Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Confessions of a Curious World

Believe it or not, I was somewhat relieved when I found out that this little, but extremely technologically advanced, piece of equipment was the culprit behind Google map's "street view". To be honest, though I've known about it and it has been around for some time now, I was always more of a mapquest person myself and I've only recently been exploring the amazing technology that is "street view".

My roommate was showing me her home across the country, and I too found myself viewing places that are near and dear to my heart. It was all jolly fun and brought smiles to both of our faces until one crucial question came to my mind: how are they getting these images? The fact that we used to have a basketball hoop in our driveway is now information that is available to the entire world. Not that I care about our basketball hoop, but what I care about is that people can see. If people can get 10 megapixel pictures of the outside of my house that means they can see through windows, they can potentially see what I own, they know what my house looks like. They can know the fact that our sprinklers were broken for a while, the fact that our garden gate is not always closed and... never locked. This can all be seen from a "sleepy little website" which just this month overtook mapquest in popularity.

I just described the scariness of the ever watchful eye of a curious world, so you might be wondering what this feeling of (at least temporary) relief is that I mentioned in the beginning. This is a highly technological camera in a highly technologically advanced program. But it must be manned. That is to say, (that I know of) there is no remote or automatic way of getting street view for google maps. It takes someone getting in a car and driving to each and every location and capturing one single image of it. Yeah it's a little scary that they have a detailed picture of my house... but it's an old picture. Our cars aren't even in the driveway so the world at least doesn't know what cars we drive. What I fear is not necessarily the situation because it takes time and money and a lot of work to get one snapshot of one little moment of time. What I fear is the way it could be in a couple of years.

Technology is advancing faster than we can make laws for it. This is objectively scary. We don't know what to do with technology that can invade people's privacy because the definition of privacy seems to be changing with time. We have to stare into the future and expect the worst: real time observation of our lives outside our front doors and garages. My dad was born in Cuba and was fortunate enough to get out before it was too late, but as Castro was rapidly taking power and seizing the assets of the people and removing their freedom, one of the first things that he did included an invasion of privacy. Loyalists (or people who were paid-off to do so) would be stationed at every street and would keep a log of the going ins and coming outs of the surrounding community. I don't have anything to hide but I have something to protect and that is my freedom and my constitutional rights.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Reflections on a Big Small World

Sorry it's been a while. Busy times here at this beautiful university. The latest events at Biola include the annual Missions conference this week. This conference with extraordinary guest speakers, events, and the global vision has been going on faithfully for 81 years and is one of the best reflections of the mission of Biola University. Aside from it's great system of education, Biola University works hard to equip students with a passion for the world, and a safe and fertile environment in which this passion can grow and begin to bear fruit. Biola takes off three days of school to work hard to represent different cultures and to make sure that we are sufficiently out of our comfort zones by (as actively as can be accomplished on a college campus) exploring the customs and situations in which other countries and nations find themselves.

This year in particular was especially inspiring for me, a college student studying business, simply because of the different approach to missions that seemed to be stressed this year. I am in college right now. The doors to go into all the nations of the world and preach the gospel are closed as of this four year long time in my life. Period. I stand confident in the fact that this is God's will for my life right now. In the past, however, speakers have urged us to feel this calling on our lives but instead of feeling inspired, I felt as if I should be feeling guilty for being in a state primarily of consumption rather than production even though it is appropriate and, I believe, essential for young people's growing experience. This year, though, some of the speakers made it an important part of their messages to call out to the alumni and stress a heart for missions once we become Biola Alum. This gives me something to pray about and look forward to in the future rather than feel judged and guilty about in the present.

