I've just returned from two whirlwind days in LA. A land where extreme wealth lives in dischordant harmony with extreme poverty. Where else on earth can you see an Aston Martin, a man eating out of a trashcan, a 350 lb bald guy in need of a back wax wearing a speedo with suspenders, a 140.00 pair of underwear at Versace, a stoned hippie playing a violin without strings, a 29 dollar salad, and Roger Ebert kneeling by a star in front of a Chinese theater, all in one day? A tall man with a flowing white beard wearing Gandalf's hat and cloak stood out front and posed time and time again with Asian tourists who coaxed him to say, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" for a few dollars. Beverly Hills was over the top. Hollywood was a dive. Venice Beach? It's the gathering place for more cheap sunglasses and wasted talent than you ever knew existed. There is no middle class. You're either spending 50,000 a month on a condo or living in a gutter, but there's not a blue collar in sight. So what's the point of this travelog? I don't know. I really don't know. I saw houses in Malibu that were in the process of sliding off foundations that were built on a cliffs mostly made of sand. I saw the coolest car in the world, followed closely by a dozen others just like it. I saw valets running like deer in hunting season while a short old man with tall blonde escort gave an aggrivated glance at a watch worth more than my annual income. I saw the same look of frustration on the face of a guy leaning over the garbage who was pouring the backwash out of multiple coke cans into a single styrofoam cup to make a custom beverage. We used to call it a suicide when I was a little kid at the Sizzler.
So why do they both get frustrated? Shouldn't one or the other be content? First glance would say the rich man would be content and the beggar not. But this was not the case. Each man was frustrated with his existence for each one could recognize the limitations of his own sense of control. This, I believe, is the quest of every man. To gain as much control as possible. The problem is that we never have quite enough. One day you can't afford a beverage, the next day the valet won't get your Mercedes fast enough. When will we learn that our hunger for control will never be satisfied?
On the other side of the control coin are the strung out artists or thong wearing perverts who parade their 'individual' attitude before the world as a way to, in effect, celebrate the false freedom that comes from a perceived loss of control. They exercise extreme antics to dare the giver of control (whoever that may be) to come and take it back already. The beauty of Christian liberty is that revelation that we're not in control. Rather Jesus Christ is. Our subsequent actions are simply our response to His unlimited ability to shape things according to His plan and pleasure. We trust that it's for our good, and that being the case, it seems like a no brainer to allow Him to take his rightful place as Lord of our lives. But dogone it if that isn't hard to do. Cmon, you know it's true.
So what do Gandalf, psycho speedo, Roger Ebert, custom beverage bum, Rolex daddy, and all of us have in common? We're all fighting for the same thing. To gain control or to lose control. Oh the things you can learn in LA.