the problem with a pedestal

Have you ever thought that when you put someone on a pedestal, you have made them into stone or cold metal?  The thing you admire them for has more to do with your own need than with who they really are. 

The people we admire are complex; they are not always noble or kind or restrained.  Sometimes they are grumpy or feel that it is time to speak out honestly, maybe even harshly.  Look at Jesus.  He embraced little children and welcomed all to the banquet of life.  But he also ranted and roared at the Pharisees, calling them snakes.  He overturned the tables of the peddlers in the temple courts, while welcoming hated tax collectors.   And he was the perfect man without sin!

If we speak our honest feelings and someone thinks it sounds harsh, maybe they don’t understand how long our words have been repressed and suppressed.  Perhaps speaking them is actually much healthier than swallowing them or couching them in politeness.

Pedestals are for statues, not human beings.

Love, Liz

“Our idols of silver and gold cannot speak or hear us.  They have no feeling, no power to move or speak.”  Psalm 115:8