Christian Living

---

Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday June 23, 2009

I often recite a story I heard as a child and I admit the story though a simple one, had a profound effect on me.

A boy noted for his contempt for authority was ordered by a grade school teacher to don the dunce hat and sit in the corner. As the class laughed at him the teacher remarked, "Now, Mr. Smarty Pants; what do you have to say?" The boy replied with unfettered moxie, "Miss Teacher, I am sitting here in the corner wearing the dunce hat, but in my heart and mind I am in centerfield in Yankee Stadium, running down a fly ball, wearing my Joe DiMaggio cap."

Most young Turks would have been defeated by the humiliation, but this boy to whom I refer was cut out of a different cloth and though a little older than me did in fact go on to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates!

For the most we do not realize that the heroes to whom we point as exemplars were/are for the most part people of iron wills. The memorable heroes and heroines of literature are the ones like the above mentioned boy. Oh, they are dressed in more moving words than the boy, they are often not seen as knights in shining armor, but the seeds of greatness are budding in their heart, in the stuff of their character.

In the utterly magnificent book from the pen of Hemingway, "The Old Man And The Sea" we catch a glimpse of the heroic in seeming failure as Santiago, the old man on his 85th trip without catching a fish has finally caught a gigantic Marlin and landed the fish after struggling with it for two days. As he rows back to port, towing the Marlin behind the tiny boat, sharks eat the fish. Santiago near whispers this courageous phrase:

"A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

Maxmillian Kolby was destroyed in a Nazi Concentration camp as was Betsy ten Boom and thousands of others. Yet we know they were not defeated, destroyed, yes, but with head unbowed and therefore NOT defeated. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was destroyed in Flossenburg being hanged with a thin wire, but he was not defeated.

The beauty of Christian faith is we remember the words of our savior Jesus Christ who taught us not to fear those who can and often do destroy our body, but have no power over our soul!!

The way I see it, a man or woman is better off to be destroyed than defeated. Think about it.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2009 Use with credit.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE