Anybody remember that movie called "Logan's Run"? It was a sci-fi type flick that channel five aired once a year back in the day before DVD players (or even VCRs).
I may not have the story completely correct, but basically, the people of Earth had created an indoor Utopia. I think there had been a war or some cataclysmic event that had destroyed life outdoors. Anyway, a weird thing about this new society was that once a citizen reached the age of about 30, they heard their name called over the intercom system and they were ordered to "Report to Carousel".
Sounds nice, right? Pick a slow moving horse on the merry go round and relax for a few minutes as you gently move in circles.
Wrong!
"Carousel" was this big, round room equipped with lasers. Those who were "reporting to Carousel" arrived having donned these weird white uniforms. They would situate themselves around the Carousel's perimeter while the rest of the people (those who had not been ordered to report to Carousel) filled the audience bleachers to watch. When everyone was ready, Carousel would slowly begin to spin, the 30 and up crowd would float up into the air and one by one they'd get zapped (and thus obliterated) until they had all disappeared.
Creepy stuff (even if I did get a few of the details wrong).
Logan was this one guy who heard his name called and he decided he wasn't going to cooperate with his annihilators. He ran off (with a beautiful woman, of course) and thus the movie was entitled "Logan's Run".
I remember being about Delaney's age and asking my dad, "Why are they zapping all those people?"
He informed me that that society didn't value people once they reached a certain age and that they were looked at as burdens, so for "the good of everyone", they were disposed of.
That totally freaked me out. I mean, at that time 30 did seem pretty ancient to me, but still...
I think what disturbed me the most was that the people willingly reported to Carousel and the others came to watch the mass murder like it was some sporting event.
And my point is...
It horrified my little-girl-mind that these people weren't valuing each other or even themselves.
Now, we can watch that movie and call it ridiculous, but by observing actual human nature, it really isn't that far fetched.
I just finished Elie Weisel's Nobel Peace Prize winning book, Night. It's his real life story about living in concentration camps and barely surviving. To say the story is horrendous is the understatement of a lifetime. Ultimately, what it's about is the negligence to value human lives and even beyond that to sadistically enjoy doing so.
The sick things described really happened. Reporting to Carousel genuinely seems like a very pleasant alternative.
A more recent example...
The other day, I read a news article about this famous "adult entertainer" who was the spokesperson for some foundation that was dedicated to educating women. Curious, I read on. Well, she was educating women that they should always require their sexual partners to use condoms. She said that a lot of women are afraid to do so.
WHAT?
Women are giving away their bodies (and arguably bits of their souls) and they're afraid to have parameters in regards to the process? Where are the boundaries in our society? Sick...
It's all a part of not valuing each other or ourselves.
So what about me...
Okay, so my examples thus far are pretty far removed from my day to day experience, but am I successfully valuing others as I ought?
My efforts to do so are pretty pathetic.
Yes, we sponsor a few kids through Compassion and yes, we are attempting to teach our kids good manners and values, and yes, we buy meals for any homeless person who approaches us, but what about everything else that I could be doing?
By American standards, my kids both needed braces very badly.
(Sorry about that, just illustrating my point!)
Straightening one's teeth is more than just for vanity's sake. There are benefits for oral hygiene and even digestive health, but how drastic of an improvement is made in either of these areas?
Braces cost about $4,000 per kid. If I'd given that money to a specified organization, they probably could have dug a well for an entire village in some African country or fed the entire village for a year.
Still, I handed it over to an orthodontist and said, "Straighten my kid's teeth."
You can call me overly dramatic, but it's clear to me that I just deprived an entire village of a much needed well.
Living in middle class America is like living in a carefully tended bubble where the temperatures of our homes are just right, the food is so abundant that a bunch of it rots in our fridges, the entertainment is constant, there are effective medicines for headaches, kids can get a decent education for free, a truck comes by every Tuesday to collect our trash, etc., etc., etc. It's every day life for us, but it's a veritable dreamland for the vast majority of the actual world.
I like taking vacations. I want my kids to have those memories with us and see the sights, but how many truckloads of medicine could I have bought sick people with the money I spent on our fabulous trip to Oregon?
I like fixing Jeff a juicy steak instead of serving him beans and rice after a hard day's work, but think of all the beans and rice I could buy for starving people if I limited our own grocery budget.
I like spending money on haircuts, but think of all the Bibles I could send to China in one year if I let my locks just grow.
Welcome to the inside of my head.
I can't talk myself out of these convictions...and yet how much do I actually do about them?
This whole post is somewhat rhetorical (although I'd love to hear whatever any of you have to say). For years I've struggled with these haunting thoughts of entitlement and lack of generosity.
I still remember being about 10 and seeing the distended bellies of starving Ethiopian children on TV. I sent about 8 dollars to the relief fund which was a huge chunk of my piggy bank's contents, but I knew it wasn't enough. Nor was it all that I had.
How many of my actions (or inactions) will I regret when I report to Carousel?
(Sorry if you needed a pick-me-up. This probably wasn't it.)
3 comments:
Ok, to say you have a way with words would not even cover it! This post really is so true for all of us. I think about it, but really--what do I help to DO about it? This definitely made me think about it more, and I will have to pray about where to help, notice I didn't say how to help...there are A LOT of options. We as Americans are glutens in every aspect, I feel like sometimes. Like really--we watch to much tv (we don't have cable/bunny ears, zilch, but you know what I mean), EAT to much, complain to much...and so on and so on. Thanks for the help in the reality check department :). What a great connection you made between "Logan's Run" and today's American society, we do feel like people out there sometimes aren't as "valuable" as we are and in turn we do sort of just "sit and watch" them go "down". Can you tell I was a little convicted? :)
Veronica--
Thanks so much for conversing with me about this. I didn't post it to try to play the role of the Holy Spirit by convicting others, but if that's how God used it in your mind then I don't want to get in His way. Truly, though, my motivation in sharing this was simply to convey to whomever is interested that in my experience as a human, this is something I really struggle with. It's CONSTANTLY in my mind that if I cut back on the somewhat simple pleasures I enjoy each day then I could help others more in their basic quest to simply survive. And yet tonight we drove all the way to Claim Jumper to gorge ourselves on a ridiculously unnecessary (on many levels)dessert! Should I feel guilty about this? I'll go crazy if I feel guilty about every thing I enjoy. This train of thought could easily lead to legalism, and yet...people are dying all around us. Dear Father, please guide me! I truly would go insane if He didn't constantly reassure us that we can rely on Him in all ways.
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