Words of Redemption

If I could summarize 2008 as I saw it in one word, I think it would be this one: Negativity.

From politics to economics to religion. From publishing to the arts to culture. From one topic to the next, it seems to me that more time was spent in 2008 talking about what is not rather than what is. More time talking about what’s wrong with the world than what’s right. More time focusing on our doom than our hope, which ought to be everlasting, by the way.

I watched online communities fill with hate and vitriol as people whom I respect proselytized without context or community and reduced and demonized the views of others. In horror, I watched myself get caught up in a few of those conversations and do the same. As a result, I walked away with diminished respect for quite a few people, including myself.

I watched my workplace, a place where some of my views and opinions seem to be part of a minority of one, become a veritable barroom of men who all shared the same opinion about the world, complaining about how any who doesn’t agree with them must be of a lower class of intelligence.

I had my sensibilies insulted this year, as I invariably insulted the sensibilities of others.

2008 was far too much about what’s wrong. What’s wrong with the economy. What’s wrong with society. What’s wrong with the other guy.

This guy is wrong because he believes in God. That guy is wrong because he chose not to vote. This guy is wrong because, even though he claims to be a Christian, I don’t really think he is because he doesn’t share my exact same faith. That guy is wrong because he believes that there is more than one way to solve a moral issue. That guy is wrong because he wants to pray about every decision he makes.

Even in fiction–in art–2008 seemed to be more about negativity than anything else. I watched this year in shock as people derided a wildly popular and accessible Christian book that was reaching people most Christian authors could only dream of reaching simply because the book didn’t align to the theological viewpoint of a few outspoken Calvinists. I watched lives and hearts change in response to the emotional message of true intimacy with God, while others told their congregations not to read it because of how God was depicted.

Of course, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that this very post is quite negative itself. All I’ve done so far, by pointing all of this negativity out, is add to it.

As I sit here early on a Saturday morning and write this, I can feel the crushing weight of negativity pressing down upon me, forcing my shoulders down into my chest. Forcing my eyes to become heavy and my mind to become numb. And the negativity, through the true voice behind it, is whispering to me. Telling me to see the validity of everything that I’ve written above and to embrace it. Telling me to accept this as the state of the world and to retreat into my corner, or to emerge and throw that negativity back into the faces of others.

And I could. At times in 2008, I certainly wanted to. At times, nothing was more tempting than the desire to raise my voice to the sky and shout out the sins of others with all I could muster. A few times I did, though not from the rooftops. Instead, my sweet and compassionate wife would listen as I engaged in the very thing I was deriding.

But another voice is stronger, albeit gentler. It’s one voice, rather than the voice of thousands, begging me to join in. It’s the only voice that matters.

That voice asks, “What about you?”

“What about your own anger and ignorance and negativity?”

“What about your own sins?”

And I hang my head, because I realize, in the grace and gentleness of that true voice, that I AM THE PROBLEM. Not the person on the other side of the political or moral spectrum who doesn’t see things my way. Not the person who seems to “have it in” for me and I can’t understand why. Not the guy in the other lane who doesn’t seem to be paying attention, or the guy clearly standing with his shopping cart on the wrong side of the aisle blocking my path and I really don’t like the grocery store in the first place so I wish he would get a clue and stop being so oblivious and MOVE HIS DAMN CART!

Nope. The problem starts and ends with me.

For me, 2008 was about negativity because I allowed myself to spend far too much time paying attention to the words and actions of others, and not enough to my own. Far too much time pointing out the flaws in the arguments of others, and not nearly enough eradicating the flaws in my own. Far too much time praying for others to be changed, and not enough for myself to be transformed.

That will not be 2009. And that is how I will answer the question that heads this post.

The way I will change the world in 2009 is the same way anyone who’s ever changed anything does: I will change myself. If I can do that, if I can submit to that gentle voice of infinite power, doesn’t the world become a better place because I am better in it?

That is redemption for me and for the world I affect.

Now multiply that by 6 Billion. And have a great year.

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