Why Defy?

Well, many of you know that a few months ago i got a tattoo. This is on left uppr arm and it says simply "defy" I thought and prayed for many months before deciding to finally go and get it done - the idea of something so permanent on my skin was not something to be entered into lightly and i knew it. Yet, the more i prayed, the more i felt certain that it was the right thing to do. Since having it done, i have been praying and thinking about how to tell the story of why it is so important to me. There are many people in my life who do not and will not agree with me doing it. In fact, i was raised to basically believe, either being told this or having the general idea portrayed, that tattoos are wrong and that people with tattoos are probably sinful, bad people, people to be feared. But then again, i was also raised to believe the Baptists were wrong and Catholics were more wrong, that going to movies was wrong and that dancing was wrong, so i will let you judge where all that goes... i have decided to tell the story in 2 parts - the first being this one: Why Defy? and then the second being: Why a Tattoo? Why Defy? There are basically 3 things that I intend to live my life defying, 2 were very clear to me and partly were the reason for the tattoo in the first place and then there was a 3rd reason that came up after the tattoo was placed, and actually has been more significant to me than the other 2 up to this point. The first, and most important, thing that I intend to defy in my life is the culture around me. I intend to fight against it with every breath that I have, with every ounce of energy, with every drop of my blood - I know it sounds dramatic, but let me explain. Every day I go to my office, to care for people that I have grown to love, and I see that they spend the far majority of their time working their hearts out for bosses that don't care at all about them, in companies that will downsize them in a second if they can save a buck. I see that we live in neighborhoods where the people are more interested in their own rights and keeping their lawns neat or their privacy in place or whatever and in towns where politicians are more interested in their income and the perks than the people they serve. I see that we live in a culture where marriages split and kids are left to fend for themselves as often or more often than they succeed, where affairs are commonplace and to be shared with your doctor but not with your spouse. Where working hard is intended at best to provide for your family so the kids can get better jobs than us and therefore make more money to buy things that won't make them any more happy than the things we have bought ourselves and at worst it is to gratify our every desire, running up our credit card debts to the max so that we can have houses full of things that only distract us from our emptiness. I know far more families that are in turmoil than those that uplift and support each other and it is always about me, me, me. We talk and talk and talk about values and family values and stuff like that but we do not live it. Giving to help our fellow man or woman is buying girl scout cookies or boy scout popcorn, and most dedicated and giving people we know spend a week a year on a mission trip. I see people literally shredding each other - after years of marriage, chucked aside - treated as inhuman because of our faith or our skin color or the tattoo's on our skin - we search for the differences between us not to celebrate our diversity but to judge and exclude. We say our companies are about serving the people we serve but they are not, they are about making money, and we all know it. I am disgusted by this culture. I feel literally nauseated when I see people who have been destroyed by their own greed - sitting there in front of me after a lifetime of following after what the culture tells them they should be doing - getting what they can - with no one who cares for them in their old age - children who hate them because they have treated them so badly for years, spouses who have left them because there was not enough attention paid to them after the work day was done. I sit with them day after day - "there must be something more" is the phrase I hear over and over again - "I feel empty inside" This is the end result of our culture - driven by greed - driven to destroy - like a parasite. My answer to the culture? I will defy it! I will live my life differently and try my best to encourage as many people as possible to come with me. I will live for other people. I will give my money away and serve in my own town, day after day, week after week, year after year. I will throw aside the idea of stuff as king and will do everything I can to love those around me - making them my focus - no matter how frustrating, difficult, and painful. I will live a life in the face of the culture and I will live it with joy and peace and meaning and purpose and I will keep going as long as I have blood in my veins and breath in my lungs. I will teach my children from the time they are little that people are the most important thing, not stuff or winning or succeeding. I will honor my wife and grow my relationship with her and together we will form a team diving into the darkness of the world to shine as much light as we can. I will give my gifts to the world around me, mentoring and teaching and doctoring. I will give tons of care and life and goodness away - always with the mission to spread the defiance of the culture and help other people see that there is a better way. I will disregard the tightness of my schedule when people are involved and serve the person who needs me most, even if it means inconveniencing me or the person after them on the schedule. I will defy the pressure to hurry hurry hurry and instead will stop and notice, pay attention to the awe and wonder around me and savor the moments of my day. I will resist the urge to be more and more involved and instead will only involve myself in things that meet with the mission of cultural defiance and valuing people, with few, if any, exceptions. But I will aggressively involve myself in all areas that come up that meet those goals, involving my family in that as much as possible. My life will not be ordinary. In short, I will live every second of my life in defiance of the culture - I will defy. This is my mission - I am not perfect at it, but I am giving it everything I have and I will continue to. I will defy. I will continue this soon - next will be the other 2 things I intend to defy - it'll be interesting to hear what you think... If you happen to find this appealing - all this defiance in a positive direction, you should consider joining us at More than more - we will be hanging out tomorrow night, the 3rd of October, Thursday, from 6:45-8:00pm at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette. As always there will be free childcare. Hope to see you there!