What Is Reality?

About two years ago, one of the students on Jason’s school bus decided he wanted to bring a Bible and read it on his way to school.  He came to Jason at the end of the day with a look of shock and said, “I didn’t know Noah got drunk!”  Indeed, Noah got drunk.  Students of Genesis might be tempted to wonder why God included that in the Scriptures.  We admire Noah for finding grace in the sight of God, for his persistence at preaching for 140 years with only his family as his converts, for building the ark precisely as God commanded, and for surviving the only world-wide flood ever to occur.  But we find ourselves a little disappointed when see Noah get off the ark, grow a vineyard, and get drunk.  Why such an ugly ending?  Theologians will have to help us dismantle the story better than I could and decide whether it was a post-flood accident (maybe Noah had never made wine before), or whether it was just God’s reminder to us that all men have feet of clay.  Whichever the case—one of the most popular Bible stories does take an unusual twist at the end. 

 

What if the story of Noah were made into a reality show?  Not the Noah movie—which was as far from reality as any producer could get—but what if there had been cameras, a crew, and an editor to catch reality as it happened?  I suspect there is at least one scene that would have been edited out.   The image of Noah, drunken and naked in his tent, being mocked by his own son, would be replaced with commercials, and we could go on with our happy ending. 

 

One of the troubles with reality shows, social media, and the plethora of images that cross our phones and computers each day is that most of it has been cherry-picked and sometimes even photo-shopped, thus rendering it “partial-reality” at its very best. 

 

Let’s face it:  For your sake as well as mine, I’m not posting pictures of my sons’ bedroom on this bright, Monday morning.  They were told they could not take a bite of breakfast until they cleaned up The Pile.  I think three of them obeyed.  But I can still hear #4 making siren sounds as he distractedly wanders around the bedroom, completely forgetting what I sent him in there to do.

 

Regardless of how much time you spend on Facebook, perusing friends’ vacation pictures and first-day-of-school shots, or watching the various reality shows that come on each week, here is a grain of salt to consider:  Reality is what we can’t cut and splice.  And nobody truly lives the reality that makes good television. 

 

Reality is a one-year-old spitting out his food. 

Reality is spankings for naughty words.

Reality is bad hair, extra pounds, and carpet stains.

Reality is a checkbook that doesn’t always balance.

Reality is a toilet that runs and a fridge that doesn’t. 

Reality is having to repeat a homeschool class. 

Reality is when not everyone likes us.

Reality is a puppy that marks territories--in the living room. 

Reality is egg shells and coffee drips and toast crumbs on the kitchen counter, and an urgent phone call before I can clean up the mess. 

 

Reality is why we need love for each other and God's grace in order to get along.

 

One summer day when Josh was about two, he discovered that he was strong enough to open the sliding door to the deck.  That summer, we also had temporarily adopted a nanny goat—who turned out to be pregnant, thus making us the proud owners of two goats within 24 hours.  Since the kid (the goat, not Josh) was not big enough to restrain with cattle paneling, he ran freely around our property, like the dog, sometimes hanging around on the front porch and sometimes racing in the woods with Tippy.  That sunny day, I discovered my deck door wide open, Josh toddling around on the deck, and a goat in my dining room.  Sometimes that’s reality—the unchecked, unedited version.  And life would be awfully boring without it. 

 

Enjoy your Facebook and your reality TV—but just remember, as you watch and click and scroll, your reality is just as “real” as theirs.  Don’t let picture-perfect families and images steal your joy.  Five-year-olds who dress themselves in mismatched clothes are lovably cute too.  So are buck teeth, frizzy hair, and acne.  Paid-for carpet, with its stains documenting decades of family memories, is just as valuable as shiny hard-wood and an impeccably clean house, where the cameras can roll easily behind the carefully cropped scenes. 

 

The battles we face as families—correcting unpleasant attitudes, instilling manners, and working through the self-doubt of teenagers—do not make for good television or Facebook statuses, but they make strong families when the battle is over.  Fingerprints on the wall, windows that don’t shut quite right, a broken van radio, Ramen noodles for lunch,  disappointing haircuts, parents who sometimes crash on the living room sofa for a power-nap, snoring away with their mouths hanging open:  Life isn’t always tidy. 

 

Don’t let reality shows and social media dim your own reality.  You are the only you God made.   J