Of Illusions and Realities

Originally published as a Facebook Note April 25th, 2009

I just went for a walk today. I live near Disneyland and the Anaheim Resort. The walk from my apartment following the major streets constitutes probably at least a square mile. My neighborhood is separated from the resort area by the I-5 freeway which divides the two halves of the square down the diagonal.

In order to reach the resort area from my neighborhood you have to walk all the way around the freeway. There are no paths or shortcuts across or under it. The freeway exits for the resort area lead straight into it, with "no right turn" and "no left turn" signs posted right as the exit meets Anaheim Blvd. What's odd about this is that the exit terminates at a traffic light, and a right turn or left would be no more dangerous there than at any other traffic light. The entrances to the freeway from the resort are also just as singular in purpose. They lead straight out of the resort and do not permit any side trips into the surrounding city and neighborhoods.

As you walk along Harbor next to the Disneyland resort's main vehicle entrance you are surrounded by immaculate hotels suited to nearly every budget, restaurants and eateries ranging from McDonald's to Denny's, the Jolly Roger to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. All of these places are staffed by very friendly, even perky, young adults and teenagers. There are people who are obvious tourists everywhere. The atmosphere is friendly, inviting, upbeat, and in constant motion. All of it is watched over by armed and unarmed security who stay mostly out of sight, and work tirelessly to blend in with the rest of the background, until a problem arises which calls on their intervention. And there is also the Anaheim police officers who make regular patrols on foot, bicycle, and patrol car through the parks and resorts.

As I walked through it all and somewhat blended in, several thoughts occurred to me. Most of the people who come here will only come here once in their lives. They will have saved up thousands of dollars to come here, spend a few nights in a hotel, and escape into the carefully orchestrated and sanitized world which this half of the square mile presents away from their "real" world wherever "back home" may be. They don't want to remember their bills, their employers, their schools, their real lives. They want to leave them, if only for a few days out of their entire lives, and be able to forget that they exist by immersing themselves in the family friendly illusions and dreams which the Resort Area offers.

On the other side of the freeway is my neighborhood. We live there because the rent is inexpensive... for Orange County at least. It is a predominantly Spanish speaking neighborhood. On one major street corner is a supermarket in which it is almost a requirement to know a little Spanish to purchase anything. The produce is fresh, ripe, and cheap. There's a real butcher, a real bakery, a small "Deli" of sorts which sells tacos, burritos, rotisserie chicken, menudo, chorizo, and other dishes of which it would be redundant to say they are authentically Mexican. I don't think those preparing them would know how to prepare anything else, and you're on your own if you can't say at least part of your order in Spanish. Nearby is a book and music store which proudly proclaims "musica, libros, peliculas" and no English translations anywhere on the signage. There are also a few fast food places as well.

My apartment complex is one of several along my street in various stages of disrepair. As you walk down the street on a Saturday, it is common to see people holding yard sales and trading their old things for someone else's old things. I'm not sure if any of it actually ever leaves this neighborhood after being sold. Young hispanic mothers play with their babies and watch their young children play. Older kids chase each other around. Boys strike up impromptu games of soccer in their yards, or in the school playground which is behind my complex. At night, they play street hockey in the school's parking lot.

As I have come home from work late at night, I have often found several of the men who live next to and near us surrounded around an old barely working television in the mailbox area watching a soccer game or a boxing game and being just as raucous and celebratory about it as if they were actually there. At other times, they just stand or sit with each other, drinking a few beers, swapping stories, insults, dreams, hopes, fears. One of my neighbors washes cars and fixes bicycles out of his garage. As I can tell, they work when they can get work, and share in each other's lives when they can't.

