Simple Like Zombies

You'd have to be some kind of isolated prepper type to have missed the explosion of apocalypse-themed books, movies, and television series that have made their appearances over the last decade. From TV series like The Walking Dead, and Revolution, to books like Zombie Survival Guide and the Hunger Games Trilogy. Movies from Wall-E to World War Z. We as a society are full-on obsessed with the end of civilization as we know it.

The dystopian view of the future  is hardly a new phenomenon although the pace has certainly sped up in the last few years. Our parents watched Charlton Heston battle it out in Planet of the Apes. Our grandparents read Orwell's 1984, and our great-grandparents, H.G. Wells' Time Machine. The future has looked bleak for a long time.

Isn't it weird that we would be obsessed by a world where technology is useless. Where people band together and live off of the land. Where death is an ever-present possibility. Post-apocalyptic stories speak to people, and in particular to the people of America in the early 21st century. They tell us something about ourselves, and something about what we would like to see in ourselves.

Our outlook of the future first tells us how we see life now. Dystopia is merely an exaggeration of our own excesses, a magnification of the faults we see in society today. The Hunger Games trilogy, while bringing us many ponderous themes, is largely a critique of our obsession with entertainment, and our willingness entertain ourselves at others' expense. H.G. Wells saw the division between classes that already existed taken to he next level in Time Machine. As for zombies - zombies represent the way we see most people, a bunch of mindless followers, destroying and infecting the rest of us. Zombies represent our fear of loosing ourselves and becoming part of the herd.

Above all, we obsess about the downfall of society because we don't like society as it is.  Life has grown too complicated. We are not happy. We have an abundance of possessions, but find no joy in them. We listen to an abundance of voices, but they are all noise.

We long for a simpler life. I don't want to live my entire life on a smartphone or from behind a pair of Google Glasses. Humans were meant to have real abundant lives. A part of us longs to work the soil as our ancestors did, to produce things with our hands. A part of us wants to slow down and spend time talking to real people. We want a simpler life, but we lack the discipline to just unplug and throw it all away. So we invent a reality where that choice is taken from us. In a post-apocalyptic world we have no choice but to simplify.

The stories of society's demise remind us of what's really important. Much of these plots revolve around family and friends supporting one another and protecting each other from harm. We see people like us, living full lives without TVs or computers or cell phones. They are far more concerned with finding food, shelter, or preparing for the next onslaught of flesh-eating corpses. Just being with those they love, seeing them alive is the reward of our favorite characters. That is the simple life.

Jesus spoke to this need to simplify our lives long ago, when life was much less complicated than it is today. Jesus showed us a way to revolutionize our lives in the here and now, wherever the here and now happens to be. He told us that our lives do not consist of the abundance of our possessions (Luke 12:15). Life is not in stuff. He told us to stop worrying about what we should eat or what we should wear, but to trust God. By following Jesus, we can free ourselves from the power stuff wields over our lives. That is truly the simple life.

Here's the good news: we don't have to wait for an army of zombies to take over the world to begin simplifying our lives. It is possible to make the changes we long to see in our lives without atomic destruction. We could throw off the constraints of an ever more complex life and live life simply and purposefully. We could do it radically like Jesus recommended, "go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor." Or we could start small and work our way up to that. You could just decide not to buy something you don't need. It could be a bigger TV, a newer model of smartphone,  nicer car, or an exotic vacation. It can also mean paring down the possessions you already have. Have a rummage sell and get rid of some baggage. See how much lighter your life will feel (and it could help out some poor people too).

Does living a simple life seem exciting? I didn't come up with the idea. Here are a few good resources to learn more. Start with Jesus in the Gospels, especially the Sermon on the Mount, (Matt 5-7) Also check out Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, Celebration of Discipline, and Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster, and Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin.