I watched the movie, Bourne Legacy, again tonight and I
couldn’t help but put myself in the movie and have that feeling I am sure many
people have had: that they wish they were in the movie too. Wouldn’t that be
exciting? Maybe not the whole getting shot at part, but all of the excitement,
for girls: having a guy fighting on her behalf and putting his life on the line
to save her, and for guys the excitement of having a mission so important it’s
worth dying for—and chicks dig you for who you are and what you do. Wouldn’t
life just be so much better if we had that? If our lives were action movies
with another almost unconquerable
danger around the corner and raw emotions we can really feel and know? Ones
that we don’t have to update, figure out how to prolong, or just try to bury? Simply excitement. Ok, so we probably have all wanted that even if just for a
moment before reality set in and we realize maybe being shot at, beat up, or
almost dying for something isn’t quite such a thrill, but we still wish it
could be, don’t we?
So what should
reality be? Dead and duller existence on earth wondering if we ever get to be the
super-stars we dream of being? Or do we have to just cater to a goody-goody-two-shoes
life that Christians are “supposed” to embrace: “love, everybody love...and NO
violence, excitement, or passion about anything other than just being so happy
about God you can’t explain it to anyone.”
The fact is, we’ve forgotten the facts. In a culture so
inundated with staying shallow, living on feeling, and rushing headlong into
the unknown, as fast as you can, so you can experience it just for the sheer
experience of it, we have forgotten what it is that we really crave and how we
are meant to be a part of it.
I feel especially empathetic for the men out there in this
world when girls have been so negatively influenced by the culture to only want
to be around the tallest, most muscled, tough, but simultaneously sensitive and
flirtatious guys out there. Everyone else just doesn’t measure up. After all,
how would a fat, bald guy with a lisp and glasses fit into an action movie? Isn’t
he supposed to be the guy that taps on his computer, in a room full of other
guys just like him, all trying to keep a single high tech tracking device up to
speed with the “super-man,” right? Not exactly a picture of manly prowess and
unmatched superiority as an alpha male, is it?
And how about girls? What are the ladies supposed to be:
always available, ever beautiful, with a perfectly tan, slim body, and the
lighting just right so that her eyes sparkle with the light of the sun from
beneath that perfectly manicured hair-do that would never in a million years
stay that way in real life? All together seductive, alluring, and perfect. But
perfect for exactly what? And what about the girl who is overweight, has acne,
or isn’t the right size to fit just perfectly under her man’s chin so that he
can be “masculine” dominant and she can be “feminine” seductive? Yeah, look
close in the movies, because that “imperfect” girl is probably spilling coffee
somewhere as a low-pay waitress or tappity typing on those computers following
the “perfect” girl who’s clinging to the "super" man.
Why?
Why are we being geared to establish our value by how attractive
we look or how supremely-exciting and out-of-the-ordinary our lives are? And why are we so drawn into these movies?
What in us makes us want to be that
guy or be that girl? Now don’t
get me wrong, I’m a sucker for a good action flick or even a well-written
romantic, but if God had a plan when He gave us the initial desires we have been ingrained with deep in our very beings, what did He have in mind?
Let’s go back to the facts. Reality is, God made us, and as
St. Therese of Lisieux so boldly says: “the good God never gives desires that
He cannot fulfill.” So what desires are from God? We can’t go be super-beings
can we? Yet every man still wants a mission; still wants something to be able
to conquer where he can “be the man” and every woman wants a strong man who can conquer the task at hand and who
will love her and provide for her. The problem is, we’ve been sold a lie: that
men should dominate women and women should get even by manipulating him to do
what she wants. I’ve heard it said that “man’s greatest fear is inadequacy
while his greatest desire is to be adequate, and woman’s greatest fear is insecurity,
while her greatest desire is to be secure.” Yet, what is all the mainstream
pointing at? Make men feel inadequate by super-imposing an unrealistic standard
upon the physical aspects of their being while making women feel insecure by
painting an unattainable picture of how they “should” be in order to be
acceptable. Shallow. Shallow. Shallow. This is all skin deep, but we are more
than that! Addressing the skin deep part, however: Guys, real-life girls don’t
have an endless wardrobe or a lighting crew to make them look perfect at every
moment and every angle. Ladies, sorry, do you really want your man to be on
some sort of hormone steroids to look like Captain America? Let’s be real here
and true to ourselves, despite what the media claims can be our personal truth if we but strive for
it.
