“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”
“DAAAAD! He’s doing it again!”
If you have siblings you may have had to cry this out once in awhile. Especially if you are the big brother, or the big sister, with a little brother or little sister in tow.
You remember how it went. You would be doing something, getting dressed, or putting on makeup, and when you turned around… there was your younger sibling copying you to a tee. If you yelled, “Get out of here!” It would cause the younger sibling to stick their tongue out and instead of copying you out of awe and reverence, they would contort their face into an ugly mimic of you… distorting every move you would make, every foot stomp out of the bathroom, mimicking every hand to hip reprimand of, “Cut it out you little brat!” expertly.
All because they just wanted to be… just like you.
Let me ask, “Have you ever fed the birds? Did your mom, or grandma have a bird feeder?”
If they did, and you were paying attention, you may have heard the “screech of a coopers hawk” and may have anxiously awaited to see a raptor come swooping in from nowhere and chase the song birds.
At the sound of the screech all the songbirds would explode out of the feeder, blasting thistle seeds and sunflower seeds out of the trough, and then the grey squirrel in the yard hauled butt up a tree. You looked quickly around and then all got quiet, “Here we go,” you may have thought to yourself. And then…
A blue-jay. Your regular, garden variety blue-jay, would glide gently into the feeder, flare his wings to stop, and land right on the edge of a full trough and have himself a feast.
You may have asked your mom or grandma, “Where is the coopers hawk?”
They would smile and say, “There ain’t no coopers hawk. It’s that smart aleck blue-jay mimicking a coopers hawk screech, to scare everybody out of the feeder so he can have it all to himself.”
The Blue-jay, The Viceroy butterfly – who mimics a Monarch butterfly (as a deterrent to being eaten because Monarchs are poisonous), or the Owl butterfly – with its large ‘eye dots’ (that make it resemble an owl) are all – actors, imitators, mimics.
The word mimic…
from our good friends over at OED
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=mimic
“one who, or that which… imitates,” 1580s, from Latin mimicus, from Greek mimikos “of or pertaining to mimes,” from mimos “mime” (see mime (n.)).
“The best way to have learned about the topics of being a dad, a man, and to have our minds strengthened… would have been to watch and learn from our own fathers what a dad, a man, and a strong mind can, and needs… to be.” ~ an excerpt from my up coming book The Definite Dad
From the time we are born all we do is mimic those around us. It’s how we learn.
As we grow, especially when we hit our teenage years, we rebel against that innate characteristic which allows us to be… the buzz word I’ve been exploring… SUCCESSFUL… in everything we do from walking and talking, to driving a car.
Whatever it is you do someone somewhere has done it before and you may have seen them doing it and decided to follow suit, but thinking you are not unique, or original… and because you feel trapped by your current situation, you want to explode, you don’t want to be like everyone else, so you’re going to, in the words of George Bailey,
“[Start] shakin’ the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum… “ ~ https://www.quotes.net/mquote/47924
But, alas… we never get the courage to get close enough to hear the train whistles, anchor chains, or “Thank You for flying Iberia Airways, now boarding, Flight 102 for Madrid.”
Or take a look at a popular card game.
In the game of Sheepshead you usually have a partner to FOLLOW and depending on what that partner LEADS with, the rules require you, and the other players, to follow suit, and to follow Trump or Fail if one or the other is the lead card.
For more info on the state card game of Wisconsin see…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheepshead_(card_game)
You are probably thinking right about now, “This is getting kinda long Dave, where are you going with this one?”
Your developing some perseverance, you got to over 700 words today before you got antsy 🙂
All things start from somewhere.
All things follow their innate characteristics as they grow.
Which they received from what… or… (this is important) who… came before them.
As I have set out to find success, and what it means, I have discovered a few things about myself. One of which is the kind of relationship I have with God. The God of The Bible. The God who revealed Himself to the world through His creation, His freeing of the Israelite’s, His miracles, and thankfully through His only Son.
We struggle with God on multiple levels. The easiest of those to see is on the surface. We don’t get along with God, His Son, or the Spirit because… we are mimicking those around us. We did not have any sort of model to imitate when it came to knowing Christ.
We know who he is. We know what he stands for and where he comes from, and He is our go to cuss word.
We just don’t have any information personally that makes us want to follow Him. We can see around us a whole lotta people NOT following Jesus. That example is as big as an Iowa corn silo. And so it is the path of least resistance.
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” ~ Book of Romans 8:29
When that verse sunk in (after a long, long time) my relationship with Him started to change also. You see, I’ve written before about coming from a large family, and I had been given the perfect training, a gift really, that I could apply to this new relationship, which is… my penchant to copy my older brothers. One in particular. The oldest.
I didn’t want to just be like him… I wanted to BE him. I learned that I could copy, imitate, and mimic him quite well.
So, with this training under my belt I started to read His Word in a new light. That of a little brother. I can do that real good. You may have seen those bracelets WWJD (what would Jesus do), I changed it to What Did Jesus Do… and then I copied that.
See the below article on 30 verses about ‘imitating.’
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Imitating
Now… I haven’t turned water into wine, I haven’t walked on water (unless ice fishing counts), nor have I healed a blind man… but I love the Father, I’m learning to listen to The Holy Spirit more and more, I show people compassion and mercy, I stand in the gap to protect those who for whatever reason are unable to protect themselves, I share my witness, loved my neighbor, and haven’t condemned anybody lately. All these things. All… just by watching Him. Imitating Him. Being a mimic at first, [and feeling funny about it, unlike that smart aleck blue-jay] until I just started doing it because that is who I have always been.
He made me that way. I just didn’t trust that at first. I believed the world instead… and was struggling as I was growing crooked, like a small River Birch being choked out by tall pines, and searching for the sun… when I could have been ‘on the beam’ with Him, my big brother, the whole time.
Oh my I was just going to say “Where are you going with this Dave?” AND THEN YOU SAID IT! And What you had to say was so well said, loved the set up and delivery on this one! You are really getting to be a good writer, the anticipation was satisfied by the ending…
Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it.