Keeping up appearances
There was this British comedy that used to air on ZBC back in the day, I think it was called “Keeping up appearances”, where a Mrs. Bucket (who always corrected its pronunciation to Bouquet) and her husband Richard were always in some kind of fix because she could not accept or live within their means.
At every turn she went out of her way to appear very grand and classy and the funny bits were always how dismally she failed to keep up that appearance. We’ve all seen and had a good laugh at the movies about the very single lady who hires a date for her younger sister’s wedding or the very broke valet who borrows one of the cars on the line-up to give that ‘monied’ impression.
It makes great entertainment but I can’t help wondering if we sometimes live under self imposed pressure from this need to be seen to be a certain way.
It’s easy to be seduced into classism and end up creating hierarchies in the church which require performance to obtain legitimacy. If you are in the lesser ranks you may be treated like the proverbial bastard who, being conceived out of wedlock, is disqualified from holding their father’s name even though their circumstance came at no fault of their own.
If you fall in the higher ranks however grand gestures are dedicated to you and every excuse is made to mention your selfless giving as if there is a direct link between that and earning blessing credit on the spiritual stock market.
There was a point I actually believed that the more pain I felt sowing a seed was the bigger the return when it “matured”. Just for the record I don’t share this stuff to spice up these articles I just highlight how easy it is to be misled when we don’t fully understand the finished work of Christ.
It’s not meant to be a system of weights and measures left in the hands of the leaders to apportion their communities accordingly. It’s meant to be a well oiled machine in which every part understands and plays its part to the best of its ability.
I believe that no one is greater than or equal to the next person but each one of us has key elements within us that when joined collaboratively with each other through union or community enhance our quality of life tremendously.
What should cause a wife respect her husband is the fact that she understands and appreciates the aspects of differentiation between their make-up and natural capability which add value to the union. More than an instruction to submit it takes love shared because the very nature of love is sharing, caring, giving, synchronicity and harmony as ministry of God’s goodness.
The dangers of mis-constructing perceptions
We had these neighbours who were quite something. As far as comparisons go I always thought they were better and happier than us though I’m sure they had their own problems but just never looked like the trouble they were going through. As far as I could tell they were financially independent, their kids were highly intelligent and they were closer knit as a family unit than we could hope to be.
Basically they could do no wrong and I often found myself being compared to their oldest daughter my age mate who also happened to be my first childhood friend. Growing up it wasn’t unfamiliar to be compared to siblings or cousins who were apparently better behaved or more intelligent than we were. I don’t think our parents meant to cause us harm by this they probably calculated that it would breed a sense of healthy competition that would cause us to do better so as not to be left behind. Unnecessary
As I was thinking back to those days I realised that sometimes we compare ourselves and our loved ones at our worst to others at their best and form damaging perceptions about who we/they are or are not. No one is really immune from this, I mean our parents may feel we could do ‘X’ or ‘Y’ thing better like so and so and we also look at our peers parents and think our parents could do ‘X’ and ‘Y’ things better but that takes away from who they are.
It’s unrealistic to form expectations based on how other people appear to do their things or live their lives and insist that your loved ones live up to them in order to earn your love and affection. It reminds me of a reference my Mom makes a lot, about a couple fighting over how much better the couple in the next house is living because they eat meat everyday yet this “meat” is really just the fragrant aroma of onions frying in curry and there is no meat in that household either.
Things are not always as they appear and we may find ourselves falling into entitlement or ungratefulness because we wrongly perceive what other people appear to have that we don’t when God is sovereign. Sometimes we are in lack not because lack is our portion or God has forgotten us but we enable lack through ingratitude and poor decision making.
