#wakeupyouhaplessdreamers

A friend recently posted a question on the infamous Facebook that really got me thinking. The question came down to this - does using #hashtatagactivism and having social justice conversations via social networks damage more than it helps? Does talking about activism prevent you from feeling the need to actually act? Does a world wide web deter the need or the desire for face to face interactions? When our closest interactions are with grammers and facebookers and bloggers trapped somewhere out there in an html universe, does loving our neighbors become increasingly difficult?

For a generation that is known as being innately selfish, whose passion for selfies and cat videos far outweighs the occasional and the few and far between moments of thinking about #chaningtheworld, are we capable of making an impact?

Does this

lose its authenticity when put up on a cyberspace wall alongside this?

or this?

Now, don't get me wrong - sometimes a funny video has magical powers to make my boring, difficult, sad, just plain hard day - wonderful, filled with double rainbows and belly laughter. And in case it wasn't glaringly obvious the person I know who posts the most selfies known to mankind is well, ME (exhibit a - that ridiculously exuberant face up above that was filled with ecstatic joy because the Seahawks kicked the 49ers asses!) But I wonder sometimes why it is so easy and feels so essential to reveal my double shot hemp milk latte with a sprinkle of nutmeg to the world at large and yet questionable, intrusive, or even wrong to say End Human Trafficking, Rape, Hunger, to love the lost, the broken, the misplaced, and the vulnerable or dare I say the name of Jesus. It's not you, it's not my generation, it's not my friends, it's not the random strangers I accept into my portion of the universe that put these restrictions on me - it's me. I seek with all that I am to be unobtrusive - to share my every thought without ever having a meaningful one. What's with that?!

When I had first read that question of a facebook status my initial reaction was an irate if not indignant of course we can make a difference! Talk about it! Awareness! Conversations Inspire! Action is born out of inspiration. If I am called to use the tools in my hand to affect the world around me, as a product of my generation my number one tool SHOULD be social media! And so I set out to write this blog, to talk about it - to use my tool. And then I started thinking about the last time I took action - the last time I cared about an issue enough to go beyond a number symbol that is meant to mean so much more. And I had to stop and think, and am still waiting to come up with an answer. That's how long it's been.

I see my generation as being made up of two different types - those holding their breath for a social media revolution for justice that will end all suffering, all pain, and love like this #love, and those who get off on a literal high hoping to remain young, wild, and free holding their breath for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. And a few I am sure who ascribe to both. If our hope is found in a cyber world reality or in spending all of our time trying to escape any form of reality than where does that leave our call to action? We become but hapless dreamers.

My dad used to say that young men dream and old men have vision but that old men should dream and young men should have vision. I thought I sort of abstractly on some level of the universe understood what he was saying but really I was like Homey Say What?! I think I have begun to understand. Dreaming is a lot like waiting. We see what could be, what should be, what maybe even will be - and so we wait for it. We dream about it, knowing that one day we may get to see it happen - maybe even get to be a part of it. Dreaming is like getting let off the hook for action - it creates an endless hope that while inspiring is without required motviation. Vision is this tangible road map for the soul, the heart and the mind born out of wisdom. If you have the vision for what could be, what should be, what will be - if you have the tools and the knowledge and you have essentially been shown the way, how can you not be the one to take action? I want my mind to have a GPS for the future - vision. I want my words to have meaning. My voice to have impact. I want #hope #vision #love #change #justice to be like footsteps in the sand - a shadow of the actions that are being done. 

I acknowledge that writing this blog is in no way my action - it's a pile of thoughts and words thats sole purpose are to somehow through verbal diarrhea help me to understand my own thought process. This doesn't really sound like a step away from being the generation of selfish nature. My actions speak louder than my words, and every day that I learn more and I grow more and I love more - I wake up more. I am beginning to see the road before me and how I am but a shadow - the way I love, the way I live, the way I act. I want to be a shadow of the One who made me. Social Justice comes through Social Change not through law but through grace and mercy and its unending love. I love - this is my action. With this vision I walk out my days.