Hamilton: I Am Not Throwing Away My Shot

Hamilton has a special place in my heart. Katherine and I love the musical so much that when we got engaged last year, the first big purchase we made together was a set of tickets to go see it when it came to Tulsa. (We also played a song from the soundtrack as the walk-in music at our wedding!) And so we were ecstatic when, a couple of weeks ago, we finally got the chance to see Hamilton live.

The show was amazing. It’s like an opera in that there’s no dialogue, only singing (and a lot of rapping), so I already knew every word. But seeing it performed live and acted out on stage really brought the music to life and made the experience of hearing it that much more powerful. We laughed, we cried (literally), and we had just the best time seeing our favorite show.

I’m still reeling from the experience. It was something I won’t soon forget. And so I thought I’d take the time this week to share my love of Hamilton with you in the form of the biggest lesson it’s taught me. I’ve spent a lot of time with the soundtrack to this show, and it’s had a profound impact on me both emotionally and intellectually. While there’s a lot to be taken away from it, there’s one thing that I keep coming back to:

I’ve never felt more patriotic than I do when I listen to the Hamilton soundtrack. That may sound strange, especially coming from me, but let me explain.

If you’ve been around here for long, you know that I’m not shy about criticizing my country. We have a lot of issues right now, and we’ve gotten a lot of things wrong throughout our history that are still hurting countless people today. But the older I get and the more I learn about the world, the more I appreciate the unique things that the U.S. has contributed to the world and especially the ideals behind those contributions.

As you’d imagine, Hamilton tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, the immigrant founding father who served as George Washington’s secretary, argued for the Constitution, founded the first national bank, and is now commemorated on our $10 bill. But in telling his story, it also covers a good deal of the history surrounding the Revolutionary War, the founding of the United States, and the growing pains the nation faced in its infancy. I knew the gist of this story from school, but seeing and hearing it played out through the characters in the show shed a different light on the history for me.

It forced me to imagine what it was like for the actual people living at the time—not just the big names, but for the common people whose names are lost to time. In a period of unrest and uncertainty, these people were growing up, getting married, having children, working to provide for themselves, and trying to find their place in the world. Real people with real concerns and real stakes were living out this story that we hear and celebrate all the time but have become so distanced from ourselves.

For them, this wasn’t a story. It was real, everyday life. Their very lives and livelihoods were at stake. And they chose to undergo such danger and uncertainty because they believed in ideals that to them were worth fighting for.

Ideals like democracy, giving everyone a voice in the way that they’re governed. And religious liberty, the freedom for individuals to worship however they see fit. And equality, the belief in fundamental rights guaranteed to every single human being. Hamilton and others—real people—fought for these ideals. They founded the nation on them. And that is something to be proud of.

To be clear, their implementation of these ideals was not perfect. Not by a long shot. And we still have yet to fully live up to them today. But one thing I learned from the musical is that, even at the time, there was debate. There were people who were pushing for these ideals to be taken to their fullest extent all the way back then.

Of course, Hamilton was one of them, but there were others. People like his sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler Church, who sings about gender equality in “The Schuyler Sisters”:

We hold these truths to be self-evident 
that all men are created equal, 
and when I meet Thomas Jefferson, 
I’mma compel him to include women in the sequel!

And people like John Laurens, Hamilton’s fellow patriot who spoke out against slavery and tried to helped enslaved people win their freedom by taking part in the revolution. In “My Shot,” he raps,

But we will never be truly free 
until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me. 
You and I, do or die, wait ‘til I sally in 
on a stallion with the first black battalion.

And then there’s Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, my favorite character of all. Not only does Eliza show herself to be, as Hamilton calls her, “the best of wives and best of women,” but she also represents the American ideal that I most value: compassion for those in need. In the final song (“Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”), she sings about her greatest accomplishment:

Can I show you what I’m proudest of? 
I established the first private orphanage in New York City. 
I help to raise hundreds of children. 
I get to see them growing up. 
… 
And when my time is up, have I done enough? 
Will they tell my story?

I’m happy to say that Eliza’s story is being told through this musical. Her story and the stories of these other trailblazers who fought to form this nation into a place where everyone is free, valued, and treated equally—these stories are so inspiring to me. These people are my heroes. And when I hear about them, they instill in me a pride for my country that I haven’t ever felt before.

