video - viva la vida

have you noticed the trend towards blending reality and dream technology? remember the first time you saw those iPOD commercials with bono and the edge? or maybe you saw 'sin city'? and now coldplay has followed suit with their latest marketing attempts and music video.

it seems like we don't exist well in one extreme or the other, so we swing between the two. we are addicted to "reality" one day - 'the real world', 'big brother', 'home makeover', 'oprah' etc. and yet the next day we're equally addicted to fiction - cartoons, anime, superheros, aliens etc. it's fascinating to me that all of us swing between such extremes. it's almost as if we were made to live in the tension between the known & the unknown, between the real & the imagined, between the real & the super-real. we are like helium balloons that get carried off into the atmosphere only to lose our air, come back to earth and refill to repeat the same cycle. and yet i sense in myself a longing to break the cycle, to be filled with a never-ending supply of energy, to soar above my limits and stay there, to take the hands of those around me and glide into a new world. 

one night i was praying and i saw a picture in my mind. it was a balloon that was blowing in the wind, but it was harnessed to an old broken down wooden cross. the balloon never lost it's air, and the fence-post cross--though rickety--never lost it's grip because it had crown of barbed wire lining it's top, clinging to the string. i remember thinking how strange that picture was . . . and then i thought about how often we use parables to teach . . . words that paint pictures. 

could it be that we are made to float in the winds of creativity and imagination? could it be that we are simultaneously made to move in the freedom of wherever the wind blows especially because we are tethered to the reality of what took place on the cross? did i mention that the rickety cross was empty? maybe the picture i saw was a picture of the tension between what is real and super-real? maybe it was a reminder of the invitation extended to all for life, forgiveness, hope, purpose, freedom, justice . . . love. maybe we are 'the balloon's' invited to blow in the winds of exploration, tethered to the bridge between heaven and earth, wonder and practical wisdom, dreams and reality--the empty cross--which reminds us Yeshua is still alive, still inspiring, still guiding, still inviting, still filling, still God, still man, still here with us. 

blow gentle wind blow, and carry all who read these words, into the tension of your world that they may rest in your love even as they dare greatly and dream boldly.