Left of Bang

Our world careens around the bend, society swaying and swerving as we brace for impact.  It feels as though somewhere out there the road will straighten.  It's reality bumper cars.  Each way we turn are collisions.  We yell and drive raged for revenge.  We don't even know where we are driving anymore. We are bumped about with COVID shaping our context, Republicans or Democrats writing our narrative, and cable news providing the voice-over, seeding conspiracy and blunting hope.     

We are made for more.  In a letter to the early church, the Apostle Paul wrote "you are all children of the light...  we do not belong to... the darkness" (1 Thessalonians 5).  He calls us to encourage one another and build each other up, offering simple disciplines:  work hard, live in peace, pray continually, and be thankful. When our days are done, how will our lives echo into eternity? 

Recently, a friend in law enforcement used the term, "left of bang."  It's a phrase that comes from the U.S. Marines and refers to action prior to a traumatic incident.  Think of a storyline moving from left to right.  The "bang" is the incident.  The aftermath is right of the bang.  To the left of bang are all the incidents leading up to the event.  Could we become world-changers by paying more attention to what's left of bang? 

I wonder what's left of bang to a 15-year-old girl being abducted from a Dallas Mavericks game she was attending with her father and dumped into a sex-trafficking nightmare [(Parents of Texas teenager who left Dallas Mavericks game speak out on human trafficking case (espn.com)].  Perhaps it's the insidious way sex is casually treated in our society, the line of what's morally and socially acceptable barely apprehensible.  Maybe it's something else.  But, we should look left of bang.

I wonder what is left of bang of too many marriages crumbling.  If an affair is the traumatic event, there's likely a slow whittling away of trust in the preceding frames. Author Andy Stanley says that marriage should be a race to the end of the line.  Perhaps that humbler approach can be inserted to the left of bang.  

When I've shared struggles with a counselor, he's asked what's happened in the weeks leading up to the tipping point (left of bang).  It's what's been occurring (or not occurring) that's set the stage.  Gradually, I can better see what's left of bang and change the story. 

Are you stuck or burnt out?  What's left of bang?  Often, we cannot see this ourselves.  We have blind spots.  Turn to a trusted friend, therapist, or counselor.  Have them help you look at what's left of bang.  As we become more self-aware, we can turn this exercise outward, looking into the world with gracious assumptions and trying to help others divert to a better way, finding life that's truly life (1 Timothy 6:19).