mine. Jesus leads me into communities of disciples, and through the Spirit, we discren with them where and how I serve.

Balance

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The word “balance” keeps coming to mind as I review and reflect. Balance. I have to find balance in my own way of being in the world – the precarious point of stability managing work, school, community, home, family, self, and spirit. Since balancing those things is usually an impossible task, I tackle them one by one. Knock ’em down like linebackers on a blitz, bulldozing in just that order, instead of caring for my spirit, self, and family first. This all-or-nothing outlook also influences why I initially read The Liberating Mission of Jesus with confusion. Of course when you see a person in need, you should stop to help them without wasting an enormous amount of time on analysis.

And here is where I have a little “aha” moment, which subsequently makes me feel a little silly for not seeing it at first, it is sooooooo obvious. Remember the story about seeing puppies drowning in a stream? You see a drowning puppy (if you’re a cat person, you can change it to drowning kittens)…You see a drowning puppy and you wade in to save her. Just as you get back to shore, you see another puppy, so you go back to get that one. This happens again and again. You cannot leave your post, or puppies will drown, but if you do not venture up the path, you will not find the psychopath throwing puppies off a bridge. So you enlist help. If you are a good swimmer, you keep pulling the puppies out of the stream and you recruit someone from the community who is good at navigating the backwoods to go figure out what is happening. You cannot do both. I can’t do both. In fact, you and I can probably do one better than the other. And expanding the circle of people who are helping solve this puppy-drowning problem not only means a happier end for the puppies, but allows the people recruited to use their skills for an other.

Cooperation builds community bound by a common mission and allows the members of that community to do what they can, when they can, knowing that they do not have to solve the whole world’s problems (by themselves) at once.

The Liberating Mission of Jesus

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English: poverty

Dario Lopez Rodriguez’s The Liberating Mission of Jesus is about crossing the many kinds of boundaries created by thousands of years of colonization, spiritual segregation, and economic exploitation. Though the gospel of Luke gives Christians a clear guide for doing so through the words and actions of Jesus, my Christian ancestors presumably failed to love their neighbors and enemies alike, or to stand with the marginalized (unless I come from magnificently rebellious and revolutionary stock). As a result, I was born into a position of privilege – the member of a family who always had a roof over their head; in a city and state that provided me with quality, free education; in a country that was comfortable and safe enough to develop a prosperous market for hundreds of television channels mostly devoted to “reality” TV or home shopping.

 

I struggle with whether to shrug off that privilege or to use it for good, particularly in a world where “public servants” so often formulate the plans and policies that serve only themselves and other powerful people – they act as kurioi, not douloi. Can I use my privilege without abusing another? I can try. But the hard truth is that it is a lot easier for me to serve the “other” that I cannot see than the “other” right in front of me. So, in my work life, I succeed at urging and advocating for those like me to cross boundaries and create transformation, but do not ask my neighbor, who talks a lot and smokes and frequently smells like urine, how I can meet his needs.