Morning Prayer

Twice a year I have the joy of doing a week's worth of morning prayer homilies at my school. Usually I am pretty 'pastoral' in my approach, but this week I decided that there were a few things I needed to get off my chest. I framed these as three "yells" that should be taken in the spirit of something that might be said at halftime in a lockerroom when a team has just been flat. The first was a message to the young men (and to myself) to wake up to reality, to the mystery of being alive and to what God is doing in the world. Yesterday I followed that up with a reading of the Pharisees (via Matthew 21:23-46 and 25:31-46) as those who were simply not awake to the reality of what God was doing in Christ and were therefore left out of the Kingdom. Today I announced the second of my three yells and this one I wrote out ahead of time, so I though I would just share it here.

Feel free to comment if you like it, hate it, agree, disagree, find offense, find inspiration or find a grammar error.

Here it is:
__________

OK, last night I remembered why I was going to have to yell this in the first place and recovered my vigor.

Do you know what I hate? Do you know what really makes me mad? When I see it in other people and when I see it in myself? (Because I do. I do see it in myself. Hear that very clearly.)

What I hate is this slouching, YouTube, Facebook, hang out, entertain me, fantasy football, professional Texas-Hold-'Em boredom we call a culture. We are filling our lives with stupid things!

You can go home tonight and sign on to Facebook so you can ‘poke’ your friends or find out Jerry is playing Scrabulous and Marybeth has changed her profile picture. Bob posted on your wall and Janet is ranked 7,195,713th in the Never Ending Movie Quiz. You could even buy her a digital gift to congratulate her.

You can go on YouTube and watch old Saturday Night Live clips, other people’s photo montages set to your favorite songs, videos of kickboxing injuries, people falling down, girls dancing and someone filling his mouth with Mentos and then drinking Diet Coke.

Now, I recently got high speed internet access, and believe me I know the lure. I could sit there all night watching someone fill their mouth with Mentos and then drink Diet Coke. Or, not just stupid things. There is some good stuff on YouTube. Not junk. Not trash. We use it in our home school curriculum. It’s great to study snakes and then go watch a boa constrictor try to swallow a small pig. I love the internet. It’s a great tool.

But it’s also a sucking whirlpool of stupidity and easy entertainment that mirrors a broader culture that is also great but is also threatening to become a sucking whirlpool of stupidity and easy entertainment! And going to the mall is no different. Turning on the TV, even the news, is no different.

This is not what we were made to do!

I would rather people were sitting around in a coffee shop plotting to storm the Minnesota capital and secede from the union than spending their evenings watching YouTube videos.

Look, in the beginning, the earth was without form and void. It was a shapeless blank. Then God created. He separated the light from the dark and the land from the sea. He made animals, birds, trees, grass. And then He gave it to us. This is the largest land grant in human history! Wide open spaces, deserts, fertile valleys! And He said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it.” Be creative with the earth I gave you in the same way that I was creative with the void. Take this earth and make it a world the way I took clay and made you human.

So get out there and create! Make something!

Write a poem.
Write a short story.
Write a symphony.
Write a protest song.
Write down your ideas.
Write your memoirs.
Try to write your memoirs in six words.
Write a letter to your congressman.

Make art.
Paint a picture.
Take a picture.
Make a collage.

Build a shed.
Build a trebuchet.
Build a bigger trebuchet.
Build a ballista.
Make a sword.
Make some chain mail.
Make a longbow.
Then make up a game.

Build a scooter.
Build a hovercraft.
Build a car.
Build a computer.
Build a robot.
Build a birdhouse.
Build a chair.

Build a community.
Build a state championship team.
Build a raft and sail down the Mississippi.

Start a club.
Start a bible study.
Start a discussion group.

Start a revolution.
Start a political party.
Start a campaign.

Start a non profit organization.
Start a business.
Start a garden.
Grow some tomatoes.
Grow some zucchini.

Learn how to sculpt.
Learn how to weld.
Learn how to drywall.
Learn how to cook.
Learn how to sew.
Learn how to make shoes.

Create! Create!! Create!!!

Fill the earth!!!

Name your creations!!!

Be like your Father in Heaven!!!

But for God’s sake do not sit there and entertain yourselves to death!

It doesn’t matter who wins American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. It doesn’t matter whether or not you win your fantasy sports league, keep your Sim-city going or move your way up the rankings in Facebook’s “Never Ending Movie Quiz.”

But it does matter if you let creation slip back into chaos because you didn’t care enough to create!

If you want a grim vision of what it looks like when people cease to create, cease to be who God called them to be in the world, I recommend (if you're over 16) that you read Cormac McCarthy's The Road. There is a great deal on the line here.

So let's create.

And let's pray.