Just got back from a three-week road trip in our little Tab trailer, the focal point being a visit to family in Tennessee. One night in Arkansas we watched a movie in our little trailer in the pouring rain, "Light of My Life." In the movie the father is telling his daughter how he and her mother (who died when she was a baby) liked to go on camping trips before she was born. But things would always go wrong. A flat tire, getting lost, bad weather, whatever. And the wife would say to the husband, "Isn’t this great? We’re having a love adventure." So that’s what we called our latest road trip. A love adventure. We had a few meltdowns (this is just so inconvenient!). We got lost a few times. We had to change our plans. We couldn’t find food. Once there were no showers and no electricity. It rained a whole lot. But we kept on loving God and loving each other. It’s all part of the love adventure.
We know that many families, friendships, and other human relationships are struggling like never before. People don’t know where they stand with each other and where each other stands on lots of things. People have made boundaries, only because we are flawed humans and we want to protect ourselves from other flawed humans. We want to be ourselves with each other, but it’s not possible anymore because of the changes in the schools and churches and polarizing worldviews and damaged relationships. So oftentimes we are afraid and exhausted when we talk to or see each other, if we even do talk to or see each other. It is exhausting trying to avoid offending someone or avoid being offended. We have in essence lost our confidence to speak freely, some even in their own families. It is very tempting to give up on any meaningful relationships and just barely show up and be nice.
Nevertheless, we are all having a love adventure. All of this bad stuff is going to keep happening. But we can work on loving God and each other despite the getting stressed out and angry and annoyed and hurt and offended and inconvenienced. Despite everything.
We read a book aloud on our road trip which we think everyone could find something good in. I, Janice, the read-alouder, underlined and made notes on every single page. It is called Live Not By Lies, A Manual for Christian Dissidents, by Rod Dreher. It gave us hope. Even though we all may have different problems dealing with our families and churches and polarizing worldviews in today’s world that affect all aspects of our lives, there is a bigger danger we should be addressing. The loss of freedom.
The author describes and interviews several incredibly courageous people who resisted throughout the Soviet takeover of Poland and Czechoslovakia after the end of WW II. They all said that the family and other small groups of human relationships are a threat to communism and totalitarianism. So these governments always want those things questioned or controlled or damaged or destroyed. In order to resist this total takeover of one’s life, inside and out (which is what totalitarianism is), the people the author interviewed say one good idea is to form small groups of family and friends and acquaintances that meet often, as many as you can, small groups who have something in common.
It can be practically anything. Off the top of my head, book groups, pickleball, choirs, plays, dinners, movies, games, workouts, orchestras, hiking, sports teams, knitting, photography, bird watching, food truck picnics, anything concrete to build interested small group gatherings on---that have no hierarchy telling you what to do and getting gain from it. This independence and freedom to form and meet in groups of our choice is training us to resist powers that wish to control every single aspect of our lives, especially our minds.
We know people are doing a lot of this already (sorry if your groups weren't mentioned above!). But we also know that the last few years have caused a lot of isolation and loneliness. People just aren't talking like before. Well, it's time to take back the freedom mentality! And from this book we learned that meeting together in person for whatever worthwhile activity is much more important and deeply valuable than we might have thought.
On this same road trip we took a side trip to Alabama and met some YouTube video people called the RV Odd Couple. This couple recently bought hundreds of acres for a new special RV park
(patriotic, conservative, Christian) and we wanted to see it in person.
They were so nice and the place should be a state park it’s so gorgeous. We joined up. We met people. Another small group with something in common!
Totalitarianism happened in eastern Europe in our lifetime and the people who resisted it had to be strong to hang on to their sanity and their convictions and their freedom, if only in their minds. They hoped it would end soon but meanwhile they had to use their imaginations, even to go underground, but they did it. And those who didn’t lose their lives or minds came out free on the other side when the Iron Curtain fell in 1989.
This same thing can happen here. We have all seen it happening already, although in more soft, disguised, insidious, and sophisticated ways. We like the many positive ideas this books shares about confronting this problem and wanted to share one of them with you. But we highly recommend you get a hold of the book for yourself and your family and friends. It's a huge eye-opener (we never learned about any of this in school!) and contains many highly encouraging, faith-promoting suggestions and Christian coping tools. We will be reading this book again and again.
Keep up the good work! In spite of everything, it’s a love adventure!
