June 13th - Love 'em Just the Way They Are or Control 'em?

The story...

As a boy, I learned to conform to the norms of the family, friends, classroom and the church.  When I was rejected by the teacher, peer groups, family members, or "that girl;" then I'd adapt, roll with punches, and even craft my own role to "act" out.  As an adolescent, I often rebelled against the system.

I played the cornet in the band throughout middle school and high school.  This was the group that I best identified with.  However, I "pushed back" against the control that was exercised by the band director.  I refused to participate in any performance challenges during my Junior year.  I merely picked up my horn case and moved down to the lower seat.  This only worked out because the best trumpet player joined me.  The director solved the problem by putting us in a trumpet section - we actually played more of the melody together.  

Controlling to the Extreme

The band director asked that I record my practice hours on a card during my senior year.  He let me know that it was for my benefit and did not require a parent signature.  I took it home and entered two weeks of zeros.  I asked my mom and dad to both sign the practice card - they did.  The band director looked at the signed practice sheet and said: "It appears that this isn't going to work with you."

I worked as a drug-store delivery boy and was assigned to work a Friday evening that required I miss the football game.  The director wouldn't accept my excuse and told me that he better see me in the band formation prior to the game.  I went to work anyway and drove the delivery car through the band formation while waving at the director.  I earned a "D" in band my senior year.

During my Senior year of college I brought two of my friends to my home town and actually took them on a tour of my High School.  The band director saw me as I was making moves to avoid him.  I was shocked at how respectfully he treated me and my friends.  I'm so thankful for that man and how he worked to shape that rebellious spirit in me. He wasn't the last person to reach out with help.

The people in the only church in town will be wonderfully created to be their best as a group.  Strangely, people are drawn to adapt their behavior, or role play, in order to fit the group's expectations of who they "should" be.  Hopefully, the only church in town would love 'em as they are and offer them a path to grow their faith in their own way and at their own pace.  I'm so thankful that the Patriarchs of the bible were often rebels who God loved and redeemed.

Just for today...

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image.  Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."  Thomas Merton:  No Man is an Island.