. . . what would you change?
Had an interesting conversation yesterday after the church service with a woman who was visiting from out of town. Isn’t it great when you meet someone for the first time and make a real connection? That’s what happened here.
Just in case you don’t know what “Serial” is:
In 1999 an 18-year-old Baltimore girl named Hae Min Lee was murdered and her body found in a park not far from her high school. Her ex-boyfriend, a Pakistani Muslim named Adnan Syed, was arrested and charged with the murder; no other suspect was ever considered. The first trial ended in a mistrial; the second trial ended in a guilty verdict and Syed has been incarcerated in a supermax prison ever since. A family friend and lawyer tried to get attention paid to the poor job done by the defense and the many inconsistencies in witness testimony, but she was unsuccessful in her efforts until she decided to try bringing the story to the media in some way. She contacted a journalist named Sarah Koenig who became interested and ended up doing a 12-part podcast on the case, titled “Serial.” This series exploded in popularity, with 68 million downloads on iTunes alone.
Yesterday I wrote about what was going on in our lives one year ago as we finally got a diagnosis for our son Gideon and started him on the treatment that cured his cancer. So you’d think that I’d be rejoicing at any and everything that happened this week, since nothing could be as bad as that was. Right? Right. You would think that. And yet, there I was on Tuesday, grumbling and complaining to myself about the dinner I was making for my beloved community chorale’s annual business meeting. “I wish this were over with,” I thought. I had the sensation that I often have when I’m doing something I don’t particularly want to do, feeling as if I’m being dragged along unwillingly towards the event I’m preparing for.
Scribbled on one of the many scraps of paper I accumulate is something from a recent church care group meeting in our home. We get together a couple of times a month to discuss ideas sparked by recent sermons. One of our members mentioned that we humans have the tendency in our thinking to be vague about the problem but specific about the solution, and he gave as an example the above phrase, something he’d gotten from a friend at work.
. . . This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”
Blaise Pascal