It’s a cliche: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…

And over the years, the ad agency who came up with this clever slogan has created a number of commercial campaigns that have caused many of us to giggle, shake our heads, and occasionally blush as we consider what did happen that one time (or more) or what could happen in Vegas at some point in the future.

Of course, the ad slogan is selfish. It’s supposed to be. It relies on the fact that when you consider what might happen in Vegas, you will only consider what YOU might do in Vegas… or what your friends might do in Vegas…

And as long as we keep the focus on us or on people we know, the slogan makes us giggle, shake our heads, blush… and we do all of those things while knowing that there’s a chance that what happens in Vegas could very well follow us home, or at the very least, end up on a friend’s Facebook page (in pictures).

But…

What if we take YOU and ME out of this clever cliche? What if we think past OUR deeds or actions while in while in Vegas?

What if we opened up the advertising cliche to include all of the various realities of Vegas? Is the cliche still clever? Does it still work? Do we still giggle?

Would we still blush or shake our heads? Perhaps. Maybe some of us would giggle if we only considered Vegas realities like mass amounts of gambling or getting wasted or watching dancing girls and boys or going to see Cher (

Now…

Many more of us would indeed stop blushing and giggling if we began considering Vegas’s gentlemen clubs, lap dances, various kinds of prostitution…

And potentially…

All of us would stop smiling and blushing if we began considering Vegas’s homeless rate, its alcoholism rate, the number of prostitutes that work Vegas’s streets, the number of drug dealers who become rich in Vegas, or if we thought about the numerous poverty-stricken side-streets in Vegas…

And I could go on… but you get the point: When we consider the whole of what happens in Vegas staying in Vegas… it’s not pretty. The cliche becomes flawed. Not clever. Not cute and funny. Not something the city of Vegas would want to advertise…

Now, I’m only picking on Vegas because “Vegas” is the object of this cliche.

Most of us could replace “Vegas” with the names of our cities or small towns, and while the amount of “fun” might not be as extreme and the debauchery might not appear to be as glamorous (and your local rumor mill might be much bigger and faster), still, the concept still probably works on some level…

What happens in New York City…

What happens in Oklahoma City…

What happens in Murfreesboro, TN…

And while some of what happens in our hometowns might be worth giggling and blushing about, when we consider the whole of what happens, when we resist thinking only about what happens to us or to our circle of friends or to our communities and churches and we begin considering what REALLY happens in our cities and small towns, the concept of what happens in Nashville staying in Nashville becomes a much uglier slogan, not something to advertise and put up on billboards.

Do we really want the darker realities of our cities and towns to “stay in” our cities and towns? And if they do “stay,” what does that say about us? That we don’t care? That we don’t know how to help? That we would rather think about what happens in Times Square and not what happens in some of the gang-ruled streets of Philadelphia…

Now, consider…

What happens in Paris… Awesome!

What happens in Tokyo… Good times!

What happens in Capetown… Pretty cool, depending on where we go…

What happens in New Delhi… I hear India is nice… I liked Slumdog Millionaire…

What happens in Darfur… No… I don’t want to go there…

What happens in the deserts of Somalia… Can we please just go to Paris?

Now, consider…

What happens to little girls and boys being sold into sex slavery in Bangkok…

And consider

If what happens to those little girls and boys stays in Bangkok…

Get the point… at least, some point?

The truth is, when we consider the whole of what happens in (insert the name of a city) staying in (inset the name of the same city), there’s nothing funny or glamorous about it…

If the dark realities in our world remain in those areas of the world, what does that say about us?

If those dark realities stay hidden, kept under wraps by governments and tourism officials, what does that mean for those living in those realities?

If those realities happen to get broadcasted around the world, and we see the need, the brokenness, the ugly realities happening in places all over the world, doesn’t that make us responsible? Just a little bit? Shouldn’t we at least stop and consider…

….

In one week, I leave for Bolivia with World Vision. In one week, I will begin telling you about what’s happening in the darker corners of towns and streets in and around Cochabamba, Bolivia… In one week, I will introduce you to faces of children who are victims of what happens in the darker corners of towns and streets in and around Cochabamba, Bolivia…

Whatever I witness happening in Cochabamba, Bolivia I won’t let stay in Cochabamba, Bolivia… I will share it… I will share how World Vision is working to help change what is happening in Cochabamba, Bolivia…

And I pray that you will consider helping us change what is happening to the least of these in Cochabamba, Bolivia…

Because some of what happens in Cochabamba, Bolivia can’t stay in Cochabamba, Bolivia…

We must bring it home…

Click here or on the image below to learn more…