“Contentment is a window or picture frame that sets the boundaries around us in which to live.”
—Susan McCauley, daughter of Francis Schaeffer

After a taste of beautiful weather and more soon to come, it seems the complaints about the gray drizzle that has hung over the hills of eastern Tennessee for months have ended. People begin to study outside and simply enjoy these temperate days of spring.

Attitudes about the weather have shifted from despondency to joy, at least for a time. But before we know it, we may soon bemoan the fact that the sun is shining too much and that the temperature is too hot. Indoors we will go, where we will regulate climate and attempt to avoid sweat as though it were a contagious disease.

Contentment will likely be a struggle for us humans nearly all of our lives on earth. We tend to move from one thing to the next, looking for satisfaction and finding it, for a time, in the new. As the thrill gradually wears off, we move on with time and effort. However, I am convinced, that contentment is a state of mind rather than a place of life.

The weather may be a moot point, as all seasons have their less than desirable aspects; nevertheless, we often lose our appreciation of things for what they are versus what we want them to be. We are inhabitants of a culture that has a notorious predilection to constantly desire everything to be immediate, yet also tends toward that age-old, grass-is-always-greener desire for something other than what we currently have.

As a senior graduating from college in a matter of weeks, it seems as though the world will always attempt to convince me there is something more satisfying than what I am currently doing. The world screams maddeningly at me to make a run for something exciting as I reach this new juncture. But after four years of college and a hell of a summer this past year, my big ideas for changing the world slow down. I don’t know if I will change the world, but that does not matter. The goal is not necessarily to change the world but to follow Jesus.

Contentment may be found in wealth or a good job, a girlfriend or a boyfriend, but ultimately, none of these will satisfy the deep hunger that we all feel. We will always feel that impulse to want more than we have. But what it means to be human does not elude to what station I achieve in life but how I live from where I presently see the world. Following Jesus helps me to see the world more clearly, no matter the circumstance.

A summer ago, I observed Augustine Asir and his missionaries operating in India. Word for the World missionaries live on low income, often minimum wage–a salary of about $60 a month. While supporting their families on this minimum salary, many of these missionaries, all native Indians, choose to live in the slum neighborhoods to which they minister. In these people I began to see a different kind of contentment–one that did not lead them to wanting more stuff or bigger houses or better neighborhoods or better bodies, but straight to the heart of the suffering. My weak contentment was put to shame. It was frail and could survive only when things were in my favor.

Contentment is not found in the surrounding circumstances but in the full, head-on redemption of Jesus. For those with leprosy, little hope may be found in the body or in this life—but a true and undying hope is found in the life of Jesus Christ, the one who came that we might have life, life abundantly. Once, a missionary named Aaron introduced Caleb Beasley and I to two lepers sitting under the porch of a leper colony built by a Roman Catholic Church. Gabriel and Mahgimay, their bodies filled with terrible disease, understand joy better than anyone I have ever met. They are the lowest of the low within the Indian culture, their bodies falling apart, but they love Jesus. Following in His way, their lives have become beacons of light and hope to those around them, and more than anything, they have found contentment though they lie dying.

We, too, lie dying. And good weather will come and go, but the goodness of life will remain. If attitudes of contentment rest on good weather, perhaps you should move.

But come now, you’re better than that.

Please take note of the date of publication when reading this article.

As we take another step into the year 2010, we see that our country continues in its path of decline: the educational system in America is failing our children, the economy is unfair to its patrons, the job market is cruel to the unemployed, and the poor and the sick are uninsured (though that is soon to change). As the ideals of freedom hoped for by the founding fathers plummet, I lose hope of ever seeing the American people break away from these shackles and rise to freedom on their own.

In this dark moment of realization, perhaps I begin to see one glimmer of light. It comes with the recent passing of the healthcare bill. I had once hoped that the rut we the American people have fallen into would eventually be grown out of—the rut referred to by Neil Postman as, “amusing ourselves to death.” But the bleakness of our fated reality has begun to set in.

Where will we find help in these perilous times? Who will we look to for a hand up out of this mire? I believe the answers lie with those who are willing and ready to lead us into change that we can truly believe in. The answers to our deepest questions lie not in ourselves but in this: a government who can delegate, direct and provide assurance that all of our needs will be adequately met and that all will be spread equally among both rich and poor.

I lay out four basic areas to recovering the true freedom for which we, as a country, are in desperate need.

One: A proposal for a fully government-directed system of education. As it stands, our choice of schooling is too open—far too may routes exist to bring about a stabilized order. If individuals are to have choice, society’s outcome will be compromised. What is needed is a single system of schooling that will allow children to be given equal education, equal opportunity to their human right, and most of all an ordered system for a unified society. With one centralized system of education, the populace will receive an education beneficial to the whole of society, taught how to think in terms of the nation instead of the individual and the future workforce will be equipped to fill the jobs we will need in the future.