Hamilton teaches me that I live in a country founded not just by the typical, powdered-wig-clad founding fathers we see depicted all the time, but also by immigrants who wanted to found a place better than where they came from, poor people looking to make a life for themselves, women seeking equality, and slaves fighting not just for freedom from England but for freedom from their slavedrivers right here at home.

America is a place where the poor, the oppressed, and the forgotten can change their lives and change the world. Where we can all work together to ensure that every single person has a chance to thrive. Where ideals like equality, democracy, and compassion aren’t just ideas we believe in, but realities we’re actively working towards. That’s the America that Hamilton strove to create, and I find it beautiful.

We aren’t there yet, but I believe we can get there. If we allow ourselves to be reminded by stories like Hamilton what we’re working towards, then we can make it a reality. It won’t be easy. We’ll need great minds like Alexander’s, bold personalities like Angelica’s, and big hearts like Eliza’s, but our generation has an opportunity to be great, like theirs was, and make a positive impact on history.

This show inspires me to take pride in this unique place I’m blessed to live in. It also inspires me to love this place enough to try to make it better, to push it to live up to what it was meant to be. And I am so grateful to the musical, to its cast, and to its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda for that gift of inspiration.

Hamilton means so much to me. It’s taught me a lot, and I’m better for having heard it and seen it. My hope is that I can take what it’s taught me and use it to make my country and the world a better place. That’s a lot to ask of a musical, but this one certainly lives up to it.

As Alexander reminds us over and over throughout the show, we each only have one shot at this life. One shot to make a difference, to improve things for others, to form the world into what we want it to be. He used his chance to make the world a better place. I want to do the same.

Hamilton didn’t throw away his shot, and neither will I. Will you?

Learning Experiences

I never had one of those made-for-TV moments when one of my parents took the training wheels off of my bike, showed me how to ride without them, and pushed me off into the sunset. Not one that I remember, anyway. What I do remember is receiving a bike as a gift for my twelfth birthday and hopping on, not knowing if I’d take off or fall flat on my face. I was nervous. But I tried it anyway and found riding a bike to be as easy as… well, you get it.

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My first Apple computer was a MacBook Pro that I requested as a high school graduation present. The day it came in the mail, my parents let me stay home from school to play with it. Everything was new, glossy, and exciting. I had no idea how to use it.

That is, until the very next weekend when I was tasked with filming and editing a video in a matter of hours for a church event. I hadn’t even opened iMovie before then, but I became very familiar with it very quickly. And I’ve been editing videos on my Apple devices with at least some degree of capability ever since.

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I’ve learned a million new things since I started working here at the church, some of them technical (like how to maintain a building-wide computer network) and some not so much (like how to survive as an introvert in a position where everyone wants to shake your hand). Looking back, I realize that every single one of those lessons had one thing in common: pressure.

Whenever I face a situation that I’m not familiar with, it always comes with a certain amount of pressure. Usually, it comes in some form of stress. I’m in a hurry to get something done before a deadline, or I’m afraid that my skills are inadequate for the task, or I’m just plain confused because I have no idea what I’m doing. This is the pressure that comes just before I learn something new.

When works starts getting stressful, that’s when I know I’m about to learn something new. Being grateful for those moments is something I’m working on (and getting better at!).

— Devon Michael Dundee (@devondundee) August 20, 2019

It’s taken me a long time to recognize this pattern, but I’m learning not only to accept it, but to actively expect it. When I start feeling the pressure come on, I try to remind myself that the relief of a breakthrough is not far off if I’ll simply press on. And with that relief comes new knowledge, fresh skills, and hard-fought wisdom.

Keeping this in mind doesn’t take the pressure off, but it does make it more bearable, because I know that it will be worth it in the end. The stress is there for a purpose: to push me to the next level, which is one step closer to where I want to be.

And I believe that your pressure has a purpose, too. So if you’re feeling the heat right now—whether it be in your job, family life, or elsewhere—I encourage you to see it not as a burden, but as an opportunity to grow. Stop and ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” and it might just help you get through to the other side.

To be completely honest, this isn’t the blog post I was planning to write this week. Katherine and I went to see Hamilton on Saturday, and I was hoping to share about that experience with you. But I’ve been dealing with a couple of “learning experiences” of my own at work, so that’ll just have to wait.

