Mind Control

My illustration may be silly and not of much importance, but it is beyond a silly sports story because it is exactly what the media has been doing since the beginning. What we believe and how we see a story is all based on what information we receive. Who gives us the information and the information that they give us is in a perspective that can actually give us a very skewed perspective that narrows our mind.

In the World Series, Justin Verlander, a pitcher for the Houston Astros, has never won a game. In 2017, his team won, but not because of him. In fact, the other team in that World Series was the Los Angeles Dodgers. They have a pitcher, Clayton Kershaw. He won Game 1 of that series. Verlander was winning Game 6, but fell in the 5^th inning and the Dodgers forced a Game 7. The media has only described one of the pitchers as a curse, as a horrible playoff pitcher, and that is Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers.

The media has everyone believing that no one in any era has done what Kershaw has done. The media makes fun of Kershaw, which leads the fans in making fun of him. The media gets the faithful Dodger Blue fans to turn on one of their own, but they never get the Astros to turn on Verlander. They are gentle with Verlander. They make excuses for him, but not for Kershaw. What is it?

Both pitchers have amazing records in the regular season and both fall apart in the playoffs. Verlander has a beautiful model, Kate Upton, as a partner. Kershaw married his high school sweetheart. Verlander has had run-ins with reporters. Along with going on mission trips to help a small village in Africa, Kershaw gives to the urban community of Los Angeles. He’s not rude to the press, so the press creates a story.

As silly as sports can be, I began to wonder what else and who else has the media done this to? Do we really get the full story? Or do we get a version interpreted by someone who wants to create an audience to sell, as they say in the play, Newsies, “more papes.”

Here’s the scary part. People believe the stories that are generated to create an audience more than they believe the truth. People retell the stories. People refuse to listen to the truth or to anyone who begins to speak truth, which is frightening. If we refuse to listen or be open to the truth, then we will allow those who tell their version of the story to control our minds.

If we allow the media to control our minds, then they will be able to control our actions. If they can control our actions, we will no longer think independently, but will be forced to think like those who desire to control us. I’ve observed this happen with politics, stories in the news, educational institutions, religion, etc. It leads to division and wars.

So, what do we do? We are careful to what we read and hear, and we begin to search for the truth before we mindlessly take the word of someone who wants to make money. We begin to think critically for ourselves. We look for facts to back-up a story like the Kershaw vs. Verlander one to discover why one is great and the other is not, even though they have similar statistics.

May we stop blindly following journalists and bloggers. Oops. I’m a blogger. Search for yourselves. Read literary works that are truth along with journalists and bloggers. You may find life to be more informative and enjoyable. Anger may subside and real answers to problems in our communities may come to fruition. May we seek those answers and not let the media control how we think or what we think. May we just begin to think.

Alone

The photo is haunting. It is from the last game the Dodgers played this season and were eliminated from the playoffs. Not only does it create a miserable feeling for every Dodger player and fan of not getting a World Series win, but it reveals how most of us are left when we fail or mess up in life. Recently, our church has been going through a series on friendship, and when I saw Kershaw sitting there alone, it bothered me. I know that the players ignore the pitcher when that happens, but why is that a tradition? Why do we want to be alone in times when we need people the most? Can we begin to change traditions that need changing in order to be better human beings to others?

We need to come together as a society and begin to be human and to connect with one another, especially when someone is down. It is our purpose in life to lift people up to be their best. Young people are being encouraged that if they see a young person sitting alone at lunch to go sit with them, yet in our adult world, we leave them alone, and many times we gossip and make jokes. Social media has been a medium in which people can create memes to insult and tear people down because if we are busy tearing someone else down, no one will notice that we are suffering sitting alone and by ourselves.

People abandon us when we sin. I know because it’s happened to me. If you’ve ever offended someone, and unless you live alone in a cave, you have, then you know that people stay away from you, even after you’ve apologized a thousand times. We are abandoned when we sin because most people, even Christians, struggle to forgive. Many people believe that forgiveness is for the weak. They have no idea how powerful forgiveness is. It’s so powerful that those of us who have sinned against someone don’t feel the freedom or the relief of forgiveness as much as the person who does the forgiving. It frees the forgiver more than the person needing forgiveness. It breathes new life, which everyone on this planet needs.

Like Kershaw, people abandon us when we fail and support us when we succeed. We need the most support when we fail. We need to be encouraged to continue to pursue our endeavors in life. People who were rude to Kershaw online must have never failed because it’s the worst feeling. You sit alone and wonder if God created you with any purpose. Trust me. God has created you with a purpose, and it is the task of all of us to encourage you to guide you to find and pursue that purpose.

We are left alone and abandoned when we need people the most. Jesus taught us that when he returns that those who clothed the naked, visited the sick and visited those in prison were His people. Look at our society today. We don’t have to look far to see many people, like Clayton Kershaw, sitting by themselves when they need people the most. In Los Angeles, we can just walk down the street.

In Los Angeles County, there are 60,000 homeless people. Although they connect with other homeless people, many of them are alone and abandoned by a society striving to be rich and famous. I’ll admit it. I’ve walked in a different direction to avoid them. I’ve complained. I have helped in shelters, but we need to do so much more. It is no longer a political thing. It is a human being thing. We are either for or against human beings.

In Los Angeles County, our prisons are full. They are not full of visitors visiting the prisoners. They are full of people who have committed crimes. Many of those people have committed unspeakable crimes. Others have offenses that do not require being locked into a prison. No matter what the crime is, they sit in cells alone. Many of them leave alone and have nowhere to go, so they resume their life of crime. People believe that they are worthless. They are worthy of our time and respect. We need to discover a path of healing for those in our prisons.

In no way do I have all the answers. All that I know is that I can reach out to those who I know may struggle with loneliness. I can reach out to someone I know who has failed or sinned and speak life back into them. In no way am I condoning justifying sin or a crime, but the more I allow bitterness to fester inside of me, the sooner I will be left alone and have no one to take care of me, especially after I have sinned.

When I was in high school, I could not figure out how to become the popular girl. I did everything the teen magazines said to do, but I had no success. As an adult, I have discovered that the people who encourage and build others up are the ones with the most friends. They are the ones with the most successful relationships. It is my hope that as a society we can do better.

May we break tradition and begin to sit on the bench with the person who just failed and feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. Maybe, just maybe, if we can lift one weight off at a time, we will begin to see the love of Jesus that we so desperately need in our society.