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Have you ever seen the movie Hook? If not, you're totally missing out, it's one of my all time favorites. But, for those of you living under a rock somewhere, I'll give you a run down:
It’s a Peter Pan spin off starring Robin Williams and Julia Roberts. Towards the end of the movie Pan and Hook are going sword to sword, it's quite the show down. SPOILER ALERT: At one point Peter spears Hook’s hat off & it flies off along with his wig, revealing a fuzzy, balding head. It’s quite comical and a little sad. Hook realizes he’s been beat, but as Peter Pan stands over him, Hook admits defeat, but requests, “But please just give me back my dignity.” Pan obliges and places the man’s hat and long flowing hair back on his head before the dual is finalized with Pan as the winner.
My pastor's son Joseph was quite the Disney fan at a very young age, it's hereditary on his mother's side. Because of this scene in Hook, Jojo thought another word for hat was dignity. So, if you were in the habit of aggravating toddlers and took off running with his hat, he would say, "Give me back my Dipity!" If you listen you'll hear that same cry from people you pass every single day.
We've all inwardly cried out the same, "Please! Just give me back my dignity!"
How often do you think about dignity? Not your own, heck I think about how I'm going to preserve my own dignity all the time! I know I'm not alone, I hear tales of failed attempts all the time, "I cannot believe I said that!" or "I seriously just walked around all night with my fly unzipped!" Oh wait, I didn't HEAR that one so much as LIVE it tonight until some sweet little Thai lady tried to tell me in Thai and when I didn't understand she reached down and grabbed my open zipper. #Dignityfail or more serious incidents that end with, "I don't think I've ever felt so small." We've all been there and likely spend a great deal of time avoiding situations, memories, and people that strip of us of our dignity. It's a full time job, preserving our own dignity, but what about preserving the dignity of another? Do we think about it? Do we attempt it in how we love, help, correct, treat, speak to another?
Sometimes, when I'm not so self involved, I'll see it in the pained expression of a stranger or hear it the frustration in their voice, "You win, I see I'm defeated, but would someone please just give me back my dignity?!"
Earlier this year, I had to do a border run, which is nothing at all like a run for the border, there are unfortunately no tacos involved at all, but every 90 days I have to cross the border of Thailand, pay some monies, get my passport stamped and then head back over to fulfill Visa requirements. It's like any border, there's a lot hustle and bustle of activity, the opportunity to buy the local wares, and lots of officials trying to keep out the riff raff. We cross a foot bridge, underneath which runs a very dirty river. It's not just that the water quality is bad, it's that people throw their trash in it, relieve themselves in it, and no telling what else; it reeks of sewage. As we cross and I'm trying to take in all the sights and sounds and NOT the smells, I notice an elderly man making his way into water. Mind you it's not the main river, it's more like a canal that's been rerouted by developments. People bathe in rivers all the time, clean ones, dirty ones, I've seen it, it doesn't surprise or repulse me, it's a way of life for so much of the world. But this isn't s spot you see people bathing, even the animals seemed to be avoiding it. He's naked, but for tattered under clothes. He begins to take the dirty, filthy water in his cupped hands and "clean" his body. It hurt my heart. I didn't dare take a photo.
I thought about how good it feels to be clean. You probably don't give it much thought unless you've ever been deprived of the opportunity to get clean for an extended period of time. It hurt my heart yes, because I wanted him to have such a basic thing, the opportunity to be clean, but because I knew what he was doing was just making his situation worse, I believe he knew it too, but as he lowered his frail body into that murky, brown water, he was trying to preserve just a little bit of dignity. I feel the same pang every time I see someone bow down to idol to earn protection, lay offerings at a spirit house for peace, or give baskets to monks for merit. Efforts of futility, bathing in waters of murk, only to walk away heavier than when we entered.
The only dignity I have is the seal of Christ on my life everything else about me is undignified.
Convoy of Hope taught me a lot about preserving the dignity of others while serving them and helping them regain dignity lost. And my personal encounters with Jesus in some pretty undignified circumstances of my own have taught me even more.
What's this blog about any way? Clean water? No, but that's pretty important. Preserving the dignity of others by not pulling out my camera when they're at their lowest? No, but that's of grave importance as well.
It's about hearing the cries of those around me and you, "Please just give me back my dignity?" and answering, "Yes." With my body language, with my words, with my actions, with my help.
We're surrounded by people trying to get clean in filthy water. We're surrounded by people grabbing at things trying to preserve their dignity that are only going to make their situation worse.
It's in hopes that the next time I'm in the vicinity of that person who already feels defeated, that's going thru that divorce, wrapped up in addiction, knee deep in debt, that's publicly and privately failed, splashing in murky waters trying to get clean trying to preserve even the tiniest shred of dignity that I'll hear their cries. That when I see them reaching out for the pill, the make up, the idol, the false hope, the new purse, another relationship, the credit card, whatever it is, I won't somehow shout with dripping Dr. Phil sarcasm, "How's THAT working for ya dummy?!" That I'll respond allotting the same dignity that was so graciously allotted to me and somehow communicate that I've been there too in those murky waters and grasped at items of futility myself to get free, to get clean, but the only way to find that freedom, that cleansing, the dignity lost is to grasp tightly to the Hand ever extended to you and never, ever let go.
