Sunday Morning: The Chameleon? Or the Fairy God Sent?
The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment.
When I was a child, I would pray with my hands vertically placed against the tender skin of each of the other of my innocent hands. While my praying hands pointed toward the heavens like the steeples rising above the trees during our boring country drives, the ones my mother insisted upon after church. Those rides, where I got awfully car sick at each turn. And while praying, I wouldn't throw up; my little nose would point down toward the hell I was fearing while my lips pursed gently on my hand-made steeple, just like when I prayed before breakfast, lunch, supper, and bedtime.
Fear of not praying led me to the center of the earth, where fire would burn me forever, so I was taught. God was supposed to protect me from hell, but instead, he or she scared the hell out of me, making it difficult to trust such an unseen magical person. So, I invented a friend. it seemed at my tender age that God was not my friend, mom was not my friend, and dad was always working. Not to say life was total hell. We had many good times as well. But still, my little brother was annoying, which is normal, and the cousin who was left in charge of me was a horrific soul. He shot me with a bb gun in my foot on purpose. He refused to play with me unless I let him pull my tooth. He and his buddies locked me in his dad's greenhouse, climbed up on its roof, and all those boys peed on me as I stood below, trying to get under a work table. At least they never put my tongue on a frozen metal pole. That narrative reminds me of the old movie The Christmas Story with the Red Ryder and BB gun. Well, maybe mine is a bit more truthfully cruel. I forgot the part where I got hit in the face with a rotten egg. I gagged and threw up all the way home. I also tried walking to the neighbors and got stuck in the mud. I was four or five years old, but I remember one of the older neighbor boys pulling me up and out of my boots. One boot continued hanging onto me as though it would die if left behind. That boot screamed the loudest sucking noise as though a vacuum had entered the mud, trying to save me by sucking it and me free.
That mud was several inches deep, and I have no idea where my mother was during all these beautiful experiences.
The mean male cousin seemed to oversee me most of my off-school times. Yet he was never allowed to watch my little brother.
I was more like a doll to my mother, who was only sixteen years older than me. When I was not outside getting abused by my cousin, she was putting me in dresses always with an added stiff, scratchy petticoat that hurt when I sat down, walked, or moved. Or cutting my hair and giving me permanents, wrapping my hair around her fingers, making little ringlets to impress her neighbors and other lady friends.
At age five, I walked three-quarters of a mile to school, or was it a half mile? At that age, it seemed like two miles. On the right side of the road to school was a wooded area set in water. The trees were all grey and dead. No leaves, no life, and I always feared I was fall off the side of the road or a car would push me into what appeared to be an ocean, and I would go under and never come back. I was always afraid. I never felt secure.
The plastic God I saw hanging on a cross at the front of the church sure did not come to my aid. Thus, the birth of my imaginary magical friend came at the age of my intelligence level. "It" did not have a name, but I recall "it" was a tiny human. I have always loved fairies and enchanting forests and still do in my seventh decade on this planet. Steven Tyler wrote in his autobiography how he would sneak off to the woods behind his home in upper New York to play with imaginary fairies. "They" are gentle, kind, and loving, little mythical human birdlike creatures.
In my mind, I was the only mortal being who knew about this tiny person, which meant I had to care for it. I had to find ways to keep "it" warm and safe. I had to find food for "it" and make "it" clothing. I recall mentally putting my little person in a coffee cup with some scraps from my mother's sewing material as makeshift blankets. Popsicle sticks formed a bed, and more material from mom's quilting stash helped. I suspect the tiny person was the part of me that felt unsafe and insecure. I always looked for someone to help me feel secure, but there never was anyone but myself for that honor, and as an adult and before, the fairy theory went out the window. Dolls helped for a few years. And then boys took over the fairy role. Then a husband or two or three. I continued choosing my mean cousin to marry. I have no idea why I am writing this today, the first day of what is supposed to be the new beginning of another year. Although I was impressed by the doll house miniatures people make that recently appeared on Facebook. Could that be what triggered this conglomerate of words today?
I did learn God is a good God. Not just a scary statue in front of the church, and he can be a friend who I do not have to figure out how to feed or cloth. And I can talk to him, and he will love me no matter what. Humm, he might have been my little fairy friend in disguise who came as a chameleon to help me through some tough times as a little child.
I reference the disciple Paul: I myself don't view Paul as changeable or two-faced. Nor do I think Paul's teachings contradict those of the OT writers or other NT writers.
Paul the chameleon?!
In his letters, it does seem that Paul changes colors, so to speak, depending on who or what issue he was addressing. (Chameleons change more for socializing than for camouflage.)
I'll call Paul the white/blue chameleon as he upheld the veracity of God's written word and moral laws/principles (for gentiles too). Yet…Paul became a red chameleon when confronting Jews who tried to push their oral law & temple sacrifices/rituals onto gentile converts and Christians.
Christians are justified by faith in Jesus' sacrifice for our sins…not by animal sacrifice, temple rituals, or oral law. Paul the red chameleon boldly stood against his countrymen who taught otherwise.
Paul the white chameleon upheld the veracity of God's written word & laws as a way of life for believers via the HS.
Peter loved our brother Paul (2Pe.3:15-17). Although some of Paul's writings are corrective and hard to understand, he held to God's moral principles as valid for mankind.
https://bibletopicexpo.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/paul-2-the-chameleon/
In other words, God can use an imaginary fairy or anything he chooses to come to us when we are in need. Whereas we must be alert and on guard for the mean cousins of life, they can unravel a child's mind that could take years to recover. Not to say God has not sent many different White Chameleons to me. (The good ones, not the puffed-up bad ones.) And then again, I have received some negative ones as well. It is a hit-and-miss world. Sometimes I rather think it's pure luck.
Nah, it can't be. This will probably be discussed at my next therapy session: "The fairy God sent for me to house, feed, and care for."
Maybe I won't mention this after all. Emoji laughing out loud.
Written 1-20-23
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