I feel like I am constantly being ripped back and forth between realities. One reality comes when I am home, with family and friends. I watch TV. I check e-mail, facebook and write blogs. I watch movies and listen to music. I do crossword puzzles. I have fun and laugh. I read books, both fiction and nonfiction. I clean, run errands, and help with everyday things. It’s a nice, little bubble that I live in.
But there is another reality that always surrounds me. I am woken to it at some very unexpected times. It’s a reality of poverty, injustice, terror, warfare, and hopelessness. News reports, documentaries, videos, and other forms of media brings these things to my attention. I’m rocked as my breath is sucked from my chest and tears trickle down my face.
The thing is, I slip right back into this other reality so easily. I’m separated from the pain that the world suffers daily as I sit comfotably on my couch. I don’t really like the push and pull between the realities, because I want to remember that other reality. I want it to be the motivating factor in my life, the thing that compels me to keep pointing to Christ.
I don’t know how to balance these realities
or where that balance is, exactly.
