Stories for Humans

Along the rows of fading tomes and crumbling pages, amid the musty libraries of time, there is a story that recurs. From cool Arabian desert tents to colonnades of Grecian cities, from hamlet fairy tales of the Middle Ages to fields of New World pioneers, the prince or princess disguised as a pauper who rises to their due is sewn into the common tapestry of humanity. Sometimes the struggling hero knows who he is, but more often he is unaware. The ironies that unwind with the telling of these tales is I think what lures the hearer, and also that in all of our own stories we have been the trampled, overlooked or misunderstood vagabond, or have been the laughing, pointing finger of the crowd…and sometimes both in one lifetime.

Something in human nature loves to see the underdog come out on top. Perhaps we relate, feeling like we are always fighting unseen forces. However, in real life, we almost always fail to recognize when it is happening. Though we notice the struggle and the overcoming in ourselves, and perhaps in movies or books, we seldom cheer the “loser” in real life. We are not good at understanding what resilience means.

Resilience — the arduous process of learning to keep coming back, of feeling the disappointment and shouldering the load, of being misunderstood and smiling anyway, of showing up in the face of injustice — is not developed overnight. Resilience forms in the space between where you find yourself, or what has happened to you, and where or who you want to be. It is a slow, painful climb, and yet creates the richest soil for growth, the kindest of hearts, and the most generous, tensile strength.

And yet, we rarely recognize the resilient. Instead, we praise the strong. Who is first?! The prize goes to him. Outward strength is often a shallow facade. The showy bravado of those to whom the task took little effort is often mistaken for strength. For those lucky ones, life is not so difficult. They come easy to conversation, they know the right gestures and praise to give, and who to give it to. They are the first up the hill, the first chosen for teams at school, the one who laughs and makes excuses that everyone believes. And so these apparent strong ones skate rather effortlessly through life once they find, or are given, a path.

Not that there isn’t struggle for everyone in this life. But for many, those who bob to the surface like shiny apples, the way is smoothed. Someone is always there to show them the ropes or pick up the slack. Or, having fought mightily at one time, they come out on top and shove their flag hard into the ground. Now, they are King of the Castle! Everyone else is a dirty rascal. How quickly we forget our own tear-stained, grubby faces in the scramble for top-of-the-heap.

In the 21st chapter of Matthew there is a clear, resonating story of how the one who is rejected becomes the cornerstone.

³³ “Now listen to another story. A certain landowner planted a vineyard, built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenant farmers and moved to another country. ³⁴ At the time of the grape harvest, he sent his servants to collect his share of the crop. ³⁵ But the farmers grabbed his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. ³⁶ So the landowner sent a larger group of his servants to collect for him, but the results were the same.

³⁷ “Finally, the owner sent his son, thinking, ‘Surely they will respect my son.’

³⁸ “But when the tenant farmers saw his son coming, they said to one another, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate. Come on, let’s kill him and get the estate for ourselves!’ ³⁹ So they grabbed him, dragged him out of the vineyard, and murdered him.

⁴⁰ “When the owner of the vineyard returns,”Jesus asked, “what do you think he will do to those farmers?”

⁴¹ The religious leaders replied, “He will put the wicked men to a horrible death and lease the vineyard to others who will give him his share of the crop after each harvest.”

⁴² Then Jesus asked them, “Didn’t you ever read this in the Scriptures?

‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has now become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing,
    and it is wonderful to see.’

Jesus knows what it is like to be “despised and rejected of men…acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3) and he demonstrated true strength — the resilience which carries on in the face of defeat. Mocked, spit on, maligned and misunderstood, he “was like one from whom men hide their faces”. The shame was actually ours. Have you ever felt like people pretended not to see you? It can hurt like nothing else. And yet, the shame that prevents people from looking is not on you, it falls squarely on them. Humans are notorious for looking away from anything or anyone that might reflect their own weakness. Jesus also gave us an example of loving strength when he took the time to really look at people, to notice their pain, put mud mixed with his own saliva on their blind eyes, or stop to talk in a crowd when he felt someone touch his robe.

What is the opposite of resilience? What happens to a soul when instead of learning, of trying again, picking up the pieces, the soul turns hard and brittle? Unlike the deep strength of resilience, bitterness easily shatters and breaks. A spray of angry words is just below the surface. Even a slight tap or bump can bring out a torrent of frustration. This is a response born from unhealed wounds left to fester. Resilience bends; bitterness breaks.

Common to many such unsung hero stories is being kicked while they’re down. The defeated fall, and soon feel the boot-heel in their ribs. Society often uses the struggling soul as a scapegoat, pinning all and sundry “Things that go Wrong” on them.

A shop owner loses everything, and then comes the knock on the door by the government for fees or penalties, or taxes due.

A farmer surveys his fields flattened by hail. Down at the coffee shop, his ‘friends’ shake their heads, telling tales of all the other times his crops had fallen short.

A high school student who is barely holding it together, at the absolute end of her rope, arrives a minute late. In the hallway she is told to stand still while O Canada plays over the intercom, agonizingly slow. The minutes drag by. Finally she gets to her locker, but it’s too late. The inevitable taunting, the office visit for an attendance note, the call home, the shame, another brick in the wall.

A sad smile.

Or the immigrant who is elated at a new job in a new country, working feverish nights to learn the language. He shows up for his first shift; no one says his name or talks to him all day. He hears the uproar of laughter in the lunchroom and knows it is about him. He’s not going to fit in. No one is going to explain how things work, because somehow they believe he deserves their derision. The months drag on.

A sad smile.

It’s very easy and convenient to forget how we became good at something. Who showed you how to drive? To cook? To operate machinery? To wash a car? Did you forget that the grace and kindness shown to you was meant to be passed on? We have so few mentors in society today. How long is long enough to stand at the top of the pile before we are able to reach down and help another up?

The thing with resilience is, it’s quiet. People who have suffered much tend to look within for what they need. They won’t be the one always talking, clamouring for attention or jockeying for position. If you don’t notice their gifts, they will quietly walk away with them.

The timeless tale of the struggling hero will always be with us, simply because humans will continue to not notice when they are in our midst. We cannot hear through the sound of applause; we cannot see through the dazzling light of our own glory.

A thousand years from now, a dusty book falls from the annals of time. A breeze rustles the pages open, and someone leans down to read…