Skip to main content

A Day of Stalking?

So I ran across this article in my hometown paper about being chased by the paparazzi. I have to say that most of the time I hear about the paparazzi, it’s a negative connotation. It’s almost like they are the reporters who failed journalism. Instead of going after news, they find golden nuggets about Brad Pitt’s dog or the Pope’s newest fashion. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a celebrity talk about how awesome it is to be followed around. Yet somehow there are companies such as Celeb 4 a Day that will chase you around for a day. That’s right, for the low, low price of $729.99, you can be bothered by people with cameras as they chase you around. Yeah, this is what I want to do. My trip to the grocery store with 3 hyper-active children wasn’t exciting enough. I want more distractions. I need for misbehavior to be caught on film.

Seriously? Who is paying for this? Are we so insecure with our insignificance that we need the rush of being followed and wanted?

I guess I shouldn’t find this all so surprising. After all, how many of us name drop and talk about that one time we were within 50 feet of the car that was on its way to pick up Mel Gibson? For me, it was 5 feet and they were college basketball stars who had just won a National Championship. I’d say who they were, but that would defeat the point I’m trying to make here. (Ok, if you really want to know…nevermind.)

What is that makes us desire to be desired? If I tell you that God loves you, we smile and say that’s nice. But if I told you Halle Berry loved you, now you feel important? There’s something backwards about this thinking in us. We have our values all out of whack.

For us Christians, we say we love God and that His love is all we need. But we don’t really mean it. I suppose we want it to be true. But it’s not true. The fact is that we don’t really understand God’s love for us and what it means. We can’t. If we did, we wouldn’t seek to fill our lives with the stuff that can only be filled with God.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...

Jury Duty

I was recently summoned to jury duty. I know, groan. Except I didn't. I had never experienced it before and was curious to see what it was like.   When the day to report arrives, they separate you into groups, asking various questions to decide if you will be selected to serve. Do you know the accused? Do you have conflicts that would keep you from serving? Can you stay focused?  I wanted to answer well, if only because my kids kept wishing me luck the day before, telling me they hoped I made the team. After all, who wants to be rejected? It occurred to me that there are things you probably shouldn’t say right away if you’re wanting to serve on a jury. I know, I know, people don’t typically want to serve on a jury. But that list didn’t seem nearly as humorous to me. Here are the things you probably shouldn’t say if you want to be selected for jury. I hold myself in contempt. You can’t handle the truth. We find the defendant guilty. I believe the judge looks pretty in his ...