Everyday we get up and we choose to enter the day by way of the light it brings or by hanging in the shadows, the shade, or the dark we can control. Each day we have the choice to pull back the curtains and stare at the light with eyes wide open, which not only fuels our bodies but gives light to the gift of our life’s purpose before us; making us able to see our steps. Each day. We choose. Some days we go dark, it’s lure too strong to resist, it’s arms that say “come here and be weak, come here and be down trodden, come here and rest in your own loneliness; the isolationist space that says, “nobody understands but you.” In isolation one can play out their insecurities, their anger and their disappointments to their hearts content and nobody needs to be the wiser. It is in fact very alluring on many days. But, like everything, a cost is attached and for as much as we can excuse our days away, in fact become masters of excuse, which is typically 300 ways to say the same root causing excuse, the real tragedy is that you are excusing it away to yourself, the one who makes all choices and the light that you have that may be useful for someone else. Another day of turning hope into a vacuum. I find myself having to dig deep some days to rebel against the option of shadow loitering which contains, for the most part, those patches of darkness that pumps out confusion and lies like a sausage factory.
Crazy Talk
Matt Beaudreau, Co- Founder of Agogee Program, posted on Instagram a few weeks ago this;
“Parents: I can’t stress this point enough; If your kids look people in the eye, shake hands, smile and can have an articulate conversation, opportunities and community will be there. In this day and age they will stand out like a sore thumb. In all the right ways.”
I remember thinking in that moment of reading this, wondering, at what point was there a switch in culture that this comment could even be taken seriously to now where the comment garnered 154,000 likes. I commented, “100%. I’ve told my son the bar has been so lowered in social skills that great manners is probably one of the biggest advantages one can have.” My comment too seemed bizarre on it’s face but my comment racked up 1100 likes and comments of agreement. This is where we find ourselves. Good manners are now a stand out human feature. Eye contact, good handshakes and conversational skills are fast becoming counter culture.
It will get worse so long as screens are the primary diets for humans now. Screens do not require handshaking, eye contact or conversational skills. Screens are the ozempic of human to human skill set.
Sunday we had a Father on the podcast telling the tale of his son Jordan. Jordan, a soon to be graduating, bright, funny, kind, well liked talented seventeen year old responded who to an Instagram message one evening and seven hours later he shot himself in the head and his bright life was gone, just like that. He could not stand up against the shame of suddenly finding himself in a web of a professional sextortion ring and the horror of having a naked picture of himself “going viral” was too much to bear. They got $300 bucks, all Jordan had, but they would not leave him alone and Jordan became unable to think due to the trauma he was experiencing and I am sure all he could think was about being a disappointment and that he should have known better. And we wish Jordan was the only one this has happened to. Screens. We hand our kids to the world through screens. Life seems like a crazy dialog from crazy scenes from a wacked out film that keeps getting good reviews.
Rebellion
A refusal to accept authority or control. Classically rebellions arise against governments. Rebellions can escalate to being armed. Rebellions have been known to spark the flame that has led to toppling governments and creating new nations. Rebellions are part of human history. Peaceful rebellions have moved social contructs forward and have pressed for new laws. At any given time in history there are rebellions forming or happening. Rebellions are always notorious, for good or bad and they are a group sport. Rebellion from the latin, rebellio, means renewal of war. Renewal of war, interesting. The thing about rebellions is they are most certainly volatile. For every successful rebellion there is a failed one bringing the exact opposite of the intent of the rebellion and everyone suffers further. In a renewal of any war there will always be collateral damage.
I understand the desire to dare to defy. I was rebelling before I fully knew about the overreaching implications of it or quite frankly even knew that is what I was doing. As one who’s inner turmoil began acting out in rebellion as a teen towards home authority, I eventually grew to understand misguided rebellion. I see that now as an adult although it did not squelch my rebellious tendencies as I activated myself to speak out against acts of tyranny on behalf of our government well past my teen years. I spent years researching my eyeballs out learning that everything we rebel against goes deeper than the surface of the who, what , why and whens. It is coming up from that that brought me back up with knowing that spiritual warfare is an element not to be denied.
