Lessons from Mo

Mo is a show on Netflix. It’s the story of a Palestinian American living in Houston. Mohammed Amer is the main guy behind the show, he’s also the star. It’s very funny, sad and heartwarming. All the things you want from Television. I think it also does a pretty good job of expressing the Palestinian perspective on Israel without being too in your face about it. It doesn’t apologize for its perspective but it’s also not a constant thing in the show. Regardless it’s going to offend a lot of American Christians especially ones who tend to think of Israel as the 51st state.

But this post isn’t really about Mo, it’s about a moment from the show. At the end of season two Mo is struggling with the fact that his father was a great man who accomplished things and he’s just selling cell phones at the mall. His mom gives him a lecture. And it’s haunted me since we finished the season.

Your father was like you. He saw himself through the world’s eyes. And in the world’s eyes he was a simple man with a small shop. And I believe that’s what killed his soul. Because he was too proud. Just like you. But it was never true. Because his worth, our worth, came from Allah. Do you think Allah cares what degree you have or passport you carry? The world will always try to tear us down. And when they do we smile. Because we know who we are.

This really is the central struggle of my life. I was raised to believe basically the same thing as this, that God was what determined my worth and not worldly success. And I think not experiencing a lot of success would have been okay with me, it’s the constant failures of my life that bother me. If I had been able to just get a full time job after college or seminary that paid the bills, even if it didn’t help much beyond that, I think I probably would’ve been okay. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t just get a job, I had to work several crumby jobs for years trying to find something real. And ultimately that was why my first wife said she left me, because I couldn’t get a good job or even just one full time job.

For a man that’s like being trapped in a kind of purgatory, not having real work and not contributing always feeling like a perpetual loser because you can’t grow up like all your peers. Then I finally got a real job and moved to another city for it, and my life was blown up, the job taken away…and then everything was blown up again.

I know I’m supposed to see myself through the eyes of heaven, but I can’t stop seeing myself through the eyes of earth. Through the eyes of my ex wife who thought I was a loser. It’s not easy being a loser.

I lost again this last week. It’s completely out of my control, the losses I’m experiencing these days. Nothing I can do, all because of things going on that I can’t talk about yet, and it just really sucks.

What Mo’s mom said to him is not that different from what Tim Keller basically used to say about Self Esteem. Self esteem doesn’t work, what you need is to be taken off the scale completely and be seen as God sees you. But that just doesn’t really work for me either. I can’t see how God sees me. All I see is the rubble of my life.

But what I can do is focus on God. Maybe that’s why Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God. The freedom of self forgetting isn’t really wrapped up in understanding how much we are loved by God but in the act of loving Him. And man, it really hurts to try to love God right now. I can’t understand why He’s done the things He’s done in my life. It is so hard to be grateful, so hard to feel positive towards Him.

But love isn’t an emotion, it’s an activity. And when I pray, especially when I take up my prayer beads and meditate on God, my pain doesn’t really go away but it becomes almost a conduit. And bizarrely in those moments I’m almost grateful for the pain, because it feels like a pathway that wasn’t open before.

I struggle with that pride that Mo has, I struggle daily with trying to understand why I have so little when others have so much, what did I do so wrong that I am the one requiring charity instead of the one being allowed the gift of giving it? It is just pride. It’s just a lack of acceptance of the serenity that things are the way they are, and rather believing they should be the way I want them.

I can’t think of a great way to end this post today, except to say I’m trying to get one done every week now. God keeps taking away the things that detract from my writing, giving me only this to do. This just isn’t enough to pay the bills, so it’s very hard not having real work.

If you’re reading this I could use your prayers. I am too prideful.