I think I needed to write this reminder today more for myself than anyone else, but I hope this short article has been helpful to you, too. If it has, I’d love to hear about it. You’re always welcome to reach out in the comments or on social media.

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I’d also like to give a shoutout to the newest financial supporter of the blog, Dale! He’s been very encouraging of my writing over the years, and I’m so happy to have him onboard in this new way. If you enjoy the work I’m doing here and want to help support it, you can sign up today with a monthly pledge. Any amount goes a long way. 

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading, friends. I hope to see you again soon!

On Being Christ-Like

I’ve recently been re-reading Red Letter Revolution by Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo, one of my favorite books. It’s all about living out the words of Jesus—you know, the red letters of the Bible. In this read-through there was a quote from Shane that really stuck with me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

He’s talking about out the way the church treats unbelievers, and he says this: “I always tell our community that we should attract the people Jesus attracted and frustrate the people Jesus frustrated.“

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? If we are going to call ourselves Christians (that is, people who are Christ-like), then we should seek to emulate him. We should speak the way he spoke, act the way he acted, call out the people he called out, and spend time with the people he spent time with. That’s what being like him means, isn’t it?

This seems like a very simple concept, and in certain ways, it is. But I wonder if we’re always as good at putting this truth into practice as we are at simply assenting to it intellectually. Shane goes on:

It’s certainly never our goal to frustrate, but it is worth noting that the people who were constantly agitated were the self-righteous, religious elite, the rich, and the powerful. But the people who were fascinated by him, by his love and his grace, were folks who were already wounded and ostracized—folks who didn’t have much to lose, who already knew full well that they were broken and needed a Savior.

Whoa. I don’t know about you, but this bit forced me to stop and pause. If you ask most Christians how they’re supposed to interact with other people, they’ll probably tell you that they should be drawn to those who share their convictions and call out nonbelievers for their sin. But that’s not the way Jesus went about it.

Jesus attracted those who were lost and recognized their own need to be saved; he frustrated those who believed they’d found the truth and became self-righteous and complacent because of it. It almost sounds like the opposite of the way we’re told to conduct ourselves in the modern church, doesn’t it?

After reading this passage from Shane, I really had to stop and consider: Am I attracting the kinds of people Jesus attracted and frustrating the kinds of people Jesus frustrated? Or have I been getting it backwards?

Going beyond that, I had to get real and consider this: If Jesus were conducting his earthly ministry today, would I be attracted to him? Or would I be frustrated by him? That is a difficult question to have to grapple with.

Self-righteousness is such an easy sin to fall into. As believers, we’ve been blessed with knowing the truth of Jesus and the salvation he offers us. This truth is amazing. It changes our lives and sets us right with God, and that is such a beautiful thing.

But if we aren’t careful, we can allow this knowledge to lead us down a dark path. Truth removed from grace becomes twisted, ugly, even hateful. Once we’ve become reconciled to God and started working to live the way he calls us to, we can get to a point where we begin to look down on those who don’t live the same way.

Never mind that we used to do the same and that the only thing separating us from that life is the grace of God. We convince ourselves that we’ve found the right way to live. That our beliefs are the end-all-be-all right ones. That our way of doing things is God’s way. And anyone who doesn’t get onboard is worthy of judgment.

If we’re being honest, we can sometimes become so sure of our beliefs and choices that we act like we don’t even need God anymore. We’ve got it all figured out on our own. Anyone who disagrees with us is wrong. We live the way we do because we believe it’s the way God wants us to, but we’re not doing it to please God. We’re doing it to fuel our own sense of self-righteousness.

That is the exact outlook that Jesus called out the religious leaders of his day for. They’d become so sure of themselves and their ability to follow God’s will that they got lost in their self-righteousness. They started out with a sincere desire to live for God according to scripture, but their lack of grace for other people took them down a path that led to a clash with the son of God himself.

The people who were drawn to Jesus looked quite different. They didn’t come from the religious elite or the ranks of wealth. They came from the outskirts of society. They were the outcasts, the ones looked down upon by the people who believed they had it all together. These folks knew that they didn’t; they were drawn to Jesus because they recognized how badly they needed him in order to become right with God.

