And One Final Heartland Post

 

So more on why I'm pursuing an eternally real Heartland instead of indulging in fantasies that are only temporary.

 

A REASON:  My satisfaction. 

If you ask anyone what their most important goal in life is they will say it is to be happy. We were created for happiness.  Real happiness.  And we long for it above everything else. So my next reason for paying attention to that niggling feeling and resisting the temptation to immerse myself in a temporary distraction from my real world is simply that the distraction does not make me happy.  It does not satisfy.

 

Temporary distractions do not keep some vague promise they make of happiness.  Escaping into an imaginary world can become a street drug that only immobilizes me and drags me down. In the end, indulging in it will only make me more miserable.

 

Any pursuit of any addiction is nothing more than the heart's restless search for it's ultimate Heartland in all the wrong places. Human beings were created "to love God and enjoy Him forever," and, as Pascal has said, our hearts will be restless, no matter what distractions we go after, until they have found their rest in Him.

 

A DISCLAIMER:

 

Please note that this doesn't mean I will never watch another episode of Heartland.  Unlike street drugs, healthy Netflix shows can be healthily refreshing. They can provide much needed R and R after I've been pursuing my greater purposes for a period of time. One thing I love about my Boss is that He gives me R and R on a regular basis. He has promised to give me "all things to enjoy" and when He gives them they are thoroughly enjoyable and refreshing. 

 

But when these healthy recreational activities become my goal rather than my rest, their benefit is destroyed and so am I if I pursue that goal. So ultimately, goals that satisfy are goals that lead to benefits that will last forever. 

 

A PARADOX:

 

But here is a strange thing: I find that my satisfaction is very much connected to the satisfaction and well being of others. So the goal of seeking the good of others is the final reason I need to re-direct my pursuits as this new season begins.

 

Goals that truly satisfy are ones that have to do with other people's ultimate well being, not just my own.

 

It may seem like a paradox to say that investing my life in the service of other eternal human beings, for their eternal good, will bring me happiness, but it's true.  I know that from experience.

 

When I have a chance to watch someone discover the love of Jesus, and see them choose to submit to His love and lordship in their lives--when I see them look to Him for their eternal good and find it in His face--my heart soars with joy.  Nothing makes me happier.

 

If I can help one eternal being down the path toward discovering their value in God's sight, I feel fulfilled in ways no earthly pleasure can do for me.

 

That's why the quote by C.S. Lewis pictured in this post is on the front of my school binder. It's before me every day when I teach. And nothing gives me more joy and excitement--nothing makes me feel more refreshed--than loving and praying for and encouraging the students I stand in front of each day I teach. I have found deep, meaningful purpose in loving others, and living and working for their eternal good.

 

The joy I experience when I see a teenage boy sit up straighter because I have affirmed a good answer he has given in a class discussion; or when another student comes to me, several times before the end of class, to thank me for giving him a pencil case with a few writing supplies so he won't have to ask any teacher for a pencil before he can do his work in another class; or when I see a whole classroom full of students soften and melt when I tell them how much I love them and want the best for them--this joy makes the temporary pleasure I get from indulging in some worldly escape mechanism pale in comparison.

 

So this is why I am determined to resist the lure of temporary, shallow pleasures that do not satisfy. It is a selfish reason. I want to be happy--truly happy. And I have discovered that deep, abiding happiness--what the Bible calls "joy"--is found only in the pursuit of eternally good things--things that will bring enduring satisfaction to me and to others.

 

I think maybe this pursuit, in this life, on this earth, is the beginning of our discovery of our eternal Heartland. It's the closest thing to heaven on earth I have yet to discover.

 

More on Heartland

I started a new journal today. It's kind of like a new beginning--a clean page in front of me.  What will I do with it?

 

As I hinted in yesterday's post, I've been feeling a tad uncomfortable with how comfortable I've been feeling in the fictional world of Heartland.*  My thoughts have been more with Ty and Amy lately than with my own friends and family.  It's been a great escape. But I know I can't stay in that unreal, ideal world. I need to live in the real, broken world that God has put me in.

  

*That's a palindrome, did you notice? 

 

I read Jesus' words this morning, in Matthew 24 and 25, about the end of the world as we know it. He gave His disciples a parable to illustrate how they should live until He returns to gather His children home to His heartland.

 

Ten young woman are waiting to celebrate the wedding of their friend, the bride, and her bridegroom. They know the bridegroom will be coming any time to meet the bride and carry her away into their new life together. They need to be watching for him so they can join the two of them in a happy journey to the wedding feast.

 

Five of them are alert and prepared, and the other five have been spending their days watching endless episodes of Heartland.

