On Earth

This is where we are. In Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, Rebecca Gibbs relates--or perhaps, more appropriately, reveals--to her brother George the address on an envelope that her friend Jane Crofut has recently received from her minister: "He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this. It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover's Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America. . . . But listen, it's not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God--that's what it said on the envelope. . . . And the postman brought it just the same." We, like Jane, find ourselves in a particular place. We are where we are, or, as Buckaroo Banzai puts it, "No matter where you go, there you are." And no matter where we go, we are still on earth (unless we happen to be in the minute percentage of people who write astronaut on the occupation line of forms and we have touched our toe into the vast beyond). But the thing is, we have dual citizenship. We live here, but we are also, as we explored earlier, a part of God's kingdom. And for many of us, this can be a problem.


This problem manifests itself primarily in one of two ways: We either get so caught up in the things of this world that we ignore our duty to God's kingdom, or we completely ignore this world in favor of God's kingdom. The former is tragic; the latter is both impractical and myopic. In either case, we are not living the way we should because we are ignoring an important part of where we are--and where-we-are is essential to who-we-are.

The first kind of problem is the classic in-the-world vs. of-the-world conundrum. Being here, like being anywhere, often leads us to adopt a kind of "when in Rome" attitude. We are on Earth, so we immerse ourselves in earthly things. This can be bad. I am not saying that all things of the earth are bad. I am not setting up a simplistic equation, saying "The Earth is made of dirt, and dirt is what we call bad things. Why do you think they call them 'dirty movies' and why does AC/DC sing about 'Dirty Deeds'?" Not only is this a faulty analogy, but it is wrong even in its premise. The Earth is God's creation, it is our home during this life, and we cannot ignore that. However, earthly things can be bad if we allow them to insinuate themselves into the places we should reserve for God. Earthly things can very easily--and often, very surreptitiously--become idols in our lives. If we do manage to open our eyes, all too often we find that something has snuck into God's place in our hearts. The deception usually begins in the brain and migrates, but the effect is the same.


Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a story that addresses this experience, at least indirectly. (Hawthorne wrote many stories addressing the ideas of sin and guilt and the fall from grace--he seems to have been quite obsessed, which, it could be argued, became his own kind of idol--but that might best be saved for its own exploration at another time.) In "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," we meet the prototypical mad scientist, a man so immersed in his experiments and his pursuit of knowledge that little else seems to matter; however, the doctor is not our primary focus in this story. Dr. Heidegger has four friends whom he has invited to take part in an experiment, and each friend has an obsession that has led to his or her ruin: Mr. Medbourne, a businessman whose pursuit of money has left him destitute; Colonel Killigrew, whose pursuit of "sinful pleasures" has led to a body and spirit wracked with pain from afflictions like the gout (and other things left unnamed); Mr. Gascoigne, a ruined politician who had sought power by any means; and the Widow Wycherly, an erstwhile beauty ruined by scandals.


The story is about Dr. Heidegger's giving his friends a second chance at life, courtesy of water from the fountain of youth; the friends all claim they regret their pasts, but upon the restoration of their youth they all resume their old ways. My point is not so concerned with the theme of man's inability to escape his own nature as with the idea that each of the doctor's friends has allowed an obsession to set up its throne in his or her heart. As I discuss with my students, the obsession each character has is not, in and of itself, bad: there is nothing wrong with money or pleasure or power or love/sex in itself. The problem each character has is that he or she has made that one thing the center of his or her life. Anything that replaces God as the center of our lives becomes an idol, leeching away the time, the energy, the emotion we should be dedicating to God.


Even things we might think of as innocent can have the same effect as these earthly distractions: our jobs, our families, and even our churches can sneak into the throne of our hearts and supplant God. Again, these are not bad things--in fact, these things each has its place in God's kingdom. I am not suggesting that we should not care about any of these things. Family, church, and job can all be a part of who we are. We have to keep God at the center, though; if we do, all the other things will fall into place. Even the so-called vices from Hawthorne's story--so long as we do not embrace them to the point of the characters, changing them from harmless things into soul-clutching obsessions--can have their places in our lives. Money is not evil as long we control it and not the other way around. The same holds true for any of the other things in our lives: the things of the earth have no more power than we allow them to have.

Many people might argue that addressing this particular problem takes care of all the problems inherent in our being on earth--that once we get God at the center of our lives and put all the earthly things in their places that we are golden. Yet, there is the other extreme, the total exclusion of all things of this earth from our lives. We may have God as our center, but what if we do not have anything else? Is there a difference between having God as a part of all things in our lives and having God as all things?

This question leads us down paths of metaphysics that I am completely unqualified to address--but I will forge ahead anyway. In my world-view, we all have things that are not God but are merely part of God--or God is part of the thing. Our food may come from God, may be a part of God's creation (and theyby a part of God), but our food is not God. Likewise, our jobs are not God, though His presence at our workplace and His guidance in our working may be--should be--essential to our having the job.

We are, whether we like it or not, here. Picture the cliched cartoon showing a character staring at a sign which states, "You are here" with an X or an arrow indicating the planet Earth. While it is true that we are here, and pretty much stuck here (because those astronaut gigs are few and far between), we have to keep in mind that we have obligations beyond this place. Our citizenship in the kingdom of God requires us to maintain the decorum of a diplomat, for we are in many ways ambassadors. However, we do not have diplomatic immunity. We are bound to the laws of our corporeal home by Christ's instruction that we "render unto Caesar," that we obey the rules of the government under which we live.

We cannot escape our connection to the earth. We live, we breathe, we eat, we sleep (perchance, to dream). Our existence requires us to be here, and being here requires our interaction in the world. That does not mean that we embrace the things of the world: we can exist here without allowing things to take over our souls (and not all things are material--abstract things, like feelings or ideas, can also take control of us).

And if we completely separate ourselves from the world (as if that were possible), then we are taking ourselves away from the possibility of completing our commission. Were we not told to go to all nations (of the world) to make them disciples? We cannot reach out to people unless we are with them. That does not mean that we have to emulate their actions (whether the actions qualify as sins or not). We can exist here among the natives and maintain our relationship with God. If we distance ourselves too much from the earth, we run the risk of living in a God-centered fantasy since we are ignoring the truth of our situation.

To be effective as emissaries of God, to fulfill the Great Commission, we must recognize where we are. Only then can we begin to find what we are to do.