For many in past generations, the need to survive-- to fill stomachs with food and cover heads with shelter-- has eclipsed any deeper spiritual need that would otherwise have risen in our minds. It seems, however, that a single question demands more attention today in the United States than at any time in previous history: What is my purpose? It makes it presence known consistently as we go about our sometimes humdrum lives, as the buzzing and flashing of a neon sign makes itself known to the pensive who lie on beds in dark and silent urban apartments. I've certainly asked this question more than I'd have liked to. This existential need is felt, I think, not only in my generation, but in those younger than my generation. Consider "Kony 2012."
I've found that we ask questions like these because we are simply unaware of the grave needs of our time. I don't mean that we're unaware in mind. Certainly, we have greater access to news of local, national, and world events now than at any previous point in time. I mean that we're unaware in heart. Our sheer emotional distance from the needs of our time, birthed in part from our decision to restrict our experience of them to social media, has left us in the curious place where we have far greater access to our world, and yet far less knowledge of it (in the sense that we truly understand it).
One of the things I'm learning, though, is that experience answers questions like "What is my purpose?" When we see, really experience first-hand, the hardships that many of us face, we begin to take ownership of those needs. The idea of purpose rises again to the surface, not this time as a question, but as an answer: "This is my purpose."
All of this comes in the context of a lesson we're learning in my language arts class right now: the purposes of static and dynamic character. A static character is one who stays the same throughout the story, and a dynamic character is one who changes as a result of some experience he or she undergoes. More often than not, a writer chooses to make his or her main protagonist dynamic, in part because it is through that character that he or she is able to express the theme (lesson) of the story. The character learns something from some conflict he or she experiences, and by proxy, the reader does as well.
Yet, more often than not, we do not learn by reading. We learn by doing. Simply "reading" a story, watching it on the news or reading about it online, only deepens the question we've been asking all along: What is my purpose? We wonder why we cannot care enough about those things to do something about them. We wonder why we cannot be the flawed hero, the protagonist, the one who does something about the great needs of our time. Simply put, we must become part of the story, we must be willing to enter the space of those who need, in order to empathize. It is only then that we will be changed as a dynamic character would, and feel compelled enough to do something.
At a local homeless shelter, my leadership students saw first-hand today what it is like to be in need. I only hope they remember what they saw. I only hope I remember what I saw; and more, that I will become that dynamic character, the one who responds to need instead of simply reading it.
I've found that we ask questions like these because we are simply unaware of the grave needs of our time. I don't mean that we're unaware in mind. Certainly, we have greater access to news of local, national, and world events now than at any previous point in time. I mean that we're unaware in heart. Our sheer emotional distance from the needs of our time, birthed in part from our decision to restrict our experience of them to social media, has left us in the curious place where we have far greater access to our world, and yet far less knowledge of it (in the sense that we truly understand it).
One of the things I'm learning, though, is that experience answers questions like "What is my purpose?" When we see, really experience first-hand, the hardships that many of us face, we begin to take ownership of those needs. The idea of purpose rises again to the surface, not this time as a question, but as an answer: "This is my purpose."
All of this comes in the context of a lesson we're learning in my language arts class right now: the purposes of static and dynamic character. A static character is one who stays the same throughout the story, and a dynamic character is one who changes as a result of some experience he or she undergoes. More often than not, a writer chooses to make his or her main protagonist dynamic, in part because it is through that character that he or she is able to express the theme (lesson) of the story. The character learns something from some conflict he or she experiences, and by proxy, the reader does as well.
Yet, more often than not, we do not learn by reading. We learn by doing. Simply "reading" a story, watching it on the news or reading about it online, only deepens the question we've been asking all along: What is my purpose? We wonder why we cannot care enough about those things to do something about them. We wonder why we cannot be the flawed hero, the protagonist, the one who does something about the great needs of our time. Simply put, we must become part of the story, we must be willing to enter the space of those who need, in order to empathize. It is only then that we will be changed as a dynamic character would, and feel compelled enough to do something.
At a local homeless shelter, my leadership students saw first-hand today what it is like to be in need. I only hope they remember what they saw. I only hope I remember what I saw; and more, that I will become that dynamic character, the one who responds to need instead of simply reading it.
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