PARISIAN STREET MIME

I’ve used the following quote several times but it is good enough to get lot’s of mileage out of: A Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and starved himself to death. There are so many ways we fall victim to this sort of thing that I think we should talk about it.

We will start with others. I was in the Dr.’s office this week for a little checkup and so were many other folks. I was last, of course, and I had people waiting on me. I decided to look at the June 2004 issue of Texas Monthly. I was particularly interested in the article about Meth labs in East Texas. I’ve been to several towns and heard about all the house fires, etc. It’s been going on for years.

The article talked about families who lived in houses without ever coming out, with the blinds pulled shut, and too paranoid to move. Nights are spent watching for cops in those helicopters with silencers on their rotors that allow the Narc’s to sneak up and never be detected. Somehow they get down to Wal Mart to buy all the ingredients for cooking up a batch of meth. Addicts quit eating, due to loss of appetite, their teeth fall out, their children never have anything to eat and babies walk around with spoiled milk in a bottle. That’s much of what I remember about the article.

What’s that got to do with a Parisian street mime? Everything! Go figure. How in the world do folks get so messed up as to end up living like that?

Closer to home: We can all be a little like that mime and get into boxes of our own making. On the other hand, we can let folks in our relationships stuff us into those boxes. Truthfully we allow that to happen either way but in any case we get stuck. We can suffer and finally die inside emotionally and spiritually, starving for fulfillment.

Persons must grow. The saddest stories involve parents who have retarded their children’s growth by locking them in closets or basements for sometimes long periods of time not unlike the Texas Monthly article. There’s also the husband who will not let his wife take courses to help improve her skills at something she really wants to do in life. In each case the person is stuck and finally starves to death.

As parents we can be guilty of not providing the spiritual grounding and instruction our children need to grow in this most important area of their lives. It’s really like getting them stuck in the imagery box which contains nothingness and we starve them to death for the most important spiritual needs in their lives.

Stuck and starved to death—what a tragic ending. But, it occurs everyday. We are a pretty silly people. We just climb in those imaginary boxes or let others stuff us in them. We are so easily controlled and led by destructive habits, attitudes, and people. And, we force our thoughts and opinions on others and try to control them too. All too often it is all done under the guise of what is best for us or the other person and we die emotionally and so do they. How sad!

Unfortunately people too often make bad decisions. Fortunately there is Jesus who has so much to offer to remedy all those bad decisions we make. He provides a better way, a way to the Father (Jno. 14:6) and a way of better living (Jno. 10:10). Being in Christ provides a morality that would disallow most of the living described above in this article. What Jesus disallows will neither work nor is it good for us.

Life can be so much better in Christ. Write to us.