These sinners became righteous not through their own right actions but simply by accepting Jesus for who he was and following him. That’s what he wants from us: not for us to be perfect, but for us to admit that we aren’t and to follow him into a better way of living.

Accepting that grace Jesus extends to us shouldn’t lead us to self-righteousness. Rather, it should spur us to extend that same grace to others. Instead of looking down on them, we’re called to reach out to them in love, to draw them in with our compassion, and to show them the full life that Jesus has to offer—a life of joy, kindness, gentleness, and love, not of judgment and hatred.

Coincidentally, my pastor was writing a sermon on the topic of self-righteousness at the same time I’ve been thinking through this article. He preached on Sunday from the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee and taught us that humility is central to the life of faith. I love that truth, and I completely agree that the solution to this problem is a heavy dose of Christian humility.

If we as believers and as the church are going to live up to our calling to emulate Jesus by attracting the people he attracted and frustrating the people he frustrated, we’re going to have to put our self-righteousness aside and really re-think the way we approach people.

We’re going to have to be more like Jesus’ original followers in recognizing that no matter how good we may try to be, we’re still sinners saved by grace.

We’re going to have to start reaching out in grace to draw in the people Jesus did—not those who look and believe and practice like us, but the poor, oppressed, and outcast who need grace and love just as much as we do.

And we’re going to have to recognize and call out self-righteousness when we see it, whether it be in other believers or in ourselves. Being judgmental is not Christ-like, and it won’t help us live up to our calling.

I’m seeking to live this way in my own life, though not always perfectly. I love to seek knowledge and share truth, but I have to do so from a place of humility, not pride. I’m trying to live with such grace and love that those who don’t know Jesus are drawn to him through me, and when I see hate and self-righteousness within the church and myself, I’m compelled to call it out and uproot it. That’s the way Jesus lived, and that’s the way I want to live, too.

I hope that’s your goal as well. We all have a tendency to get off-track from time to time, but the good news is that there’s always more grace. God is inviting us to live lives full of grace and love, lives that emulate Jesus, honor him, and draw people into a loving relationship with him. May we all live such lives each and every day.

Beyond Thoughts and Prayers →

Over on Ethics Daily, Jen Zamzow published a great piece on why offering thoughts and prayers after a mass shooting simply isn’t enough. In it, she introduces the psychological concept of moral licensing, in which performing a good behavior (like offering prayer for victims) actually decentivizes us to engage in any further positive action. She breaks it down better than I can, but basically, when we do something good, our brains are hardwired to let us off the hook for doing anything else. This has some dire consequences, as she explains:

Now we are all in danger of publicly offering our thoughts and prayers, giving ourselves a pat on our backs for offering our support and then failing to do anything else.

But prayer was never meant to be a substitute for action. Jesus did not tell us to merely pray for those in need; he said to help them. Feed them. Clothe them. Welcome them.

Even for those who genuinely believe in the power of prayer, it is clear that prayer is not enough to solve social problems like poverty, climate change and gun violence.

This why the knee-jerk “thoughts and prayers” reaction to every single tragedy in our world is so problematic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this idea that, “Well, I prayed about that shooting, and that’s all I can do. The rest is up to God.” This defeatist approach is not only bad theology; it’s a logical fallacy that our brains trick us into, as this article lays out.

Yes, we are supposed to pray about the evil we face in this world, and yes, our prayers matter a great deal. But we are called to do so much more than just pray. God’s primary method of acting in the world is through his people. That’s how he’s chosen to work. And as we sit on our hands expecting him to drop out of the sky and fix everything, he’s waiting for us to do the work he’s called us to.

We want to see the world become a better place. We ask God to make it so. And the good news is that God has already put in place a mechanism for improving the world: his people. Us. We could be the the answer to those prayers, if only we would choose to be. If you profess to be a follower of Christ, then you are called by God to take part in his healing work. Not just through your words, but through your concrete, real-world actions.

How do we overcome moral licensing and our own complacency in order to make a difference in the world? Zamzow’s article has an answer for that: “We must remind ourselves what we are praying for.” When we pray, we must also take time to reflect on what we’re actually praying for and how we can live out those values each and every day through what we do.

If we want to see the end of violent tragedies in our world, then we have to take action to counteract those tragedies. If we want to see peace, then we have to make peace. If we want to see healing, then we have to be healers.