 

Okay. So that's a bit of a stretch when it comes to interpretation, but it's an apropos  application to my situation. I cannot afford to float off into some kind of virtual paradise, napping mindlessly while I wait for the Bridegroom to decide it's time to come collect His bride.  There is work to do before I can relax and enjoy the feast. So today, in the first entry of my new journal, I turn over a new page.

 

I am highly motivated. I'm pretty sure it's more than the cup and a half of coffee I just drank. There are some pretty strong reasons for me to renounce the easy life until I can enjoy it eternally.

 

For one thing, that life is temporary. It doesn't make sense for me to invest my life in pursuits that will only last a short time. Another of Jesus' stories illustrates the futility of doing that. He says, "What profit is there for a person to gain the whole (temporary) world if they lose their own (eternal) souls in the process?"

 

Or if other eternal souls are lost as well??

 

I need to invest my life in people. Real people. People are the only eternally valuable investments to make.  I need to work toward their eternal well being as well as my own. 

 

C.S. Lewis says that ". . .it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit--." Ty and Amy are not immortals, but the people I come in contact with in my life are. They need to be the focus of my activities while I am down here on earth waiting for the Bridegroom to come for us.

I need to spend my life for others, praying for them, loving them, and demonstrating, by the way I live and the words I speak, how rich and joyous it can be to live for an eternal purpose, moving all the while toward an eternal heartland.

 

So that's the beginning of my future path. It's a re-commitment to my purpose of following Jesus in this life. I need to make sure my heart stays in this land until it's time to move on to the next one.

 

Heartland

 

I think I am heart-hungry for  Heartland. I'm blaming my compulsive enjoyment of that TV series on COVID. That's convenient. But I'm trying to analyze why I'm so addicted to the series and I think it's a couple of things (aside from COVID).

 

Or maybe three.

 

First, the simple, uncomplicated moral innocence of the show is a comfort to me. I long for a time when virtues like integrity, fidelity and honesty are again considered general virtues that society expects of people.

 

They once were. I remember those days, when you could count on an agreement that was sealed with only a handshake.  Moral behavior was expected and people in that time rose to that expectation. In Heartland, when one of the characters stumbles or falls--when a character breaks the moral rules and lies, or is unfaithful in love--the lapse is recognized as a stumble or a fall, and there are disastrous consequences.

 

These COVID days have brought out the best and the worst in us all.  We may have stumbled and fallen in many ways, but we have also gone out of our way to care for our neighbours, and we have also learned to live on less and care about things that are of real value. But our society still reels from the effects of our rejection of traditional moral values.

 

In this past year, integrity has become the victim of political expediency. There certainly have to be public figures who are faithful to their calling as public servants--who speak the truth and are faithful in their service. But so many conflicting "facts" being promoted by all our media sources have destroyed our foundational confidence in the integrity of government as well as in public discourse.

 

As for fidelity, we scold public figures for forcing unwanted sex on women, and rightly so, but we say nothing about infidelity in their marriages, or in ours. The only rule restricting sexual behavior in this moral climate is the rule that sex should always be by mutual consent. Other than that, anything goes when it comes to the act that used to be considered sacred because of the beautiful picture it is of the faithful, intimate, caring love that has always existed between the Creator and His creation, and also because of its direct connection with the creation of other human beings.

 

And when it comes to honesty, no one even talks anymore about the way things 'should' be. It's only about the way things 'are'. "Well," we say, "if you leave your purse on the seat of your unlocked car, what do you expect? That was a stupid thing to do." Now, in the 21st century, stupidity is seen as a worse sin than stealing.

 

There are other reasons for the strings between my heart and Heartland. My longing is a longing for the past, not only morally, but geographically. My growing up years in rural America, as well as my seven years of living in Alberta, left me with an enduring love for the simple, rural life.

 

Those years were not pain-free. There is always pain and frustration and restlessness in growing up. But the nostalgia is there, in the Ponderosa pine forests of Northern Arizona that I grew up in as a young person, and in the shadow of the Rocky Mountain foothills of Alberta where Heartland is filmed and where we raised our toddlers.  

 

The nostalgia is there, and it can be a kind of pain in itself. As if it was a perfect setting, but not quite perfect. A perfect time, but not quite.

 

In fact, I think my longing is more deeply rooted in a longing for heaven. An old song we used to sing in church says, "This world is not my home, I'm just passing through." No matter what sweet memories I have of the past in this life, there is still a reaching for something more, as if I'm on a journey through this life and have not yet reached my final destination.  In heaven, only, will the ideal be realized.

 

All that gives me pleasure in this life is passing. But all the deep happiness I  remember experiencing in fleeting moments--these things are what heaven will be like, not in fleeting moments but in one constant, eternal present--all the deep joy and none of the sorrow. When that eternal moment comes for me, the tears of the past will be wiped away. All the nostalgia will find its final satisfaction, and I will find my Heartland.