Lifeboat

I've been thinking a bit lately about celebrity and why many of us are so excited to share that we've met somebody of any importance. If you're a member of the general population, it's probably being able to say that you saw Will Smith walking down the street or got a picture with Julia Roberts. If you're a church geek, it might be the ability to say you ate dinner with Martin Marty or hung out with Mark Hanson for a bit (and if you don't know who these people are, then I'm obviously not going to impress you). But why is it that we're so happy to share the information that we got to eat with these people or have a picture of one of them with a golf ball in his mouth? Why don't we say the same things about our friends or a random person we met at a party? "I got to talk with Susan Reyes tonight!" Who is that? Why would we care?

The more I think about it, the more I believe it boils down to the lifeboat. Several months ago, I read a book by Donald Miller called Searching for God Knows What. At some point in the book, he describes what he calls the lifeboat theory. We go through life like we're stuck in a lifeboat and we need to get rid of one person. So we try to rationalize to the other people in the boat why it shouldn't be us that goes, why we have value. Most of us don't need to be the people with the most value, but we certainly don't want to be the lowest ones on the totem pole. So as long as there is somebody with less value below us, we feel alright.

So back to the celebrity thing, being able to say we met somebody of "importance" is something because not many people are able to say that. Scarcity usually translates to value and since fewer people can say they have met Will Smith or the presiding bishop of the ELCA, then that automatically gives us value by association.

So what does this mean for how we live our lives? Do we give into the lifeboat theory? I find that I often do without really thinking about it. But if I'm mindful of it, I remember that the one who gives real value is God and because I know and am loved by God, I have real value. I don't need to prove it to anybody - none of us do. But in this world, sometimes it's hard to remember that.

Kate