We’re not called to pray and wait when we have an opportunity to have an impact. God calls us to pray and do. Prayer is powerful, but if it’s all we’re doing, then we’re falling short of our calling, and we will not make a difference. Prayer alone will not heal the world, but action rooted in prayer and conviction? That just might have a chance.

Memories

Quick note: I’d like to dedicate this week’s blog post to Linda Sisk, my father-in-law’s grandmother who passed away this weekend. While I never had the privilege of meeting her in person, I think it’s fitting that this article be written in her name. She was a wonderful, loving woman who left her family with many precious moments to remember her by. Please keep Stephen and his family in mind as they celebrate Linda’s life and mourn her passing this week.

It’s funny the things we forget. Not long ago, Katherine and I were talking, and I was trying to remember how long some friends of ours had been married. Were they coming up on their third anniversary? Or was it their fourth? I tried to reconstruct a timeline and piece the events together, but I just couldn’t do it.

I could remember flashes of individual moments. I remembered meeting them for the first time. I remembered being in their wedding. I remembered helping them move and staying with them their first night in their new house. I remembered meeting their son for the first time. (Is he two or three now?) But trying to put all of those flashes into a coherent timeline with years and dates was impossible without checking my calendar, which fortunately is quite detailed.

Truth be told, those events don’t feel like they took place all that long ago. I can remember them like they happened just yesterday: where I was, what I saw, how I was feeling. These memories, like many others, are so very strong in my mind because they’re precious to me. But our little exercise of trying to piece them all together made me realize how quickly I’ve become removed from them.

It’s one of the many paradoxes of the human brain: I can remember those moments like they just happened, but they also feel like they took place such a long time ago. I can recall pieces, but my brain has moved on from the details. I’m in such a different place now than I was then that it almost feels like it was a different person who did all of those things. Nevertheless, the memories are mine.

If you had asked me at the time, “Will you remember this?” my answer would undoubtedly have been, “Of course! How could I possibly forget this?” I like to think that I’ve got a pretty good memory, and those moments were very important to me. There’s no way I’d ever forget them. And that’s true to an extent. But over time, the finer details faded, and all that I’m left with now are the flashes.

I can recall feeling so proud and excited for my friend as I stood next to him in that chapel on his wedding day. But off the top of my head, I couldn’t tell you the date or time, details that mattered so much to me then. I couldn’t tell you the music that was played or the food that we ate. All I can tell you is that I was there, and I’m so thankful that I’ll always be able to say that I was a part of it.

I never pictured myself being one of those people who would reminisce and struggle to remember the details of when, where, and who, especially not in my twenties. But the older I get and the more I experience, the more I find myself holding on to the flashes and losing my grip of the details. What start out as vivid experiences eventually become distant memories—fond as they may be—and that’s not something I expected.

Hopefully this doesn’t come off as a lament. I realize that this is a perfectly normal part of life, and I’m not necessarily sad about it. I suppose I do find it a little disconcerting, though. And I don’t want to simply leave it there. Surely there’s something I can learn from this realization, right?

That’s something I’m still trying to figure out, but here’s what I’ve come up with so far: I want to recognize right now that someday soon, the things I’m experiencing today will all become nothing more than memories. No matter how wonderful or terrible or exciting or bland or in-between they may be, every experience I have is going to fade with time. The details will be lost forever, and all I’ll have left are the flashes.

And that inspires me to appreciate every moment even more. Because it’s fleeting. Even if I don’t want to admit it, I won’t always have this moment to hold onto. One day, it will be gone, so if I’m ever going to cherish it, I’d better do it now while I still have the chance.

This realization also makes me want to do a better job of documenting my memories. There are lots of ways of doing so: photos, journals, calendars, and more. Some people are really good at this, but I’m really, really not. That’s something I’d like to improve on, and writing this article might just be the motivation I need to start.

I don’t want to forget these precious moments. I want to do all I can to ensure that the flashes I do get to keep are as full as possible, and that they stay with me for as long as possible. If a bumpy trip down memory lane was what it took to help me realize that and do something about it, then I’d say it was well worth it. And if any of my ramblings have inspired you to make the most of your moments, too, then it’s even that much more so.

Here’s to cherishing every moment, to making memories worth keeping, and to enjoying those flashes for a long time to come. Thanks for reading, friends, and I’ll see you next week.