I was sitting in a coffee shop in Budapest, Hungary doing one of my favorite activities, . . . just sitting. I had brought my oldest daughter, Hannah, there to visit a friend and I used the time to goof around the city. One of the advantages of living in Europe is that places like this are close by. I was reading John Eldredge’s book entitled Desire as I sipped my cappuccino. The book is of the kind that makes you think. So I would read and stare off in space trying appear to be intellectual and deep in thought. I put the earpiece of my glasses in the corner of my mouth. I think that made me truly look like a philosophical academic type. And I was just watching all the people of all sorts and nationalities go by. Yes, it was all very good time: sitting, reading, trying to look intelligent, watching people.
As I was watching people a big red double-decker tourist bus drove by the coffee shop and down past the beautiful gothic church across the street that is now a museum. The bus was full of sightseers gawking out of the windows and pointing at all the amazing things to see. I was struck by almost a sadness for the people in the bus. “Really,” I thought, “you have spent who knows how much money to come to this breathtaking city and you're gonna to experience it from the seat of a big red bus.” I understood the draw of the bus. My feet were aching from two days of treking all over those cobblestone streets and climbing all those stairs. And I realized that the bus stops at the important places so the people could file out and take pictures. But I couldn’t help but feel like all the people on the bus were missing something. I wondered if staring out the windows from the comfortable bus seats was that much different than watching a documentary on Budapest on their big screen TV’s at home. The bus just seemed so safe, and easy, and sterile. Think of the things their comfort cost them. They didn’t hear the many musicians playing on the street. They didn’t smell the food coming from the street side cafes. They didn’t look into the faces of the 1000’s of people they passed. They avoided the discomfort of the beggars whose faces betrayed painful lives and intruded into mine to ask for money. They didn’t hear the children playing in the squares. They didn’t smell the garbage or have to step over the vomit left by the previous night’s revelers. They weren’t constantly bombarded by a multitude of languages.
I wondered if their Budapest experience was somehow less real than mine. How much had their security and comfort cost them in truly experiencing life. I realized how easy it is for us to make that same trade all the time. How easy it is to try to live vicariously through others on television. Think of how popular reality shows are. In them, we get to watch others live. We don’t have to risk travel, we can watch others race around the world (I am for the hillbillies from Kentucky.) And if more normal things don’t excite us we can live the surrogate lives of tattoo artists, or women who have babies even know they didn’t know they were pregnant, or who push their toddlers to win beauty pageants, or have strange secret eating habits. It is almost like junk food. We get a sugar buzz, but does it really sustain us? We even train our children to live make-believe lives through video games. They don’t have to actually do anything they can just pretend to do or be greater than reality. My son is a 7’5” center for the Oklahoma Thunder. He just led them to a championship and won the MVP award. All from our living room chair.
I don’t mean to down television, it just seems that we were created for more than surrogate lives. We were made to enjoy risky lives that often make us deal with discomfort. In the Bible God was always calling people to leave their comfort zones, to take risks that lead to faith. Our own fears keep us from it.
There, as I sat in the coffee shop sipping cappuccino and of course looking intelligent, I noticed the following quotation painted on the wall:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain
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