Or, more to our purposes here, it can be a more generalized term applicable in any generation. It can have to do with amorous romance or just idealism and idealism's cousin, unreality. It is this branch of the word's description to which I refer.

We love our movies. Most of them are filled with fantasies that grab our attention because they offer ways to escape. Recently they have become a bit too real, and cause us a different set of problems than the old "romantic" movies that brought us into the middle of a romantic relationship or a heroic deed in just 90 minutes or so.

We have all known people that will sit and bawl over these heart-warming stories. Something stirs in the soul. Then we take a deep breath and walk away. We know it wasn't really ours, except for the moment.

This romantic pain may have its place but I fear it may have affected us all too much. Someone said that such pain could be cured by a good toothache, a dose of the real thing.

Which is where my thoughts are finally headed. (You knew I was going somewhere with all of this, I hope.)

I am deeply concerned today about the gut-wrenching stories that have been coming out of places like North Korea for these many years. I am glad that someone found a way to get the truth to us, but I wonder how easy this pain is to forget. It feels a little like one of those musicals, albeit with an unhappy ending. We watch, we cry, we go away. It's not really ours after all. It's something we can take or leave.

For us, it's a good show.

My plea to readers and hearers today is to listen with ears of the Spirit to these messages. Our God would not allow His people's pain to be exposed to us so that we can have a good cry. These brothers and sisters, our family just as surely as the ones who bear our name, are truly hurting, truly in need, and the Spirit is screaming to us of the agony in Christ's Body.

Oh, let us hear the cry. Then to our knees for instructions as to what to do. Surely if the situation were ours we would be so humiliated to know that others only watched and cried and walked away.