Two: Reformation of labor. As observed, an overall decline in the thinking of our citizens is leading our culture away from understanding the ethics of labor. Those who hope in change wait for a day when everyone is given a job. Roles in the workforce will be assigned based upon job-specific education that begins at a young age and natural ability. This superior system will negate the inefficiency of random chance of job applications. A stable economy will be created as all will be carefully regulated, the workforce will be capable, and unemployment will disappear entirely as everyone makes their own contribution to the state—the world family. This is hopeful change.

Three: Intentional language. If the people are to succeed under such a proposed government ideal, everything matters—from every person to every spoken word. The language used in reference to one another and those who lead our cause must be intentional. In reference to its citizens, the preferred vocabulary may include “citizen,” or perhaps “comrade.” The term “czar,” coined by the media during the Nixon administration, is also a choice description that describes a leader worthy following. “Czar” implies power and leadership—two things we must look for in a new era of change we can truly believe in. President Obama has included 32 czars in his cabinet: a hopeful beginning.

Four: Creation of the perfect society of the future. In response to the growth of obesity and our high emission of greenhouse gases, government may regulate vehicle usage, encouraging the general populace to walk shorter distances rather than drive. Food could also be regulated by increase in price or the creation of a federal food distribution system, diminishing portions and increasing nutritional value of the basic meal of the average American. In turn, these government expansions would work to raise a physically healthy citizenry and simultaneously create a more efficient healthcare system. Such ideas would work to ensure our rights are maintained and our best interests are looked out for, including the health of the nation, and perhaps someday, the universe.

As we look to the future, I reiterate that the freedom we desire for ourselves, our children, and our society will never be fully realized while all choice is left to individuals. We need those in power who can provide direction and motivation for carrying out the hard work and the tasks that lay before us. We must look to reform society so that greater efficiency is gained, progress is furthered and our lives are equalized. Such measures will ensure a change we can truly believe in—a utopian society realized.

To a free republic and a capitalist nation—Comrades, we are better than that!

Last week iTunes sold its 10 billionth song.

Chart courtesy betweenthescreens.com

Seventy-one year-old Lou Sulcer from Woodstock, Ga., paid 99 cents for an all but tangible commodity: a digital audio file. Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen that Way,” was the magic purchase. With this news we witness the marriage of the new and the old. Others have noted the irony. I guess things happen that way.

There is something to be said about the technological tools and toys that decorate, infiltrate and mitigate our lives. Upon my knees rests a rapidly aging Macbook Pro. Open on my computer are two Word documents, a web browser sporting multiple opened tabs giving me the news, and my iTunes library. Our lives are intertwined with these things and they flow together seemingly in a forward sprawl. It is hard to separate our lives from technology these days, and it is tough to actually live without being controlled, at least a little, by it.

There is also something to be said for books. Staring me down from the desk opposite me sits a two-volume set of Solzhenitsyn’s monolithic work, “The Gulag Archipelago.” The weighty chapters collect dust, as the heavy books remain inanimate. It could be said their story is anything but inanimate. To me and to my culture, they are all but useful—they are all but used. They weigh heavy, but we do not read them.

As time progresses, it seems that our lives become more and more distant from classic stories, both true and mythical. I do not overemphasize the importance of such stories in a culture, but it may be worth a mention. As the focus of our popular art becomes less and less great story and more and more an animalistic side of humanity, one might think a show of concern to be an inadequate response. Of course, that depends on the story.

Burrowed deep in our industrial-sized iTunes libraries, I think we often feel technology— with a little money—will bring us all the security we could ever need, often equating a sense of security with a vague idea of salvation. For Sulcer, happening upon the 10 billionth song purchase from iTunes won him a $10,000 iTunes card. For most of us, had this been our fate, it would seem that we’d witnessed salvation materialize.

A few critics and prophets may tell us we are damned because of our heavy tie to technology, that we should fast from all technological toys and tools. Reality, however, beckons us forward. Neither salvation nor damnation directly flows from technology. Some levelheaded thinking about books and good and even true stories that technology often distracts us from may bring us closer to a better life and a clearer picture of reality. If nothing else, better stories. But in the end, none of these things will deliver us from death or grant us some pardon at a final judgment.

The books staring me in the face right now are not getting read. Maybe that is because I do not make time to read them. Perhaps that is because technology distracts me. I do, after all, enjoy surfing the internet in my multi-tab browser, I enjoy watching cool videos and listening to music on Pandora. These things can be distraction or a draw.

