Journey to a Better Way

Chapter One – Everyone has a model

Models everywhere

It seems that in recent years, we have become more socially conscious as a society. Philanthropy has become the thing to do and not just among the well-to-do. Almost everywhere we turn we are provided opportunities to do a good deed. For example, I was watching a commercial the other day and Subaru was promoting a “Share the Love” campaign giving purchasers the option to give to a charity when they buy a new car. My experiences of purchasing cars have involved strategy, haggling and tough negotiations. It is incredible to me to think that that this exercise now may include doing a good deed for the hungry or for the environment. I found a website the other day called www.looktothestars.org . This website allows people to learn about particular causes that are endorsed by celebrities. If you are not sure what organization you should support, you can find out what your favorite movie star is supporting and you too can join in the cause with them. Purchasing shoes has become a way for someone to do a good deed. Lately, I have seen a lot of people wearing TOMS shoes. The TOMS shoe website promises that “When you buy a pair of TOMS Shoes, you're also helping improve the health, education and well-being of a child.” Even in our consumer culture, we have found a way to make consuming a good thing. I saw on the news the other night that Starbucks is giving a $30 million gift to help U.S. war veterans. Following a visit to Walter Reid Hospital, Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz was moved by what he witnessed. Schultz commented on the plight of wounded veterans, “you just can’t be an innocent bystander, you have to do everything you can to tell their story and help them…” Some time ago, this sort of urging to speak for and help others would come from only pulpits in places of worship, today it is coming from corporate CEO’s. The world has become more aware that when it comes to social ills, we all need to do something. The question is what do we need to do and how do we do it?

Supporting organizations that do good work in the area of hunger, education, health and clean water has become part of the fabric of our society. This is a good thing. It is exciting to witness young people being raised with a greater awareness of the ills of poverty, inequality, and injustice in the world. I have come to the opinion that when it comes to addressing these issues in our world, everyone has a model. That is to say that everyone has an idea about why these problems exist, what we should do about the problem, and how we should respond to the problem. I believe that almost everyone has a model even though they may not be able to articulate it. A person may not have given it much thought, but I still believe they have a model in mind for the why, what and how of these issues. We see these problems every day, whether it be the homeless man asking for change or the image of the starving child in Africa on television or the internet. For the last several decades, we have been able to witness genocide, wars, famine, murder and more from our living rooms and handheld devices. We can’t avoid the fact that social ills exist and that we are being made aware of them every day. We need a way to process, to understand, and to deal with what we are seeing, so we can develop ways to react and respond, I call these ways, “models.” Models matter and we need to consider our models whether we are aware of them or not. We also need to consider the ways in which we respond to our ever increasing awareness of the problems in the world around us.

Turn Away

One model, or method, for addressing social problems may be simply to ignore them. One may take the position of, “I don’t know how this happened, there is nothing I can do, so I choose to turn away, ignore the problem and hope it will just go away.” I am pleased to say that from where I stand, I see fewer people taking this particular position. Part of the reason may be that with the increase of internet availability and our “always on” culture, it is almost impossible to ignore the desperate social problems presented to us today. Even so, we need to never underestimate the power of denial. It is amazing how we can find ways to tune out and turn away from the cries of those around us. I believe we would all agree that this model of ignoring issues is a bankrupt one. As followers of Christ, we are reminded of the story of the Good Samaritan. Three people walked by the dying man lying in the road but only one stopped. The one who stopped to help was the outsider, the foreigner. The ones who continued walking away were the religious leaders. The very ones who should have understood the greatest command is to Love God and to love your neighbor were the very ones who showed the least love. I so appreciate how Jamie Zumwalt, a mission mobilizer from Kansas City, puts it when she speaks of the Good Samaritan. Jamie says that when we who follow Christ see someone hurting and we turn away, we are just “religious jerks”. Indeed, none of us wants to be a “religious jerk” so we need to find a different model to deal with injustice and oppression in the world.

Raise Awareness

Another model is to raise awareness on a specific issue. We see this approach used among certain celebrities today. Some movie stars and pop music stars try to re-focus the media attention on themselves to a particular issue or injustice in the world. One of these celebrities working to raise awareness is George Clooney. He has done admirable work to raise awareness as the country of South Sudan was being established. He recognized that the slaughter of innocent people was highly likely as leaders from Khartoum and Juba negotiated for the establishment of South Sudan. Clooney and his actor colleagues formed a charity called the “not on our watch project” that seeks to “develop advocacy campaigns that bring global attention to international crises and give voice to their victims.” There is little doubt that the increased global awareness raised by these celebrities has significantly reduced or even stopped violence from happening at all. In addition to celebrities, individuals also may use social media networks to raise awareness on issues that may be of interest to their sphere of influence. Raising awareness is a good and important model, but it has its limits. The question many of us have as we become more aware of injustice and oppression in the world is “what can we do?” We are many times overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that we receive and sooner or later we experience a fatigue from processing so many requests. We can only write our congressional leaders about so much and eventually we recognize that our government leaders can only do so much as well. While I believe it is very important for the darkness to be exposed and brought out into the light, we need models that go beyond simply raising awareness.

Consume Responsibly

I was staying in a hotel recently and I found a small card by the bed. The gist of the card’s message was that I should feel good about choosing to stay with this particular hotel chain because this company was doing all it could do to better the environment. The card assured me that the hotel chain was utilizing the best of “green” practices in its daily operations.