The late great comedic actor Peter Sellers, who was known for his characters in the “Pink Panther” movies as well as such classics as “Dr. Strangelove”, wanted desperately to be viewed as a serious dramatic artist. Unfortunately, he passed away before he could achieve such acclaim. His last film “Being There” was probably the closest he ever came to his goal. You see, his character, Chance Gardener spent a lifetime of obscurity with little contact with the outside world. He was a simple servant who tended a walled in garden and looked after the house of a rich old man along with a house keeper. When the old man died, Chance was forced out into the world to fend for himself. I think many of us can relate to the first time we left home for the first time, but with a little more preparation than poor Chance Gardener.
I can certainly relate to living in obscurity. I grew up as the fourth of six children in my parent’s home in Northwest Ohio. For a long time I viewed being the “middle child” as a place where very few people noticed me or paid little attention to what I had to say. Often times at family gatherings or holidays I would start to say something only to have someone speak right over me or seemingly straight through me as if I was not even there. As a child I just settled in to this role and probably enabled my family to keep the trend going by my life of blending in to the background.
In the service they taught us how to camouflage ourselves and to practice noise and light discipline at night so the enemy would not detect us. We trained our ears to listen to sounds and to identify them as friendly or foe. This survival mechanism was already a part of my repertoire growing up, but it did little for me when it came to dating or relationships out in the real world. I was accustomed to blending in with the crowd and knew little of how to become noticed when it truly mattered. For this I blamed my upbringing when I failed or became frustrated in social situations.
I allowed this blame game to keep me from becoming the person I was meant to be and have only recently started to realize. It is like pulling the bushel basket off of the light that God gives each of us to light the world. We are given the choice to make a difference or simply settle for the security and warmth that obscurity provides. Becoming a scout leader has certainly given me this opportunity. So, the challenge for each of us today is whether to reach for the rope God offers us from the mountain top or to settle for the lush green valleys of certain despair and excuses for not becoming who we are meant to be. We can choose to live within ourselves or we can choose to be here and make a difference for those who follow in our footsteps. Let us all reach for the top and view the possibilities.
I can certainly relate to living in obscurity. I grew up as the fourth of six children in my parent’s home in Northwest Ohio. For a long time I viewed being the “middle child” as a place where very few people noticed me or paid little attention to what I had to say. Often times at family gatherings or holidays I would start to say something only to have someone speak right over me or seemingly straight through me as if I was not even there. As a child I just settled in to this role and probably enabled my family to keep the trend going by my life of blending in to the background.
In the service they taught us how to camouflage ourselves and to practice noise and light discipline at night so the enemy would not detect us. We trained our ears to listen to sounds and to identify them as friendly or foe. This survival mechanism was already a part of my repertoire growing up, but it did little for me when it came to dating or relationships out in the real world. I was accustomed to blending in with the crowd and knew little of how to become noticed when it truly mattered. For this I blamed my upbringing when I failed or became frustrated in social situations.
I allowed this blame game to keep me from becoming the person I was meant to be and have only recently started to realize. It is like pulling the bushel basket off of the light that God gives each of us to light the world. We are given the choice to make a difference or simply settle for the security and warmth that obscurity provides. Becoming a scout leader has certainly given me this opportunity. So, the challenge for each of us today is whether to reach for the rope God offers us from the mountain top or to settle for the lush green valleys of certain despair and excuses for not becoming who we are meant to be. We can choose to live within ourselves or we can choose to be here and make a difference for those who follow in our footsteps. Let us all reach for the top and view the possibilities.
No comments:
Post a Comment