Never once did anyone prod me to go off to Kenya or Yugoslavia or Bangladesh or any other nation to preach the truth. They talked about the importance of building relationships rather than pushing a religion in someone's face even if you are called to go to Kenya or Bangladesh. Jesus didn't preach and teach a religion, he preached and taught love and grace and freedom through Christ. It is a refreshing reminder that we don't have to have the mindset that Calcutta and Jakarta are the places to make an impact for Christ. What I love most about this conference is the sincerity surrounding this message. I've heard many a mission lecture lauding overseas missions, and they include local or smaller scaled missions as either plan b, second rate, or they put on the, "that's good too" voice or else they flat-out rebuke the nature of local missions. Either way they make their bias known. Where they might have good reasons for their opinions, their focus is often in the wrong place.
I have also heard many a lecture over-stressing local missions. The "look-what-you-can-do-right-here-right-now" speech can be effective in the same way an overseas speech can be, but the danger with this speech is that people will use the fear of cross-culture to restrict themselves to local missions. Playing this "local" trump card will cause the missionaries themselves to feel defensive about their work as if they have to prove themselves with a list of good things they have been doing. This year's missions conference neither blatantly promoted nor rebuked this mentality. Many think this issue should have been addressed but I think it was.
Many overseas and local missionaries act from a desire to "do" missions. Carl Medearis spoke about how missions is not about missions. Missions is not about spreading Christianity. Missions is not about missionaries. Missions are about Jesus, the lover of souls. Local involvement and foreign missions alike can be equally hazardous to the people you are ministering to as well as yourself if you are not walking in the will of God out of a love for Jesus. God doesn't want us to "do" stuff. He wants our heart to be changed and out of love for him we build relationships and establish a deep love that can only come from the Father to those around us. The surrender of our will to God's is when God is going to send us to the furthermost corners of the world... which could also mean next door. Our own wills grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. That's where we want to be, not "doing" stuff, but loving people made in the image of God and showing through the establishment of relationships a mere spark of the infinitely burning flame of love that God has for each person.

I loved this year's advocacy of business in Missions. Speaker Tim Svaboda spoke of several business strategies for getting into a community and making a positive impact by, first and foremost, building relationships within your community, but also helping the economy greatly by creating jobs, and successfully and intelligently multiplying the resources. This is another area of missions that people either overlook or say is a cop-out excuse for missions. I've felt this pressure even from missionaries in my own family! As a business major and feeling God's direct call on my life to move in that direction and also having a love of people and missions I wasn't quite sure where I fit in. I'm still not sure, but being at this missions conference has encouraged me that God uses this skill to directly and deeply impact people and present opportunities to talk about God's love in just as "legitimate" of a way that "missionaries" impact cultures.

All in all I think the reminders that we receive at the annual missions conferences were very well executed this year and I have little nuggets of inspiration that I will carry with me for a long time. My only hope and prayer is that students (including myself) will seek out proper coaching and discipleship because without proper coaching, guiding, and instruction we, like the Israelites, will forget. Changed hearts will not stay changed for long if we forget what changed them in the first place.
Jesus loves us... hard to fathom, easy to forget, hard to believe, easy to abuse, easy to choose, hard to live in light of this truth. We're called to do hard things because those are the things that are going to shape and fashion our character into the sons and daughters that God intends us to be for his glory by the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A Piece of Dust

My life flashed before my eyes in a hazy dream this morning. Moments before I became fully coherent of the world around me, I was old and looking back on my life. I wondered where it went. How I spent it. Why I wasn't young anymore. The exciting unknown future I thought I had ahead of me was all of a sudden behind me and bleak. I was a piece of dust that went just as quickly as it came.
I don't want to miss it. I don't want this day to pass me by because I'm living in tomorrow... or yesterday. I want to be content in moving and in taking each step as it comes to me not just wishing I was at the end. I certainly want to look toward the future and the hope that I have in Christ. "Hope" and "Future", though, are words tightly adhered to the concept of time and as such, you can't have a future and a hope if you are at the end already. Instead, the end is what pulls us towards itself, but hoping is not being or pretending to be at the end, it's the process of moving toward the end with joy and anticipation... but steadfastly walking in the path that God has laid out.
Live. Give thanks. Pray without ceasing. And love every moment.