Key points upfront:
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The world is dangerous (shocker, I know)
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No defense is impenetrable, neither are we
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Be vigilant, even against the little dangers
One of my favorite movie tropes is the classic overestimation of the supposedly impenetrable defense. The castle that can’t be breached, the museum that can’t be burgled, the safe that can’t be cracked. There’s always some smug king, or general, or head of security who’s obnoxiously drinking tea while explaining why this defense can’t be broken. Because it was forged by archangels, in the cauldron of supernova, so on, and so forth. We the viewers can always recognize the setup, ‘this thing is going down and it’s going down hard!’
The best recent example of this trope is Ocean’s Eleven, with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Andy Garcia as the arrogant casino owner, Terry Benedict. To say that Benedict is overconfident, would be an understatement. The man exudes overconfidence like Batman exudes unresolved trauma. Not only is he convinced that the system is impenetrable, he’s convinced that no one would even try. Right up until they do.
That’s the way we operate sometimes: confident that the strength of our willpower, or integrity, or financial resources will protect us from whatever curveball life might throw at us. Like nothing can get us off our game. We believe that lie, or at least we tell ourselves we do, right up until it does. Because that’s what life does - it throws curveballs, and sliders, and high heat. Life is good at that, just like Oceans’ ragtag band of thieves are good at stealing things.
March BadnessEarlier this week, during her post-game press conference, LSU’s Angel Reese had a moment of public vulnerability. Having just lost in this year’s tournament, Angel finally felt comfortable to let her guard down, and to be open about the toll that her sudden celebrity status has had on her well-being since winning the tournament last year:
“I’ve been through so much. I’ve seen so much. I’ve been attacked so many times. Death threats. I’ve been sexualized. I’ve been threatened.”
– Angel Reese
That she’s had to deal with so much is due in part to the sort of sports villain role she took on during last year’s championship run. She embraced it for sure. All of it. The spotlight, being that girl, the big dog with the big dog squad. The one who talked the talk, and walked the walk.
But this is sports, amateur sports at that. Death threats are far out-of-bounds for anyone, but these are young ladies, most of them not even twenty years of age yet so regardless of her bravado, she certainly didn’t deserve threats, or to have an LA Times writer dub her and her teammates “dirty debutantes.”
“The World is a Vampire…”
A dark observation, offered up by the Smashing Pumpkins in their hit song, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.” For Angel Reese, these lyrics could not be more horrifyingly true. The world isn’t all bad, but the parts that aren’t are often lost in the shadows of the parts that are. We don’t have to look further than our local nightly news to see that. A constant feed of crime, and conflict. They promote discord because we thirst for it. We are both the vampires and their victims.
If it’s not crime, it’s sex, which is why sex is everywhere. Even soft porn masquerading as art or fashion, or whatever other label we want to apply to. How about popular music? If it isn’t oversexualized and misogynistic, then it’s promoting violence and drugs. TV? Slightly better in some cases, but not by much, and the trendline is not looking great. And social media? Please, let’s not get started.
I hate to be that old guy brandishing his fists, yelling at the kids to get off his lawn, but maybe we have to admit that our elders were right all along: there is a price to pay for all of this supposed creative freedom, for the creators and the consumers. A price that we couldn’t fully calculate as a society years ago, but that debt comes due regardless.
Protect Yourself At All Times
Let’s face it, the toothpaste of social decorum might be too far out of the tube already. The question at this moment, then, is less ‘what we do as a society’, but rather ‘what can we do for ourselves’? Individually, you and I, as we confront the filth, and vitriol of the modern world, oozing from every surface like infected tissue fluid.
What is Angel left to do? What are we to do? Can we somehow silence the haters and trolls? Heavens, no. Not even Jesus could do that. There will always be those who want to be the devil’s advocate - literally and figuratively. Always someone who believes that it’s their calling to be disruptive or controversial, or to take down the high-and-mighty, even if it’s just those that they perceive as higher and mightier than them. Nothing is safe anymore because nothing is sacred. Everything is fair game.
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
-- Romans 12:2 (NIV)
We can unplug though. Not all the time, maybe, but more than we do today. We can disconnect enough to recalibrate our minds to truth, love, and peace. We can reconnect with the outdoors, commune with trees, and drift off to the soundtrack of nature. Birds singing, wind rustling through leaves. We can read more, write more, doodle more, knit more.
I’m doing the 50-book challenge again this year after coming up just a wee bit short last year (short by just 15 books lol). I finished the first quarter with 11 books read — slightly off the pace, but well within striking distance. Got some good book recommendations? Comment below!
We don’t owe Instagram and TikTok all our time, no more than previous generations owed their time to crime dramas, war documentaries, or the nightly news. To sit there and consume the divisiveness, vanity, and lust all day is a choice — a choice that has consequences, just like the food we consume.
We all want to believe that we’re tough, but nobody is that tough. Not death threats tough, or even constant filth tough. It’s bad enough that we’re constantly judging ourselves for having too few followers and not enough likes. It’s bad enough we have to keep up with the Joneses, or the Kardashians, and that most of us have more debt than assets. It’s bad enough we have to resist the constant yearning for pizza, burgers, and chips that kill us ever so slowly. It’s bad enough we rely on drugs - the ones they give us to counteract the pizza, burgers, and chips. Do we have to dunk each other in toxic sludge too?
"Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech. Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil."-- Proverbs 4: 23-27
The Bible instructs us to guard our hearts, our proverbial cores that hold our essences and guide our conduct. We guard our hearts by being careful about what we let in and what we let out — with vigilance because our defenses are neither impervious nor autonomous. It is our discipline that makes them work.
In total, the Bible identifies four gates that we must protect:
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The Tongue-gate: Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21), so we must be careful about what we speak over ourselves and others.
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The Ear-gate: Adam and Eve fell because they listened to the temptation of the serpent (Genesis 3). Satan is so clever he makes sin sound like a good idea.
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The Eye-gate: Lust of the Eye is one of the three primary categories of sins, which tells us how powerful visual temptation is. If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out (Matthew 5:29).
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The Feet-gate: We can’t go to all the places we used to go or visit all of the new places that might intrigue us. We often talk about setting good boundaries, well the the physical boundaries we set might be the most important of them all.
“Lock all Windows & Doors”
This is true for the big threats, and the little ones. The armed robber AND the true crime fixation. The X-rated movie AND the half-naked girls on Instagram. The harsh words to or about a loved one AND the obsession with celebrity gossip. It all matters.
Just like making a solid defensive stand in sports, guarding our gates requires commitment and practice. We’re not going to be all-stars right out the gate, but we can give the kind of effort that makes the fans and the media take notice. Bend your knees, get in a good stance, and talk some trash. Let the devil, the haters, and the trolls know that you mean business.
Note: this post originally appeared on our founder's personal blog, All Systems Full.
