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A Warrior Without A Cause |
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Written by Jim Fulton
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"To fight for the right, without question or pause,
To be willing to march into Hell,
For a Heavenly cause."
The Impossible Dream - from Man Of La Mancha
They tore down the old Plaza Theater that had been around since the
time my dad was a kid. They were making way for a new mall that would
eventually become obsolete as soon as it was built. The only thing left
of the movie house was a big hole in the ground where the basement had
been. The hole looked to be at least fifty feet deep and one hundred
feet across. (This size is according to the faded memory of a
forty-three year old man. When I was thirteen however, I could have
sworn it was the Grand Canyon that I was looking across.) In actuality,
it was probably fifteen to twenty feet deep and fifty feet across. The
sides of the hole were at a 60-degree angle, and that was where the
danger was.
There were about fifteen of us, all on bikes, looking over the edge.
The same thought was running through our minds - could we ride down
this incline without leaving face imprints on the floor of the pit? I
don't know the name of the kid who was the first one down, all I know
is when he made it down and across the pit and caught air on the other
side, that it broke the dam on the fear that grasped the rest of us.
From that moment on, all walls of that pit were conquered and it was
soon on to bigger and more adventurous tests of young manhood.
Looking back over that part of my life, it seemed that nothing was
unconquerable. I would rally to any given cause that had a ring of
danger to it. I suppose all men who were ever young had to test their
own strength just to see if they could pass the muster on their way to
being men. I was a warrior with a cause: I needed to prove I was good
enough.
And it wasn't just becoming a dare devil to show the rest of my
contemporaries I was good enough, it also had to do with standing up
for what I cherish - loyalty, friendship, and honor, as the next story
will tell.
His name was Sid and he was the newest kid on the block. He was also
coming from a broken home, which probably explained why he did a lot of
things. He was an ok kid most of the time, but every so often, he would
be sneaky and underhanded, and try to steal friends away from others on
the street. This led to a war between us and as most wars go between
boys on the verge of manhood, there would be eventually a test of
masculinity.
He used to gain favors from friends by inviting them over to his house,
which was all right, but when I showed up, I got the door slammed in my
face literally and emotionally. I was the third wheel and the brunt of
jokes. A boy may not have much in this world but one thing he knows is
the value of respect and that is something you don't tamper with. It
finally boiled over one day when I was playing army with Sid's younger
brother.
Sid wasn't having a great day. He couldn't find any friends to play
with. He had to settle for his kid brother and me. He started in by
being bossy and trying to take me away from the brother. I wouldn't
have any of it. I wasn't about to let the little brother experience
what I had been experiencing over the last several months. Sid became
increasingly frustrated with my disrespect towards him, until one point
he turned to me and said - "You wanna fight?"
I threw my air rifle to the ground and said, "Yeah."
He shook his head and walked away.
I never felt so scared or braver in my whole life. It was exhilarating
and liberating at the same time. No punches were thrown I still won the
battle.
There was an uneasy truce called a few days later, but the lesson
learned was this: It's not necessary to actually throw fists to show
your strength, you just had to be committed to the battle to show you
were willing to risk harm.
I'm now forty-three years young with a wife, a son, and a
mortgage. I'm still a warrior only now I am a forty-three year
old warrior and I'm not sure if I still have a cause. I mean, I have
reached manhood but there are no dragons to slay, no damsels in
distress, no pits to soar across and we are told to let bullies have
their way.
We are under the demeanor that we are living in a "safe" world.
Moreover, in a safe world, there is no need for a warrior because there
are no causes to fight for, no passion to push him, and his strength is
replace by trepidation.
Furthermore, we get no help from the different forms of the mass
media. Most television shows and films portrays us men as
uncaring, aloof, bumbling buffoons that only care about flatulence and
how many "babes" we can lance with our manhood. In other shows, some
men who show a more feminine side are seen as true men, but men who
embrace masculinity are portrayed as Neanderthals. When Hollywood does
portray warriors, it usually shows them as anger-filled, gun toting,
steroid-induced muscle men, who deal with their problems by blowing up
everything.
We are told that the objects of our desire, our damsels (i.e. mothers,
wives, daughters etc.) can defend themselves and thus they have no need
for men in their lives to protect and defend their honor. We buy a
security system to protect our castles and rely on an outside force to
apprehend the bad guys after they have already done their damage.
Nevertheless, this isn't a safe world and we men, who call God, Father, are seen as warriors by Him.
Think about the warriors in the Bible for a moment. Think about Joshua
and when he reported to Moses. All of the reports said that there were
giants in the land; Israel should not advance. Joshua simply said "We
can take these overgrown bags of hormones; the Lord says this is our
home," (paraphrased). Alternately, there is the speech he gave in
Joshua 19:25: "Choose this day who you will serve, but as for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord." Can you imagine the brouhaha that would
have caused if President Bush had quoted that passage on September 11?
Remember Gideon threshing wheat in the wine press in the valley. The
angel of the Lord called him a brave and mighty warrior. He took an
army of three hundred men and defeated the Midianites by using clay
pots and horns. Just think of David staring down that behemoth,
uncircumcised Philistine. Picture Goliath laughing at David as David
loaded his sling with a pebble; hear the shouts of joy as well as the
screams of horror as the giant fell to the ground - dead. We can do all
of these things and so much more.
It is said that the difference between a solider and a warrior is that
a solider fights out of duty and a warrior fights from his heart. Our
culture dictates to us to be to be weak when it comes to the issues
worth fighting for. It emasculates our sons by telling them to behave
in a way that they were not designed to operate. It tells us to lay
down our rights and let someone else do our fighting. However, God
calls His sons to be fierce and passionate. He calls us warriors. And
those who don't think we are to be warriors of the Most High, think of
the armor we receive from Him; it is for offensive movements, not
retreating (Ephesians 5).
So, what are the battles for a modern day God-fearing warrior? An
indication is anything that causes your gut to flip-flop when you enter
a lion's den, such as confronting a school board that doesn't have
discernment and allows anything to be taught that is detrimental to the
emotional upbringing of a child (i.e. doing away with gender roles,
equalization of the sexes, promoting certain lifestyles over others,
etc., etc.), or being adverse to illogical philosophies, creeds, or
presuppositions that deify men and mortalize God.
Teddy Roosevelt was a sickly child, yet he didn't let that control his
life. He was a cowboy, a colonel in the Calvary, a hunter, an
environmentalist, and he was the President of the United States. In a
speech he made after leaving the White House, he said this:
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs
and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without
error or shortcoming. But who knows the great enthusiasms, the great
devotions, of he who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the
best, knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement; and who, at
the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly so that
his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew
neither victory nor defeat."
The battleground may have changed over the years, but the cause is the
same: "To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause."
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