College Union

Hey…are you tired of your present life? Do you want more excitement and spontaneity in your life? I have the answer for you! I can lead you toward a “Second Life”. You can build a business, date exciting people, attend concerts, dress better than you do now, or even build the house of your dreams on the property you have always wanted. Philip Rosedale is the creator of secondlife.com. He has stumbled upon the notion that people desire to interact with others (where did he come up with that idea?) so he has created a virtual community (web-based Sims game) in which you can create your own avatar (an animated version of yourself…or what you would want yourself to be). You can then virtually involve yourself with all the other avatars (versions of people the way they wish they really were). All of this does not come free though. The basic account is free but the premium account is $9.95 a month. The fee gets you Linden dollars—a virtual currency—that allows you to purchase clothes or other items such as a car. We should have known a Second Life would not come cheap! If you want to lease some property, it will cost you at least another $9.95 a month. If you have the smack, you can lease an entire island like IBM has done. As of today, there are over 3 million residents in “Second Life” and in the last 24 hours people have spent $684,158 on their Second Life.

As I read this piece in USA Today, I became very disturbed. Where is our world heading? Over 3 million people are getting a Second Life and investing their money, time and energy into those virtual relationships probably because they are not satisfied with their First Life. People are consistently clamoring for relationships, and what is offered seems to not be scratching the itch so they reach out to “virtual others” that are just as discontent. Within this virtual reality, people are able to create the “Reality” they wish they could live in their First Life. What is our answer to this craving? How do we create environments to help people realize their First Life can be more remarkably full, vibrant and power filled than any Second Life could ever be? Are we as a church really living in the fullness of who we are called to be so people don’t have to look into re-creating themselves so they can really live? Are we creating space so they can live through who God has created them to be?

The bottom line is…How are we doing in living our First Life? Do our lives represent the wildness of God and radical discipleship or have we allowed our lives to become comfortable and complacent? Have we found ourselves craving a Second Life and if so, what can we change to make our First Life a life worth living by putting all of our energy into it?

I don’t know about you but I have a difficult enough time living my First Life and I don’t have the time and energy (or money for that matter) to live a Second Life. Yet…I can’t say there have not been times I wish I could have escaped my First Life and started a Second Life. At those times, I felt trapped and disillusioned with the life I was living. It was also at those times I realized I was not really living!

I want to do all I can to suck the marrow out of this life and I desire to reflect that type of life to our students as I show them that Jesus “…came so we might have life and life to the full.” I pray you are squeezing everything out of your First Life and that you are revealing a life to be lived to those students around you. If you are secretly desiring a Second Life, I pray God will lead you to the place of an animated, radical life…that your First Life will become all God intended it to be.

Scott Wright is the Director of the LA Tech Wesley in Ruston, LA. You can reach him at thejazzedrev@gmail.com

Categories: General
Tags: