Saturday, March 21, 2009

This is the perspective you need

We all do....

(this was recently posted on Thingamababy , a blog I enjoy.)



Below is a transcript of the Coke commercial, because the font is a wee bit small.

This is a true story. In these hard times we bring together the eldest man with the youngest baby.

[Images of a pregnant woman in car] Madrid. Aitana Martinez. Three hours before birth.

[Images of an old man at home] Mallorca Josep Mascaro. 102 years.

[Image of the man on a phone] Hello Aitana.

[Voiceover on a long car trip and plane trip interspersed with images of birth]

My name is Mallorca Mascaro and I am 102-years-old.

I’m a lucky guy. Lucky…

For having been born, like you.

For being able to embrace my wife.

For having known my friends and for having been able to say goodbye to them.

For still being here.

You will ask yourself what is the reason I’ve come to visit you today.

It’s because most people will say what a bad moment you’ve chosen to come into the world.

We’re in crisis, that’s not a good thing…

Well, it’ll make you stronger.

I’ve lived worse moments than this one,

but in the end, you’ll remember only good things.

[Image of the man now at the hospital visiting the baby]

Don’t waste time with nonsense, there’s plenty of it,

and go and find what makes you happy while you can,

since time slips away very quickly.

I’ve lived for 102 years and I’ll happily live a few more.

Because I promise you that the only thing you won’t like about life it that it’ll seem too short.

You’re here to be happy.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Sarah! This is a sweet ad. Is it accepted netiquette to disagree with your friend in the comments? Or should we only post comments when we agree? Maybe the latter. Just delete my comment if you don't want it here. In any case...

    Being happy is nice. However, I disagree that it is WHY we are here. I really think if the Lord meant our purpose for being here to be happy the world would be a lot nicer of a place to live in! There's pain all over the place even here in the US, but if we can shove that aside as only minimal given our blessings, surely a look at any number of places people are tortured routinely or massacred (Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and on and on) should give us pause, nevermind the scars of history. In fact, an author I think you're reading Randy Alcorn says how this is the closest place to hell Christians get. I seriously doubt then our purpose is to be happy!

    No, the place where we are meant to be happy, where we will have no pain and no worries and everyone will be overjoyed and enjoy every minute is Heaven. Heaven is happiness. That is when we get to be happy without restraint. It's going to be awesome.

    I'm sorry that I'm contradicting the oldest guy on earth. He should know more than me, and I'm sure he does about most things. But one's fundamental outlook on life can be off or based on a wrong assumption even at 102 I would think. I think what he means is that we are supposed to enjoy the wonderful things about life, be positive and hopeful as we get stronger through the rough times, and be grateful for every minute (don't waste the time we have). Those are great things.

    But summing up with a reason for us to be here is to be happy, just doesn't quite seem right. Am I just being too cynical about this? Hmm...well it's just that I've been doing a lot of thinking on our purpose here in the last several months. I could be wrong, but I would submit that our purpose has nothing to do with being happy (that's a great side-benefit sometimes, but that is reserved for Heaven). We would think then, "Why, if we won't be fully happy until Heaven, would God want us here and not just create us and just move us straight to Heaven? Or at least as soon as we're saved move us there?" Well, that leads me to ask "What eternal and important thing can we effect here that we can't in Heaven?" As far as praising God, well we do that here and there, so that isn't the difference. So the answer I came to was: "people." We will see them in heaven as well, but we can't do anything for them then (we assume...we don't really know I guess if we can do acts of kindness then). So, to me, our purpose, as it relates to living on earth, is to do anything we can to bless others, love others, give to others, and relieve the suffering of others, whether that be in our own homes or as far away as someone on the other side of the world. There becomes no point than to give oneself away.

    I thought it was so important to post this comment because it is the exactly opposite of the world's claim that we be happy, which is entirely focused on self, rather than others. CocaCola wants us to think this simple motto all the time: I'm here to be happy (me, me, me) so that we will want to satisfy ourselves and therefore buy the Coke we want, so they fund this sweet commercial. Same with so many other company mottos (Have it your way; You deserve a break today; and so many others.) If they were speaking truth they could ask you to buy a Coke and give it to someone else. (But they know that playing on our innate selfishness will stick a lot easier and have more repeated sales than buying a Coke for another.)

