Only You Can Help Prevent Forest Fires

I remember those advertisements with Smoky the Bear teaching me as a kid that only I could help prevent forest fires.  Smoky the Bear was a pretty cool dude, I thought, so of course I'd want to help prevent forest fires.  I've always wondered if I'd care about the environment and such if I hadn't grown up with what I thought to be a terrific personality.  And so I wonder if we need attractive personalities to inspire us to do the right thing, to work hard to stop slavery.  It would be a sad world if that were the case. 

Fortunately, though, when I visited the Polaris Project headquarters the other day they provided me with a number of inspirational stories.  Just a few years ago there was a domestic slave being held in D.C. as a slave to a "high up" in the business and D.C. world.  The domestic slave was tricked into coming to work as a domestic slave because the family told her that they would pay her well, that they would send her kids to school, and all of her family would be well-provided for.  As is often the case, the promises made to her were quickly forgotten and she was not allowed out of the house.

Thank God there was a responsible citizen that lived next-door.  They noticed that there was a person living in the house that they only saw taking out the trash and at no other time.  So they made contact with the Polaris Project through the National Human Trafficking Hotline to report the issue.  Polaris Project then referred the case to the D.C. Task Force and the FBI.  The Task Force and FBI then worked with the neighbor and found out that the domestic slave was eventually allowed to attend church on Sunday, and were able to put a wire on the domestic slave to gain evidence.  The wire was able to pick up enough evidence that the FBI arrested the family owners, though they tried leaving the country with the domestic slave because they had started to notice that something was up, and rescued the slave.  The slave was then put into Polaris Project's transitional housing and is now moving out with a job and her own apartment.

Thinking about this story, I realize a number of things.  First of all, the neighbor was both brave and thoughtful to notice signs of danger and then actually do something about it.  Instead of saying, "Oh, well, it can't be anything serious," they acted on their suspicions and saved a life.  Second, what courage on the part of the domestic slave to be willing to wear a wire and risk her life in the operation.  And what determination to exit that awful life and still have the fortitude to make a life for herself. 

And all of this makes me realize that this domestic slave turned "normal" person and the neighbor are excellent personalities for us to model ourselves after.  They took responsibility to do the right thing.  Neither one of them resolved to let others take action and make everything better.  Both realized that only they could end slavery.  Now as we model ourselves after them, only we can help prevent slavery.  Only you can help prevent forest fires--only you can help end slavery.

Sad Machines

As I write these Project 86 posts, I am reminded of just how powerful their music and lyrics are.  While you read the lyrics to this song, perhaps you might start to realize how amazing I've been at choosing songs, because each song's lyrics have perfectly transitioned into the next (I am, indeed, very humble).  So here are the lyrics to the Project 86 song, "Sad Machines," from their album Drawing Black Lines. 

"An ageless question, universal
They're asking why
Creation destined cries flood the night in pain
They say if You are real then take it away
But man will only look to You lying on his face

Now we lie awake
With shut eyes
So to forever forget this

Their cries, this agony, injustices, suffering
Symptoms of a larger disease
Inside of me and you and me
So try to close your eyes and make it fade away
But open and you'll see
This stain is you, this stain is me

Now so many wonder why it is
So much has gone awry in all of this
And being makes you sigh that you exist
But you can't escape this
Seemingly undeserved is your lot
But generations past and you forgot
We chose to eat our fill and fell to not
This pain is here reminding us to turn and leave
To come back home

Pointing to show us the way"

Whenever I listen to this song my only reaction is, "Wow."  It's not often that a Christian band, or a Christian in general, acknowledges the pain and struggle wrapped up in the question of suffering in this world.  Suffering exists and it often seems like Christians don't acknowledge it or simply aren't aware.  We Christians are often guilty of making life with God seem happy-go-lucky and nothing can go wrong.  All the while the truth is that God's Creation cries out in pain.  And what a strange thing: the world that God has supposedly created agonizes day in and day out.  Logically, then, God doesn't exist... unless we are lying on our face and we have no way to turn except to prayer.

This is our sad fate.  We struggle in pain until we can struggle no longer and then we turn to God out of desperation.  But the title of the song is so appropriate.  We've turned ourselves into sad machines.  As long as we are eating our fill of the symptoms of a larger disease we are nothing but machines of this world that we humans have created, and it is a world of great suffering because we become the stain of the world.  We sad machines are the stain of the world. 

We wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, we wonder why there are 27 million slaves in the world today.  How could God let that happen?  How could people be so evil as to create such a large underground slave system?  How could our government and other governments allow such a thing?  The truth is that you and I are the reason.  You and I feel the pain but we also create the pain, our own pain and the insufferable pain of others.  Part of our sad machine existence is the refusal to admit the part that we play and instead sit around complaining about the role others have played.  It's always someone else's fault that so much pain exists, so much slavery exists.  True, it is someone else's fault, but it's also the fault of you and me.

The pain should point us back to God instead of away from God.  Now, I'm not saying that we should all become believers because that's our only hope.  You can if you want and I would rejoice with you, but the God that we believe in is a God of liberation and love.  If you choose not to believe in God, at least believe in liberation and love.  The pain that you and millions of others feel should point us to the way of liberation and love.  We have tried living as sad machines and it only leads to more sadness.  Now with our faces on the ground we have no choice but to take a different path.

It's up to you and me, folks.  You and I are the stain of this world.  So you and I must choose a different path.  There is no more time for blaming and complaining and wondering.  You and I must do the liberating and the loving, you and I must do the work of justice and hope.  Let's not wait for others to do something.  It's up to you and me. 

And trust me, you are a powerful voice.  Flood your political representatives with letters and signatures, organize rallies, raise funds for organizations like Polaris Project.  It's up to you and me, and we are powerful.