Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Embarrassed (07/19/07)
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TITLE: The Rules of Embarrassment | Previous Challenge Entry
By Nathan Perkins
07/25/07 -
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How’s your completion? Are there zits on your face? Are your pox marks covered well? Make sure you don’t have any hair showing in your nose or on your ears.
Have you covered the grey hair well? Have you hidden the balding area?
Have you covered up the wrinkles?
Brush off the cat hair, straighten your posture, and proudly head to the rest of your day.
This may not be exactly your ritual although I imagine that you can relate to some of it.
All of the things a person does to keep from being embarrassed or from being an embarrassment are really not related to that person’s value. The rules of embarrassment are in relationship to that person’s perception of their personal value. We do not want to be embarrassed so we follow the rules.
The rules to cover one’s self from embarrassment have gotten harder as we enter into the 21 century. There was a day when there had to be a law written requiring a bath at least once a year. There was a time when a cobbler’s main objective was to get shoes to fit a person’s feet comfortably. There was a time when Henry Ford said to his customers that they could order their car from him in any color they wanted “as long as it’s black.”
The rules of embarrassment about baths, shoes and autos were once so much simpler. Today, if you don’t bath daily, wear brand name shoes or drive a certain color of car you could be subject to violating the rules.
The rules that people follow to avoid embarrassment are built upon the judgments of other people. Other people place judgment because of their own skewed perception of what gives people value. Perceptions are skewed because people want to be better then others.
To judge others is a futile attempt to create a standard for a person’s own evaluation. The rules are based on what that person sees as strengths of their own and as failure of the others around them.
All of the people around us, although unknowingly, place their differing judgments on us and we carefully follow the rules to avoid being embarrassed. This is how we get the combined total list of rules for how to avoid being embarrassed.
A wise and caring friend shared with me some great wisdom about how to override the effects of breaking the rules of embarrassment. He said, “You need to get over yourself.”
What that means is a person could humbly learn to say “so what” to the rules of embarrassment.
When is Embarrassment good? I will give you a made up word to help us address a good purpose for the rules of embarrassment. The new word is “pridolatry” (pride idolatry).
So many people idolize pride. Pridolatry can consume a person. The rules of embarrassment are certain to leave a person in a state of humility from time to time. This is good for the purpose of knocking over the “pridol” (pride idol).
It is good to have pride, as in confidence in one’s self. But it is not good to have pride that is the object of one’s life and worship.
The rules of embarrassment are impossible to follow perfectly. Within that impossibility is the likelihood that the pridol will tumble and the person will stand humble.
The path to contentment starts here. If that pridol is felled, there is a place that remains for a true God. The true God and creator of the person, has no rules to stand against him. The person can learn to stand in confidence but not in his faulty self. He can stand in Christ who is the perfect and the perfecter. Although embarrassment may still come, there is no change to the person or his value because his value is also found in Christ.
The rules of embarrassment should not rule you. If you are living in pridolatry the rules of embarrassment will control your life.
Christ is a firm foundation. Nothing can stand against him. Let the pridol fall! And Let God rule!
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