'Reality' TV?

'If reality TV has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t keep people with no shame down!’ says Liz Lemon on 30 Rock.

I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that I love reality TV. From the comfort of my own home I get to spy on people spending way too much money on OTT building projects. Or people panicking over jus—because gravy isn’t good enough anymore. And, of course, beautiful people ‘singing for survival’. Dum dum dum!

The thing that keeps me coming back for more is the drama of competition. I can be passionately in favour of a contestant but as soon as the competition is over, I really don’t give them a second thought. The true reality is that these shows are not about people; they are about competition. Even shows that don’t make obvious comparisons are about building bigger houses or having fuller lips.

One of my favourite authors, Donald Miller, observes that comparison is a human obsession. He imagines being an alien trying to make sense of the human race: ‘Let’s say I was an alien and I had to go back to my home planet and explain to some head-of-the-aliens guy about what people on this planet were like … I would say to the head alien, “The thing that defines human personalities is that they are constantly comparing themselves to one another.”

“You guys”, the alien might say, “You are obsessed. You have to wear a certain kind of clothes, drive a certain car, speak a certain way, live in a certain neighbourhood, whatever, all of it so you can be higher on an invisible hierarchy.” ’

A verse in the Bible that talks about comparison, has haunted me for some time: ‘Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you … We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us’ (Romans 12:3-6).

On the one hand, I longed to live in the freedom of simply being who God called me to be, in the way he called me to be. But at the same time, the idea scared me. Living according to the grace God has given me, meant accepting myself just as I was. Without wanting to change something, without longing to be more successful or always trying to lose five kilos. If I was to let go of my own personal obsession with comparison, I wasn’t sure I would be okay.

But learning to live within the grace God has given us is like letting out a huge refreshing sigh of relief. It means accepting the sphere of influence God has given each of us, and living within that faithfully, without wishing we were somehow better, and somehow more.

Comparison is a kind of hell, a symptom of all that’s wrong with us humans. But to live free of comparison —that would be like heaven. It would be like living without shame, with the freedom to pursue our craziest dreams, or to simply accept ourselves as we are. And although I don’t think Liz Lemon meant it as a compliment, she was right: you can’t keep people without shame down.

By Ingrid Barratt (abridged from War Cry 29 June 2013, p9)