Still though, I am a rebel at heart. I am learning what in fact it is though that I should spend my time rebelling against and now I find that most of what I should be rebelling is things within me that do not align with so much of the so called “progress” of the world. I am learning that what weighs on my heart and my soul are the things to defy and to stand with open arms for anyone hurting and growing weary from the weight of what it feels like to be human in the 21st century. I rebel against all of the so called comforts and conveniences that supposedly make our lives better as I see lack of proof for much of that other than fueling the voice that says to buy more things thinking we are trading precious resources from our time for notions, potions and more stuff that becomes burdensome. The “it” factor of stuff dies as quickly as the attention span of a toddler and true convenience is rarely a truth. We are toppling under all of the weight of our convenience and comfort items.
I rebel against the notion that I am not an expert over my own health and the choices I make regarding it. I rebel against the war on food we are now under, all the while they are coming up with every kind of synthetic version of not just food but bio systems of our bodies. I rebel against the notion that the sun is bad and chemical sunscreen is good. I rebel against the notion that our lives are easier, safer and more prosperous and while there is a prosperity aspect that has data proof that overall we are, I don’t think it equates to a better life index in terms of fulfillment but rather a residue of “it’s still not enough”. I rebel against a number being a match to happiness.
I wonder if there has ever been a time when so many children are taking their own lives. We preach anti-bullying but screens have done nothing for bullying except for creating more bullies. We tell our kids how to stand up against a bully at school but are unequipped to model real examples of this ourselves and disregard online bullying as though it doesn’t affect us when it happens. If I were a parent right now in this time of history I would hope to be a rebel of the highest order when it comes to child rearing. The times have changed in many regards and so must parenting. Being an example of what you preach has always been a great indicator for good parenting but in the 21st century of parenting, it is a lifeline. Most adults can’t handle online bullying, stalking and financial scams yet we give our kids access to all of it as though it is simple to avoid or resist. The age of mass addiction has fallen upon us and the blue light brain syndrome is here. We slumber under the glow of the low frequency it gives us. We silently suffer wishing we were doing something else without the energy to change our own channels. I will never understand how the fact that tech head giants never allowed their own kids screens didn’t get more legs of serious consideration but it didn’t. It’s a hard time to be a young person and a hard time to parent but adaptation is due for securing a remnant of critically thinking young people who will one day need to lead. That is worth some contemplation. If I could go back in time I would not have handed the world wide web over to my son as a teenager; one can never know the accumulation of time he wasted and things he came across that in no way sparked joy or community for his young self.
I rebel against memorials being political rallies. I rebel against the lies that are spun out assuming everyone is a dolt. I rebel against the seed planting that says we aren’t smart enough, good enough, rich enough. I rebel against so much right now as I view the state of us collectively and I weep for how so many think something is wrong with them that it is causing people to take on labels against themselves that have no place value. I rebel against the voice that says we aren’t on purpose, that we aren’t important and that we aren’t loveable. I rebel about so much but while that list could go on and I generally save most of that for the podcast and not here but there are no rules in regards to my voice, but if there were it would be just one; to use it or lose it.
My Silver Lining
Yes, I have been a rebel. A misguided rebel. A rebel without a cause worth the toll it took on myself and others. A rebel with a cause that took tons of hours off of my family for the sake of bettering team peasantry vs the overlords. I laid down my rebel spirit for a time to really think about who I was and what my purpose really was. I laid down the sleepless research nights of doom and gloom and I dusted off an old book that I never got quite enough out of. I was fact checking, original document sourcing and creating patterns like a mad detective but I never put near that amount of curiosity and fervor into The Bible. It took 2020 for me to get nudges I could no longer ignore that set me on my course of finally getting to a source document that truly has already weaved and patterned all of this life out long ago. New names, new technologies, new customs, new ideas yet, nothing new under the sun in the human behavior category. Same mistakes, same greed, same debauchery, same love, same fears, same shame, same pride.
Turns out, most of my life I was a rebel towards God. Not in a way that made me deny but not in a way that would Mark me as his either. I see myself in the history of the world now and I know what team I am on and it has nothing to do with a slogan, a color, a motto or any man. I finally have peace about my dark days since they were foretold as inevitable but each day I am given, I wake up as a rebel for what I stand for more than what I stand against. My rebellious nature still can get the better of me sometimes but I will never ever rebel against the creator who holds me together day after however many days I have.
With a rebel yell my friends and pick your rebellion wisely!
Photos compliments of the Creator of infinite details.
xoxo
I’ll see your rebellion and raise you an “I rebel against” people talking about how nasty mean divided and bad everybody is. I meet wonderful kind loving friendly people everyday! It’s all made up to divide us! Don’t let it work! Love love love!! ❣️❣️❣️