Life is not in books. Life is not in technology. Life is not in community. As one author once said, it is “hidden in Christ.” I begin to guess that Christ is quite large, and that life is not any one thing but a hundred things; a thousand things; 10 billion things. For the one with true hope, it is a story held together by a savior.

Technology has carried us a long way, but I don’t think it can sustain us as we often ask it to do. The richest life, if that is what we are in search of, I think is found in sitting still while listening.

What is human? Maybe we are too distracted to really understand. Perhaps we await the answer to come from technology as we search for what it means to be human. Still, we are left unsatisfied.

To technology and stories too small: we are better than that.

On Jan. 12, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the heart of an all-but-forgotten country in the Western hemisphere: Haiti. It was just over a month ago when we began to hear about Haiti. First it was the earthquake, then it was the disaster compounding the existing poverty of that country. But for most of the western world, what happened in Haiti would remain in Haiti—isolated. Those outside Haiti would be unaffected by its tragedy save what stories the media provided. But for IV Smith, things were different.

One week after the earthquake struck, a Bryan alumnus, Smith, or IV, as friends and family affectionately call him, was on a plane to the Dominican Republic with a friend. Their objective: to sneak across the border and guard and distribute relief supplies in conjunction with a mission organization called Thirst No More.

At Jacob Myer’s Deli in Dayton, Smith explained that in the first days following a major disaster, a small window exists when most major relief organizations are not yet able to mobilize, but the need is severe. The most effective response comes from those who are able to get in early.

“The cowboys are the ones who get things done,” he explained. Small teams like Smith and his friend are able to provide more efficient relief in the early days of disaster.

With the skills and abilities Smith and his friend, who he requested be unnamed, possess from their military backgrounds, their aim was to hit this small but needy window, bringing about as much of an effect as possible without becoming a further hindrance to the situation.

Taking food and water to last themselves about two weeks, they carried with them small medical supplies which they could easily pass out and administer.

Shortly after hitting the ground, Smith and his friend came to a refugee camp on the southeast side of Port Au Prince, where about 4,000 people were staying. The camp was set up in a Church of God compound; most people there had nothing, and the camp itself had one generator where people would come to charge their cell phones at night, Smith said.

When Smith and his friend arrived, he said the camp reeked of death. There were neither bathrooms set up nor burials taking place for the dead; the street was an open toilet and people simply lay on the ground to sleep at night.

One young man told Smith, “Pray to God before you sleep. Only He can keep you safe at night.”

Upon arrival at the refugee camp along with Thirst No More workers, he and his friend were the only non-Haitians; no other aid workers or organizations were set up; no assistance at all was coming from the UN, and Compassion was the only organization already responding to the earthquake.

Having brought only minimal supplies, Smith recounts simply administering peroxide to people with open wounds, treating infections while people awaited real medical relief. He said it was all they could do for people with infections who needed much more than they could offer.

Upon asking Smith what possessed him to go to Haiti so quickly after the disaster there, he responded without hesitation, quoting James 1:27: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.”

Smith, originally from Georgia, graduated from Bryan in 2002, with a degree in English Literature. From there he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of captain. Now in his time off, Smith says he “does good things for good people.” Relief work in Haiti fits that description.

Smith is married to Katie Buttram-Smith and has four children. He is currently earning a second degree in law from Nashville School of Law.

The world has seen a lot. In the past hundred years, remarkable things have taken place in history. In vast regions of the world where communism’s brutal reign was established, it was brought to a halt; where dictatorships grew, free republics sprang up. Rights long withheld from minorities were finally given; women viewed as inferior to men came to be seen and treated as fully equal to men.

Advances in modern science and technology gave rise to life-saving medicines, health-improving conditions and overall care for our bodies. Science led to the ability to control our environments and our lives more than ever before. We produced more than we ever had, and all that we built we made more and more efficient.

In all of this progress, our world was turned on its head. We created not merely control but convenience, not simply production but efficiency, not only consumption but also choice. Today we hold that we have attained the greatest freedoms ever felt.

Yet, in all of these forward movements, other things were lost. Perhaps we’ve forgotten essential elements of our own humanity.

As history continues, we find our world staggering, short of breath. While we’ve nearly saved ourselves with modern invention, we have fallen short of being capable of explaining the meaning behind our own existence. While we may have been able to make sense of how things work, we have misunderstood why they work.

Without a sufficient answer, the empires of our fathers cave in on themselves as our generation is given convenience and choice but does not understand its own significance outside of what it can achieve. There is a human quality we are now searching for.

All things have been boiled down to two essentials: progress and efficiency.

Simply put, I say that we are better than that.

In this column, I hope to examine news stories from around that world that deal with the struggle to find our humanity.