While the immediate reaction to yet another real life story committed to print, in this case the romance amidst the Holocaust tale of Herman Rosenblat, being demonstrated to be a real lie is “another member of the club — Oprah’s book of the month club, among others,” it and its predecessors do tell a tale that’s anything but fiction.
Namely, the going price for fifteen minutes.
We live in a world possessing an alarmingly high number of people who can and will do anything to get noticed. From the gangbanger self-convinced they won’t be the one to die as they take the life of a rival for the defense of their worthless street corner to the dork with a toy light saber on YouTube, so many seek the world’s attention no matter the cost to themselves or others. Look at me. Just look at me. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll perform whatever trick you want. But please, look at me!
Because if you look at me, I am somebody.
The truth, the honest truth, is everyone is someone regardless of whether anyone is looking. This isn’t the everyone’s-special blather of faded flower child philosophy where no one bears the mark of Cain and every wrongdoing is explained away via situational ethics plus other excuses. Everyone is someone in the eyes of a loving, bloodied Savior Who declared the measure of our individual value by being nailed to a cross and left to die.
For many, that’s not enough.
There’s no spotlight at the foot of the cross. There’s no glory, no honor, no prestige, no power, no fame. No one looks at you when you’re kneeling. No one pays attention to you when you become humble before the Lord. No one at all. So the belief goes that says it is far better to be known as one that generates heat than one bowing before the Light of the world.
And so we embellish our résumé or weave an entirely new one, cloth drawn from our vivid imagination with not a scrap coming from reality. We feign outrage while striving to initiate outrage ourselves, writing and saying and doing that which comes not from heartfelt conviction but rather a careful calculation engineered to push the greatest number of buttons. We are like dogs in a single breed show, doing our best to get ahead by being the ideal among the identical. Never mind how in the end it gains us nothing. We want it all, and we want it now.
When will we, or will we, learn that making fiction of our lives does nothing but attempt to rearrange dust? Our life stories are written in the book of life, and no amount of yarn spinning on our part or behalf will change a single letter on one of its pages. Our life stories are already remarkable, made so not only by dint of being created by God in His image but also by the ability to love. No words from the most fiercely creative writing can do justice to this. No acclaim can so much as pretend to equal this which is the greatest of all. Why, then, do we strive for temporal glory at the expense of honesty? Nothing is hidden in this world. In time all will be revealed. Far better to be uncovered as one who by the world’s standards was unknown. Yet in love, they were a brilliant, shining star.
One that shines way longer than fifteen minutes.
[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/Kids_In_The_Way_-_Fiction.flv nolink]