So what is it that runs deeper? What is it that this social-lie
is trying to cover up with all of these shallow, misguided desires? What about
the desire to be a real man and the desire to be a real woman? Like Pope John
Paul II often did in his writings on The Theology of the Body, let’s go back to
the beginning; let’s go back to Who
made the man and woman in the first place. God isn’t just sitting in heaven
peeling an orange and waiting for all of us to “realize” that He just creates
random things and sets them free on the earth. Neither is the devil taking a
break and just watching it burn. God makes
everything for a specific reason with an indescribable purpose, while the devil
is doing his best to make it burn through
certain focal points. A good strategist aims to wipe out his opponent’s
greatest asset. In the case of the devil, that’d be us.
How does one do this without the target realizing the evil plan and doing something constructive
about it? Answer: preoccupy them enough to make them think it was their own plan; their own desire. By turning men against women and women against men, and
fueling it with their own fears and their own desires with a sick twist, no one
is asking the right questions. We have ceased to ask why we do what we do and feel what we feel. We have stopped trying
to figure out where all of this is coming from and we have occupied our whole
beings with just being enough to pass standard; to fulfill our earthly desires
that spring from the very depths of our soul! But we were not made to be
completely fulfilled on earth. We are not staying here; we were made for
something more. (Curtis Martin—author of Made
for More).
So that’s where we are coming from, now, where are we going
and how does our desire to be our own super-being fit into that? Where does God’s
plan come in? The answer: we are all super in our own ways. Now don’t write
that off as cushy-mushy "lets-all-feel-good," seriously, God doesn’t make junk.
He made man alone, and then He made a woman to complete His great vision for them and THEN called it—them together—very good. (Genesis 1:31) They are equals, though different; and
they were made to stand on the same side of the battle ground helping each
other. So where’s the super-ness in that? Well, what is the battle?
Think about it, God made something so good as to be the
crown of His creation of the entire world (that makes you pretty darn special)
and you think the devil is flicking his cigarette and saying I don’t care? No! He’s out to get you
and me and he wants you dead, separated from God, separated from each other;
separated from happiness. Being a Christian isn’t goody-goody-two-shoes, its
knowing who to fight and how, so we can ride into the Kingdom
with our victorious battle scars as conquerors of our fears, of our wayward passions,
of our shortcomings, our inabilities, the lies we have bought, the untruths we
have thought, and to then lay it all down before the throne of the King. You
want passion? Now there is something to be passionate about! There’s a war out
there to be won. Men are called to a
mission worth dying for and no matter their stature, status, or skin-deep appearance,
they are called to work in unison with the women God put in their lives and to
uphold and protect them. And women, they are
called to be secure. Even more than just “acceptable,” they are to be a desired
help-mate; held tight in the palm of God’s hand and fortified by His masculine
creations. Who better, than a woman, to captivate and motivate a man and
strengthen him with her words of praise and trust? We were made to work in
unison to get to the ultimate goal: heaven—everlasting joy with the God who thought of us; created us, and gave us every
joy we have ever known. We were meant to get there alive and free although
there will be narrow misses as temptations rage, and some will fall prey to
their misguided passions as the devil sweeps in and sews lies into their
hearts. There will be traitors turned white knights and white knights who will fall
and become traitors. There will be harlots who will become princesses and
princesses who will stoop to being harlots. There will be confusion, and raw emotion,
as well as depth and true meaning; and undeniable purpose. What greater purpose could there be than to partake
in what we were made for?
There is a battle to be won and a beast to be slain. A
damsel in distress who waits for someone brave enough to stand up and thwart
the dragon so she can uphold him as a worthy man; knowing her warrior’s heart
and treasuring it. So that, together, after fighting in their unique but
equally important ways in this epic battle of battles, they can both, together,
enter heaven, be gathered into the arms of their Creator and Father and finally
hear those sweet words: “Well done my good and faithful servants.”
To GOD be the glory forever and ever amen!He did
