In the old Iron John tale a beast is hauled up out of a
swamp and put in a cage. The cage is moved into the court yard of a castle for
all to see. The beast is all locked up and named Iron John. .
One day a young boy is playing with his golden ball. The
ball accidentally rolls near the cage. Iron John picks up the ball. The boy
approaches the cage and asks for his ball back. Iron John says, “Not unless you
let me out of the cage”.
Robert Bly, in his book “Iron John: A Book About Men”,
comments that the golden ball represents a radiance and wholeness that we lost
at various points of our life. Some of those significant losses took place when
we were quite young and we probably were not aware of the loss. Then, often men
unconsciously spend the rest of their lives trying to get the golden ball back
and of course, looking in all the wrong places.
Bly comments that the first step in getting the ball back
is, “To accept firmly, definitely- that the ball has been lost.” To take this
first step is not that easy for many men. It requires honesty. It requires self
awareness. It requires paying attention to one’s feelings.
It requires vulnerability.
Some Christian men have done some wonderful work authentically
paying attention to their own brokenness and looking to Christ for wholeness. I too embrace this truth. Yet, sometimes I
get the feeling that we think we just need to fall on our knees one time and
ask for forgiveness that we will then be automatically whole again. Life will
be wonderful and golden all the time and the blessings will flow. I just don’t
think true Christianity as that simple
or easy.
For me to accept firmly that the ball has been lost means to
see the truth that my own life is broken and messy. I am not as I ought to be.
To accept the Gospel of Jesus is to embrace the brokenness and messiness of my
own life and those around me. It is not about life being golden.
For me, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about believing or
acting a certain way so that I can then have everything be golden and have
blessing after blessing come my way.
Jesus came for the sick, the broken, the lost and for those
who mourned.
Sometimes all I can do is agree that my own life is at its
best, messy. I can admit it. That is the first step. But, then, what do I do
about the messy areas? Can I move toward
those places? I don’t know if I can because it is
those messy places, those “edges”, that are fearful places for me. They are not
fun or make me feel comfortable and they do not feel like “blessings”. .
As a group of men this past Saturday fly fishing the Platte,
we tried to begin to talk about those edges. It was not easy. But, for some of
us, it was a first step in admitting and knowing that our golden ball has been
lost and life is not whole even as the fishing was golden. .
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