Middle
“There’s a chapel in Kansas standing on the exact center of the Lower 48. It never closes. All are more than welcome to come meet here in the middle. It’s no secret the middle has been a hard place to get to lately. Between red and blue, servant and citizen. Between our freedom and our fear. Now fear has never been the best of who we are and freedom is not the property of the fortunate few. It belongs to us all. Whoever you are. Wherever you are from. It is what connects us and we need that connection. We need the middle. We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground so we can get there. We can make it to the mountaintop, through the desert, and we will cross this divide. Our light has always found its way through the darkness. And there’s hope on the road up ahead.”
- Bruce Springsteen, in Jeep’s “The Middle”
The narcotics are still working their way out of my system, one day home from a weeklong stay in a hospital where some emergency surgery kept me on my back for most of the week. The television in my room didn't come on for even a second, I kept entirely off social media, and our nation's political and social unrest was even more distant than it has ever been.
But we had some family over this afternoon to take in a portion of the Super Bowl. We're not very big fans, and neither or they, but it is an excuse to get together, and I hadn't seen them in over a week. We halfway paid attention (the way we typically do) until this Jeep advertisement came on the screen. I happened to be sitting alone when it did, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.
I love the commercial's aspirational ideas and the even the hopeful "Reunited States of America" at the end, but I am having a hard time finding much hope there. We are encouraging the leaders we work with to think about their lives in the context of a worldview that transcends all that. Ironically, one that is very consistent with the values espoused in this ad.
This country has a middle, a center, a heart. It isn't geographic and won't be found in two disastrously divided parties getting along. It is a set of beliefs woven into the foundational documents that launched our nation and seem nearly forgotten by everyone we've entrusted to lead our country.
It is about caring for one another.
It is about welcoming everyone.
It is about honoring the ultimate Authority.
It is about relationships.
It is about hard work.
It is about doing the right things.
The commercial uses a church as a metaphor for the "middle." If that is how they will define the middle that we need to get back to, then I think they are right on point. In the absence of reverence of our God, we live in fear. We fear everything. The antidote that the Christian worldview offers us is freedom. It is the primary deliverable of the gospel. It is what we are all collectively groaning for.
That center, that middle, has never been more critical. We've lost that middle, and we better find it fast because it is the only answer.
Consider
What worldview lens are you viewing the world through?
How does that affect the way you see the world? The way you lead?
Will you take a minute to watch this ad, think about your deepest beliefs and convictions, and change something about the way your living and leading?