Your beauty and your beast

When I was a kid, in about first or second grade, there was this one teacher whom everyone feared. For anonymity purposes we’ll call her Mrs. Doe. Mrs. Doe was older, maybe 60 or so. She had long gray hair and she loved getting her manicures and always had these long fake nails. As a 6 year old, we always thought they were witches nails. No one dared to act out of line or even talked while she was around. Kids in the older classes always told us stories of how mean she was and that she didn’t take crap from anyone. Let’s just say her legend was larger than life.

One day, walking down the hall to go to the bathroom with hall pass in hand, Mrs. Doe was on the opposite end of the hall. Her face in a sad/mean scowl, as per usual, she locked eyes with mine. In that moment I had two thoughts running in my head. First, “Oh, crap, I’m dead! Someone is going to find my dead, cold body in the hallway.” Second, “I’m going to try to be nice and see if I can scamper by.” In my moment of bravery, I smiled at her and said, “Hi, Mrs. Doe! How are you?!” She was taken aback by the greeting and paused for a moment to gather her wits. You could almost see the coldness around her melt. Her eyes lit up and I witnessed for the first time in the history of any kid in Central Elementary of Worthington, MN. Mrs. Doe smiling! We had a quick exchange of pleasantries and I went back to class.

The next day, my teacher, Mrs. Schmidt called me to the front of the room. As I got out of my seat and walked toward the front, I noticed that Mrs. Doe was standing by the door. I thought I was in trouble for sure. My classmates thought I was a dead kid walking. Was it because I stopped to talk to her in the hall yesterday? As I stood there recounting what I did wrong and regretting that I’d opened my big mouth, Mrs. Schmidt handed me a certificate of appreciation that Mrs. Doe had typed up.

“I was having a terrible day yesterday and just by you stopping to ask me how I was, lifted my spirits! I just had to tell you that. I didn’t know any other way to thank you so I had this certificate made up just for you. Thank you, Thai!” Mrs. Doe said as she gave me a big ol’ bear hug in front of all my classmates. I was hot stuff for the next few days. Who would have thought that she was capable of being nice, let alone, giving out compliments and hugs!?

This happy memory came up as I was in rehearsals for our town’s annual musical. We are putting on the production of ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ That night we were running through the song titled “The Mob Song” and the lyrics struck a chord with me:

“We don’t like what we don’t understand, in fact it scares us, and this monster is mysterious at least.”

The song is about the towns people who feel threatened by a beast who lives in a castle near the village. What they think they know of the beast comes from a misinformed old man (Maurice) and a jealous meat head (Gaston). The group of villagers are rallying to go kill this beast. Where did the animosity come from? Even with Belle trying to calm the villagers down they will not listen and become even more enticed to “rid the village of this beast.”

Is there something or someone you don’t really care for and you’re not sure why? Ask yourself why don’t you like them? If your answer was, “Because I just don’t like them!” I pray you give yourself a chance to think about what an opportunity you could be missing to witness to them. If you don’t like them because you don’t understand them, then try to get to know them. You may find that you have more in common than you have differences.

My mom worked in a meat packing plant and she had friends of all races and creeds. As a young boy, she would drag me along to the grocery store as a way of bonding because we did not get to see eachother during the week due to the fact that she worked the late shift. Almost every weekend, we would run into one of her friends from work. You have to understand that my moms English is broken at best. But to see her beam with pride as she says, “This is my youngest boy, the one I told you about!” Made me fall more in love with her. When we got home I just asked her how she made so many friends when she couldn’t speak English and they couldn’t speak English and that they were so different? And she just said, “Thai, everyone has their own way of life. Things I don’t understand. But what I do understand is that we all have things in common. We all have family, we all have a reason why we work so hard. I can respect that. Everything else is easy after you respect someone”

If we are always looking for the few things we differ on to write people off as “someone I don’t get along with” we are going to miss out on opportunities for friendship and fellowship. Jesus didn’t just go and preach to believers, He preached to unbelievers and people who wanted him arrested or dead!

Which brings me to my next lyrical references:

“Raise a flag, sing a song, here we come we’re fifty strong and fifty Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”

Don’t always go with the masses. They could all be blinded by selfish motives or just wrong information. Like the beast, everybody was enticed to go kill the beast because:

a) He’ll make off with your children

b) He’ll come stalking us at night

c) He’ll wreak havoc on our village if we let him wander free

But get to know or understand your “beast” and you may come to find out that you have wonderful things in common and that he may have the most majestic voice.

Do you know anyone like that? Do you have a preconceived notion that is unwarranted? I challenge you to face your fear and go and get to know them. Most times, the beast we fear is the one we make up in our own heads.

***DISCLAIMER*** Please DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go and interrogate them. Be a decent human being and cultivate a friendship.

Guys, It’s time to be real men of faith.