I enjoy a good story as much as anyone. You know, “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there lived a beautiful princess.” And, so the story moves on from that introduction to the problem. That can be a poison apple or a wicked stepmother. Or, it could be that the beautiful princess desperately wants to wear armor and carry a broad sword. She desires nothing less than to ride on on her white war horse and slay some great dragon that has been terrorizing the countryside. Of course, at this point the handsome young prince enters into the tale. His sole regard is to save the beautiful princess, get married, and live happily ever after. The End.
The best stories like this are when the beautiful princess knocks that arrogant prince right off of his horse and onto his pompous keester. She then rides off to slay that dragon alone. The New End.
I like these stories because they help to right many historic wrongs.
Wrong attitudes about princesses.
Wrong attitudes about princes.
Wrong attitudes about dragons! (Hey, even dragons need some lovin’!)
It seems that we humans have evolved in such a way that we need to be the best; the strongest; the most correct. We gotta get out there to prove to the princesses of the world that they really, really need a big, strong prince to save them from themselves. We must set them on the straight and narrow where everything is in its right place. Dragons, sadly, on the bottom. (Yeah! I really like dragons! Deal with it!)
This kind of stratified reality is something that most folks will go to great lengths to maintain. No one wants to be the one to step out of line and be the odd person out. We, as my Uncle Al used to say, “Gotta go with the flow.” I might agree with that as long as the flow is a class 5 rapid rushing to a waterfall. But, that’s me.
In our culture we tend to conform to what society says in the norm. Get a job. Find a mate. Raise a family. Oh, and make sure that your 401k is filling up nicely. We turn a blind eye to the players who seem to be the decision makers. In fact, if our political reality is any indication, we desperately want to get on the band wagon of those who seem to be the loudest and most cock-sure of themselves. These are the “winners.” No one wants to hang with the losers. Well, because they’re LOSERS! So, day after day, year after year, we follow. Always looking at who the popular trend-setter du jour is. When we get to our very own personal The End we look back and say, “Well, I got through that.”
I read, recently, where the Apostle Paul called what I just described living in the flesh. All that really means is that a person lives naturally. They follow their natural desires, inclinations, and appetites. They look to the powers that be for cues on what they should wear; eat; think. There is not much of a life in that. Eventually, The End. No credits. No postlude to inspire.
Paul also wrote about living a different way. He called this living in the Spirit. We can tell when someone is like this. They are like that princess kicking the prince to the curb so she can seek a greater purpose. They walk with confidence knowing that they are being their most genuine self. Perhaps, most importantly, they characterize something that is truly counter-cultural. They have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control. For those paying attention, these are what the fruit of the Spirit looks like. Just like a ripe apple has a certain scent, a nice crispness, taste that is sweet and juicy, so folks who live their lives according to the Spirit can easily be identified by their own character that doesn’t warm up to the socially acceptable power-brokers or trend setters. They don’t follow people who are confident and assertive like a dog sniffing up the dog in front of them.
It’s not always the easiest thing to leave the prince sitting in the mud and horse-hockey. It takes a special kind of commitment to buck the system and forge a new path. But, no one said it would be easy.
Now, where’s that dragon?