I love the TV show, Burn Notice. And its values are culturally significant: loyalty, trust, honor, and responsibility, are things rarely put on display in a real manner. These characters are flawed; they all have weaknesses and blind spots. But put them together in a community, and what you find is that their giftings and strengths mesh with each other's weaknesses. Sometimes life sucks, you may lose close friends or siblings, some day life may seem out to get you, but if you have the courage and the guts to trust your friends and family, hope can remain even in the hardest of times. It's not perfect, but the task of striving to construct a resilient support system is a critical element to thriving in a life that so many times does not allow for joy and happiness to be a regular ingredient.
If you don’t know the story, Michael, the main character, is an ex-CIA agent that has been burned, which means he had been more or less fired for a reason unknown to him. The TV show tracks him as he tries to put his life back together and tries to find out what and who got him fired. The show tracks the people he meets along the way and the friends he makes. It also sheds light on the toll the process of redemption subjects upon him, physically, emotionally, and socially. The cost this process will require will push him to a breaking point, and Michael must choose between the CIA and his closest friends and family. He’s tired of the pain of losing friends and family; he’s tired of all the lies; and he’s tired and scared of the man he is become in this process.
I don't always make it a habit of letting TV shows get to me. But somehow this show gets under my skin and makes me raw. I think it's because I see a lot of myself in the main character. He is who he is because of the relationships he's had in his past; and the way he survives the present is because of the friends and family with him. The friends I have are the most important thing in my life. There is nothing I wouldn't do for them, for you. You all have made it possible for me to get where I am, and you will be the ones that get me to tomorrow. I understand his pain and fears.
This program and by extension this practice is stressful and demanding. It forces us to adapt to and rise to the challenge of it; but the fear that stands in the back of our minds is what happens to me? This job is going to affect my worldview and my perception of humanity. When I look at a stranger what do I see? Do I see the child they are, and their eternal preciousness? Do I see them as Christ saw them when He was struggling up the road to the cross, and with each face He saw, He said, “worth it.” For the joy set before Him, He endured the Cross. Do I see the homeless teen, the widowed mother, the alcohol addicted father, the abused child, the enslaved daughter, and cancer-fighting grandparent and their families part of the joy that gave Christ the reason to endure an eternity’s worth of pain and suffering to give us an eternity’s worth of joy and happiness? Or will I only see the pain, the stress, and the confusion that haunt their lives? We are all called to be agents of reconciliation this is a given. But how we reconcile makes all the difference. Towards what end are we reconciling, to hope or to hopelessness? Time will only tell. And that is the problem. 15 years from now, who will I be? What kind of man will I have become?
