I was painting yesterday and it just so happened that my boss/fellow co-worker had to leave for a couple hours in the afternoon leaving me alone. As I sat down for lunch I found myself on the set of a Rob Bell Nooma video. Me, by myself, alone in an empty apartment. Eerie electronic music was lightly basting the situation in ambiance. The atmosphere was set and the intro had begun. I closed my eyes and could picture the different camera angles that would be used, the camera would slowly move in and out of focus.
And after a few seconds the intro ended and I thought "now what?" Rob Bell always starts off his movies with some sort of story or interesting anecdote, but "what I am going to say, what is my Nooma going to be about?"
I think it would be something on beginnings, Yeah new and colorful beginnings. Beginnings that do not dwell on the past but only what lies further up and further in. It would talk about how the walls of an apartment are full of cracks and dings and holes and smears, how the ceiling has turned into a yellowy brown very different from the white it used to be. How painting an apartment is no easy task, moving all the furniture, taking down pictures and posters, emptying out closets and taking of switch-plates.
I think my Nooma would be trying to get at the fact that our lives are not always what we want them to be, there are always dents in our drywall and discoloration on our ceilings. And how many of us continue living with those dents and discolorations; satisfied. But there are others who will stand there ground and not give in. They are the ones who will move all the furniture and empty the closets. They are people who will uncover every smear and hole in the wall. These are the people who are ready for a new begginging. These people are ready to take up the daunting task of painting there apartment, they know it won't be easy, might not even be fun at times, but it will be good.
These people know that their paint job will not last forever, in fact the first scrape will probably show up before all the paint is even put away. But these people have refused to be satisfied with cracks and holes, they are the ones who will continue to fight the sin that is in their lives.
"For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it...What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" -Romans 7:19-20, 24-25
Yeah I think my Nooma would be something like that, not allowing ourselves to be satisfied with the holes in our walls. And putting in the effort that it takes to strive for a flawless apartment.