There are police who watch this area as well. They watch it like hawks, waiting for the kill. I see them patrol it several times a day, and supposedly with good reason. I have on more than one occasion caught the distinctive odor of marajuana wafting through my windows, or around the stairwell. I have see strangers simply sitting on the bench out front as if they were waiting for someone. A few times, strangers have come to my door with the shakes looking to acquire what I think was cocaine judging by the colorful names they were giving what they wanted. I have also often come home to find police units parked in the middle of the street. The officers were out with guns drawn on teenagers lying on the ground with hands on their heads. The man whose daughter we were babysitting for a time stopped coming when an undercover officer drew his gun on him as he was getting out of his car. His pregnant girlfriend who was in the car lost their child from the shock.

Illusions and realities. As human beings we fight, and scrimp, and strive, and spend everything we have saved to achieve the illusion and hold on to it, even if only for a few brief moments of our lives. We guard that illusion and even that hope of illusion jealously, and like the security in the background, when it becomes in danger of being invaded by reality, we strike back with a ferocity to force reality back into submission. But in the end, the illusion must fade when the money runs out. That's what illusions do. And when the money or resources run out, it doesn't just fade, it throws you out as though an unwelcome vagrant, without kindness, without pity, without remorse, and without compassion; all in the name of maintaining it's image. And we are left again with the shock of reality as it is, all the more painful because of the lost sweetness which we have so freshly tasted.

Reality isn't sweet. It isn't well manicured. It's life lived in the here and now with all that goes with it. Reality demands that you look at the present, and doesn't have time for illusion. Reality lives, loves, laughs, cries, shouts, gets angry, bleeds, and dies; sometimes all in the same instant. It demands your full attention and makes you pay for it. It sets the consequences of your actions in front of you and demands that you deal with them in the here and now, and will not be put off until tomorrow. Reality is the hardworking older man who lives by washing cars out of his garage. Reality is the group of kids who can't afford any more than just enjoying being with each other and playing soccer together. Reality is a boxing match shared on an old t.v. with gusto and joy or a game of pool played on a table rescued from a dumpster. Reality is the kid who can't find love or acceptance at home and so joins with others like himself and compose a new code of friendship, honor, and loyalty even if it means doing so at the expense of other's peace and security. Reality is the young mother who hides her bruises as well as she can, and hopes her husband doesn't come home drunk again.

We don't encounter God in the illusion. God is. He exists. He is right here, right now. He laughs, cries, shouts, weeps, shares, bleeds, hopes, loves, and dies right along with us here in reality. He feels it when the young mother has to take another backhand from her husband. He weeps with the older grandmother who doesn't know anymore how to help her grandson find his way out of his dark path. He empathizes when the young man can't find work, and knows just how he feels. We encounter God in the reality, where we don't want to be.

And when all is said and done, the illusion will finally fade and end. The buzz of whatever kind will pass away. The money will run out, the lights will fade, the party will be over. And then all that is left is Reality, where He is. Where He always and eternally Is. Where we don't want to be and have been fighting desperately to stay away from, and to stay away from Him.

There is no true joy without sorrow. No true pleasure without pain. No true sanity, without losing one's mind in order to find it. As Christians, it is often spoken of living in the "resurrection life". But in order for one to be resurrected, they must first die. That which has not died cannot by nature be resurrected. And so the resurrection which is commonly proclaimed is often only an illusion, and more often than not, one which is easy to see past given enough time. Truth will always make itself known as truth. Those who most often preach this kind of resurrected life do so for fear of the Cross, and the Reality it requires us to embrace. The one we don't want to embrace.

Illusions and realities. Jesus Christ spent long hours and days giving everything he had to the sick, the demonized, the lame, the crippled, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and the dead. He spent most of His time in neighborhoods like mine with people who today could be drug dealers, young abused mothers, young men with no hope, old men with shattered dreams, societal outcasts, revolutionaries, radicals, and He set out to heal and bring healing to them all, body, mind, and spirit. Several of them were His closest friends and students and were responsible for carrying His message and salvation to the ends of the earth. If he shunned and criticized and policed anyone, it was those who fought to maintain their own illusions of power, security, and authority... and who did so no matter what it may cost anyone who got in their way, including Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus would likely be hanging out mostly in my neighborhood, not at the resort.

Are we going to follow Him or not?