The life we live is governed by social constraints. We
are immersed in the dos and don’ts of the world in which we exist. We are
submerged in the etiquette of our time and doused with the familial adaptations
of such. The old adage, “We are a product of our environment” is more true than
we would like to believe. We go about our daily business making sure that we
fit the bill and those with whom we associate are expected to do likewise. If
not, the sense of guilt that invades our false sense of peace is immeasurable.
We feel the wet ink stain of the REBEL imprinted upon our foreheads and no
matter how we attempt to ignore it, its liquid shame runs down our face and
into our eyes. We are blinded by it. The lines of our dynamic backdrop are
blurred and askew. We cannot make out the horizon. We stumble forward, groping
and hoping that we are headed in the direction of the impossible…if we believe
the hype.
The mold was set by our forefathers and our immediate
caste (I mean family) added a slight
spin, but never truly broke free. We are in the matrix. Even our rebellion is
text book. We walk, talk, love, laugh, live, work and die in line. Anyone who
dares to claim their uniqueness merely takes the garment and changes it color.
She/he may shorten or lengthen the code, but it is cut from the same cloth. Any
real variation from the “norm” is rarely seen. Life is as life has been with
varying shades of green, blue, white and yellow. There is nothing new under the
sun. We dance to the same music, played by the same instruments that we
convince ourselves is nothing like it was – all cut from the same tree, shaved
off of the same animal, created in the same laboratories.
I have come to wonder, in the not so recent past, if we
can really call to action “Be in the world, but not of it.” We flow along the
same channels, being transported by the ebb and flow of each nuance and wave.
We take into consideration those around us and call into remembrance the
definition and meaning of our lives from our ancestral common thread. What did our forefathers do when times got
hard? I am not referring strictly to the course of action in which they realized
the manifestation of their desires. We look back on the thought process that
got them to their goal and utilize that as a barometer to gauge life’s events
and our interactions with those whom we come into contact with on our journey.
We take our finite view and experience and define everyone and everything we
come in contact with, taking no thought of their process. We judge. We condemn.
We damage and hurt people with our tunnel vision; it is this way, until it
isn’t.
As believers we must understand that our societal norms
are not based on community, it is based on separatism. We are encouraged to
think about how a certain action will benefit self. We are programmed to look
for the personal profit in what happens around us. We can pretend it is not the
case, until we cannot pretend anymore. We can do unto others as we would have
them do unto us, until we can’t. We can give, until we can’t. We smile, until
we can’t. We engage and participate and revel in accomplishments, until we
can’t. We perform…until we can’t. Then what? We begin to push against the mold.
We fight against the constraints. We experience stress, pressure and tension in
our soul because we are kicking against the pricks of expectation and
adaptation. Our mind tries to expand and the cast bulges. This creates friction
in our circles because, at times, we want to experience the polar opposite of
what is our life. We are happy, until we’re not.
We believers have God, in
Christ, in us. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. He is immutable…unchanging.
He was. He is. He is to come. Yet, we live out the mundane looking for the
supernatural end. Our lives, lived in this world, are not to be experienced the
same fashion, as those who don’t acknowledge God. We walk behind the mold; we are not imprisoned within it. We act and
respond from a place that cannot be tainted by what is sensual or temporal. Our
perspective is eternal. It is…and it will forever be. When life happens, we reach inward to a place well beyond our focal
reality to have an experience which supersedes the norm. We are created in His
image and in His likeness. We have a means that is not of this world by which
we can determine what the outcome will be by having the belief/faith of God.
When He spoke, He created. He did not take into account what He experienced
with five senses. He knew it, spoke it, believed it and it was. It still is.
