The Christmas season is soon upon us and with that comes the showing of every Christmas-related movie or animation possible until the blessed holiday has arrived. I, personally, have a love-hate relationship with "Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer." I love how the story ends with Rudolph being elevated to first reindeer position in the pack because of his "unique" quality. All of the other reindeer(no pun intended) get put in their place and Rudolph gets the admiration of Santa and gets the girl at the same time. Sweet! 
What I hated about the story was just how down right horrible it was to witness--in a Christmas animation--made for TV--geared towards children--Rudolph being unloved by his dad and not supported by his mother! And as if covering his red nose with a bunch of mud was going to make things better. Jeez Louise. Very, very traumatic to watch as a kid. But the story redeems itself by showing how Rudolph's unique little facial feature helps to save Christmas for everyone. It would have been cool to see Rudolph telling off his dad, but after all, it was a Christmas show, and it would have clouded the true meaning of the story.
And then, to make matters worse, viewers get to watch as Herman the elf gets bullied by his boss and the other elves because he doesn't want to do elf stuff. His heart just isn't into it and you can tell because he's not very good at making toys; it's not what he wants to do or be. He wants to be a dentist. He's passionate about teeth and dental care. He's read books about all things dental and has natural talent for the profession.
Conformity. That's the issue, and it still plagues mankind today. Especially in the church. Your specific gift, talent or ability may be given to you by God, but it may not be good enough for the church.
I call it "cookie cutter" Christianity. You must be a certain way, depending on what leadership decides what you will be. Or do. You may be just perfect in the eyes of God, but the church(in general) has standards that you must measure up to in order to be allowed to do anything for the church. It's so stupid and all the church does is shoot itself in it's own foot. And people are miserable; you can see it in their faces. So instead of a growing, vibrant body of Christ that is equipped with the ability to be all things to all people because of the vast variety of God-given abilities of it's members, we purposefully stifle the church's potential to breathe life into a depressed and dying world that longs for hope again. Now that's truly, truly tragic. The church would rather be stagnant than come alive and be a living fragrance of Christ and be used by him to bring about revival. Why Christians continue to cut their noses off to spite their face is beyond me. As John Wayne so wisely once stated: "Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid."
Just think about what would have happened if Rudolph and Herman had stayed put and accepted their lot in life. What would have happened if they would have let go of their inner passion to want and to be more? I'm telling you what would have happened...a major crisis of worldly proportion when those kids who worked so hard to be good all year long did not receive their gifts because Santa's flight got fogged in or, even worse, when Santa's sleigh crashes and his frozen dead body, along with all of his reindeer, and shards of wood from his decimated sleigh, are found by some family who was going over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house that Christmas day. The world would have been in utter turmoil.
Not to mention the fact that Santa and all the elves would have to deal with the consequences
of eating a diet high in sugar with no preventative or acute dental care available. Come on, who else in the entire world would be in the greatest need of a dentist then a population of people whose diet consists of cookies, milk, candy canes, egg nog, sugar plums and fruit cake? I'll tell you, if it wasn't for Herman's passionate self-study of dentistry, all those elves would be busy making wooded dentures instead of toys. Not to mention, that they all would probably die sooner secondary to disease that can come from untreated dental issues.
And let us not forget the discovery of true happiness when you are allowed to be what you really are meant to be; so beautifully portrayed by the most famous elf of all...Buddy(aka Will Farrell.) It was obvious to everyone that he was indeed NOT an elf, and the more he tried to be one, the worse he was at one. In his heart, Buddy was an elf, but physically he was human. Only when he embraced that fact and had his wonderful adventure in NYC, was it clear just how special he truly was. And not only did he help Santa, but he restored a broken family, and got the girl. See it pays to be who we really are meant to be. Not some mass-produced item made on an assembly line, but an individual crystalline snowflake, delicately designed by a master craftsman, made to go here or there, directed by it's maker.
So it is with great honor that I accept my misfit status. After all, Rudolph, Herman and Buddy share that fame, so I guess I'm in good company.
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