    And no, I don't remember all the time to live my life as I prescribe. I wish I would though, and I'm going for that.

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  2. Actually Amy- I completely agree with you. I even debated adding a disclaimer that our purpose is greater in God's will than it would ever be in just being happy. Really the perspective that I found refreshing in the ad, was the value in the ability to live life while we have it. A girl from church, who has a little girl about 10 months old and is pregnant with her second was told by a clerk at the GAP (of all places) that "it is dangerous to be bringing ANOTHER child into this economy". It was opposing this idea that life has less value because there is an insecurity in the financial realms. which really comes down to finding our joy in the Lord and not the things of this world.

    Thank you for disagreeing :-)

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  3. Oh, WHEW!

    I returned to post my disagreement, and discovered Amy did a beautiful job articulating pretty much all I had thought up.

    I watched this when you posted it, and was uncomfortable then, but it's taken me some time to meditate on it to figure out what to say. Must be the overloaded prego-brain.

    What an opportunity to witness to the GAP clerk about our hope in Christ and the Creator of Life.

    After just watching the testimony of Richard & Sabina Wurmbrand last night (author of Tortured For Christ, founders of Voice of the Martyrs), the best scripture I can think of is what Sabina quoted each day of her imprisonment:
    "Give Thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever." Ps 107:1
    (obviously this is fresh with me right now)
    If I can declare this in the midst of persecution, what is happiness?

    When I was young, there was a Christian Comedy group that produced hilarious skits - Isaac Air Freight. I had an album of theirs I listened to over & over. One of their skits, entitled "King Me", included a discussion between an individual and the King of Kings. King Me says, "You want me to be happy, don't you?" King of Kings says, "No, I want you to have JOY. Happiness is temporal, joy is eternal and comes from within your own heart." This has remained as my definition of happiness.
    (If you are in pursuit of joy, I highly recommend reading the book of John.)

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  4. I must share this one more thing:
    When I was looking to confirm that I had the right scripture quote from Sabina Wurmbrand, I found this wonderful blog post I think is worth sharing:

    http://pbcvoice.blogspot.com/2009/01/psalm-107.html

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  5. What a fun discussion! Oh yeah S, I see what you were doing with opposing the attitude about bringing children into this economy. I am getting so sick of this devaluing of life by our society and especially the general attitude that practically any child but your first is somehow worth less than a full human being or that the time in which they are born should dictate the amount of joy we have in meeting this new life. Every single new baby is such a special sweet person!!!! I feel like getting a T-shirt with bold letters stating something like: EVERY BABY IS A BLESSING
    or something like that. But everyone would think it is about the abortion issue. Anyway, I'm talking to the choir here.

    Btw, you need to change it to Blessed Mama of 5 ;) Or maybe you should just go with 6 to save time for later. hehehe You're such a cute mommy.

    Funny that the GAP person doesn't realize he/she is helping instill fear which will make people buy less at his/her store. lol!

    Hey J, I want the link to that Wurmbrand testimony if the video is online, please.

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  6. I HIGHLY recommend the video - and it's a kids video. But in the extra features, there is an hour interview with Richard & Sabina Wurmbrand (who have both passed away now.) I don't recommend the interview for the kids - they'd likely get bored. Hubby & I were riveted. I was concerned that the cartoon kids portion might get too graphic, as he did suffer great torture in prison. It did show he was tortured, but most things were left to the imagination. Some times you saw the effects, like blood on his feet and him unable to walk. Our kids did fine through it. It is a sobering video - not funny. But it is one of TRUE modern Christian heros that I would LOVE my kids to walk after.

    Here's a trailer on youtube:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOA8iJ9YZWQ

    Here's where you can buy the video:
    http://www.chitorch.org/index.php/torchlighters/wurmbrand-feature/

    They even have study guides there on that site to print out and use with the kids after watching the video. (Nice homeschool or Sunday school option.)

    And we got it from Netfilx. :D

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