Taking the Bait: The Urge to Escape

So, what to make? Well, that WOULD be a great stunt, if I thought the “winners” weren’t corporate plants in crowd! (It’s got to be tough to predict that a guy’s vision of a perfect escape will be a trip to Lapland!) But I think the reason this is “Mockingbird Bait” is the truth inherent in the recognition that we humans have an incredible desire for escape. Loren Dean (in the great and under-seen movie “Mumford”) says that humans have always found a way to escape, “even if it’s just banging our heads against a rock.” In the movie, he’s talking about his drug use, but the fact remains, escape is a tantalizing prospect. Dean’s character can’t take the depths to which his life has sunk, and turns to drugs as his means of escape. People turn to virtual worlds (like World of Warcraft or Second Life), pornography, or literal travel to “get away.” The problem with escaping is that you always have to come back. The drugs wear off, the computer gets shut down, or the headache (from the rock) dulls. I wonder if the guy’s trip to Lapland has a required end? Is it a round trip ticket? Bet it is! The fact that a person (disbelief suspended for a moment) would press a button on a scary black box for the chance at escape is evidence of the pressure (what we MBirders…and St. Paul before us…call “the law”) we all feel all the time. But like trips to Lapland, human- (or coporate-) provided escapes always end. It’s only the escape (or, more accurately, the death and resurrection) provided by Christ that is forever (2 Cor. 5:17).