Freeing My Mind

Looking out my second floor office window and onto Main St. usually gives me less to look at than if I was two offices down staring at the brick wall next door, but today seems different. People seem actually excited about life down there. Hey is that a middle-aged woman smiling? There’s quite a buzz in the air today. Hopefully it’s God’s good mood wearing off on me. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had two nights of great sleep and I’m finally crawling out of the hole I dug, crawled into, laid down and scribbled “frustration” on the side of. Actually, all of the excitement down on the sidewalk was caused by an old man standing in the middle of the street. What is he doing? Seriously he’s standing there waving his cane in the air. I wonder if he knows that the local Walmart protest is over? He actually just unbuttoned his flannel cardogan.

Well, show’s over. A middle-aged eagle scout helped him back to the sidewalk. I guess instead of live-blogging the whole incident I could have helped, but a quite the crowd had already formed. I enjoy reading and studying people’s natural tendencies. How we are humans respond to situation and various external stimuli. Recently, during one of my many layovers in the airport, I picked up a book. I don’t quite remember the name of the book and I didn’t read much of it, but what I did read I found pretty interesting. Alot of good that does you, I know. One of the interesting ideas the author discussed was the tendency of people to respond to crowds. For instance: He and a small group of friends were at a casino. They decided to test his theories about human behavior. Four of them lined up in a single-file line in front of a wall. Yes, a wall. No door. No counter. Not even a water fountain. Within 10 minutes that line had grown to 20 people. That’s 16 people, who had no idea what the line was for, yet decided that if other people were willing to line up, so would they. Sure, booze and the ambient sounds of quarters sliding into the inevitable abyss of slot machines can cloud one’s judgement, but standing in line with 19 other various strangers in hopes that Wayne Newton might walk through the wall seems beyond a minor casino intoxication.

During this same trip the author and his friends decided to attend a sporting event for their next test of social insanity. The synopsis was simple. Initiate one of those sports arena chants that are aimed at making sure the players on the field are well aware of the current state of the fans. The only difference is that the actual word’s of the this specific chant would indiscernible by anyone actually listening. Halfway through the game, during a heightened point of excitement, the four men began their chant. All at once they began a chant that consisted of just a few syllables of sound. No words, only sounds that could resemble words. After only a minute, approximately one-third of the stadium crowd had begun attempting to chant the innocuous sound. Again, although intoxicated by over-priced hot dogs, $8 beer and Dippin’ Dots, the crowd simply goes along with whatever seems to be the accepted form of expression at the time.

The gathered crowd outside my office window, along with these various instances has got me thinking about the “mob mentality”. Within the confines of this world, our human nature seems to be predisposed to following rather than leading. We seem to find comfort in the status-quo, even if we aren’t quite sure where it is taking us. We’ve all the seen the mob scene in movies: Citizens filing out of their houses, pitchforks and torches in hand, ready to give a much deserved beating to whomever the aggression might be directed at. Think about our consumer interest. Remember Christmas time crack such as Tickle-Me-Elmo or the Nintendo Wii Fit? Did we or our children actually want these items because WE wanted them or because everyone else wanted them? I’ll give $5 to anyone who does not currently have Wii Fit shoved into the back of your closet and wedged neatly between your dusty box of Beanie Babies and your collection of Now That’s What I Call Music cds. Yes, I am prophetic.

As I scour both my mind and  my spirit on a daily basis, attempting to understand what keeps us from changing or doing anything remotely different from most, I’ve come to believe that it’s our mob nature. It’s comforting to know that you are not alone in your love for Will Ferrel or Kate Hudson. It’s easy to be convinced that what you believe is right, because it’s exactly the same as most people you surround yourself with. To do anything different, might break up the mob. We wouldn’t want to do that. Who would punish that guy that’s rocking the boat?

I am a firm believer that we, especially as Christians, have lost our ability to think. We have this incredible mind that God has given us, along with an imagination that has the ability to change the world around us, yet 90% of us are content to wait for someone else to blaze a trail. Is this simply because only a few of us are created to be leaders? If that’s the case, then we are not all created in the express image of God. God himself has never done the same thing twice. He, in His very nature, is a creator. His specialty is taking what has never been and bringing it into existence.

Do we believe what we believe, because we’ve taken time to actually think through those beliefs? Or is it that we have simply come to rely on the 10% to tell us what our beliefs are? Do we actually look at Scripture with a clear head or is it filled with the voices of the mob even as we read it? Think about the Catholic church during and prior to the 1500′s. It was heresy to even even question what you were told by the Catholic leadership. It was even heresy for the leadership itself to question the preinstated list of doctrines. Although reformation eventually happened, it was slow coming. In order for change to take place under the mob mentality, the idea has to slowly creep up the ranks of the mob. It first has to spread to the few that are willing to actually consider something better or greater than what they understand. This takes extreme humility. From those few it moves to the next few who are willing to listen to the aforementioned few. Eventually the idea becomes widespread enough and the mob is reborn.

For instance, during the forming of our nation and the years following, did anyone actually consider that slavery might be wrong? It seems so obvious to us today. Before the prophetic movement found a place in the modern day church, did no one consider that God actually might still be speaking? No, people did consider those things, but the mob mentality won out. When I begin talking like this, many people get a little uncomfortable. It’s scary to think about drastic change. Why is it scary? Because it goes against the mob. It was scary for Lincoln and Luther, but where would we be without those voices? If it happened to the church of the 1500′s, are we so prideful to think that it can never happen again? Have we the mob figured it all out?

Do something different. Buy a Zune.

and now my mob loving inspiration