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It might have been there for months, but I started to notice it around Thanksgiving, when the temperature started dropping and swirling winds blew the leaves around from raked piles near the sidewalk; a motorcycle, a cruiser style.<\/p>\nIt might have been there for months, but I started to notice it around Thanksgiving, when the temperature started dropping and swirling winds blew the leaves around from raked piles near the sidewalk; a motorcycle, a cruiser style.<\/p>\n
A Honda REBEL.<\/p>\n
It was parked casually across the street from where I live. Didn\u2019t it know that it didn\u2019t belong on a midwestern street in December? Didn\u2019t it know it was bad for its shiny finish to be so exposed to the elements, when the thermometer was flirting with freezing temps?<\/p>\n
Didn\u2019t it know it belonged in a garage, or, at least, under a tarp?<\/p>\n
Or, wasn\u2019t that the point?\u00a0 Being so open and unabashedly itself \u2014 in plain view?\u00a0 Against expectations and norms?<\/p>\n
My mind retrieved the image of James Dean astride one of his legendary rides. It was rumored that he drove Jack Warner crazy during the filming of \u201cRebel Without a Cause\u201d racing his motorcycle around the backlot.<\/p>\n
His movie character, Jim Stark, became a symbol for the trials of middle-class teenagers feeling their way into their own lives and identities. It\u2019s funny, in retrospect, to think that Dean and the other troubled teens that occupied the story were considered to represent the \u201cmoral decay\u201d of society.<\/p>\n
Their parents might have considered their children\u2019s acts of rebellion unprovoked. But rather than categorizing them as juvenile delinquents, their behaviors, considering their less than \u201cOzzie and Harriet\u201d family lives, seem very understandable.<\/p>\n
I looked at this motorcycle, this Rebel<\/strong>, standing alone on a cold December afternoon for several minutes.<\/p>\n After James Dean, I thought about Jesus.<\/p>\n I was not raised to think of Jesus as the Son of God, nor am I a fan of the Church, but I feel an affinity for many of his teachings.<\/p>\n Love your neighbor. God loves you unconditionally. Live simply so that others can simply live\u2026<\/p>\n I also see Jesus as a \u201crebel,\u201d as the consummate DISRUPTER. To the men in charge, to the local rabbis and to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, he may have appeared to have little reason to stir things up so, inadequate \u201ccause\u201d for rejecting the institutions of his day.<\/p>\n But he did. He went against the norms and spoke in new ways. He seemed less interested in avoiding personal suffering than in encouraging others to believe in hope and love.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not suggesting everyone has the power to affect the world in a such a way, but I belief there would be many benefits if people embraced their inner rebel<\/strong> more, if people could step into the role of being a disruptor.<\/p>\n I think it would be great if people listened to their own truth and practiced radical acceptance.<\/p>\n Wouldn\u2019t it be great if people judged others and themselves less, if they pursued opportunities to grow more readily than step into habitual distractions or benign actions to avoid discomfort, if they cared less about pleasing others?<\/p>\n Of course, I\u2019m speaking of myself.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t help but think differently than others in the demographic groups in which I am usually included.<\/p>\n Expressing my point of view has become more important to me than growing an audience, at least if in growing an audience, I lose touch with my own delight.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not that in not gearing my decisions to what is \u201ctrending,\u201d I am rebelling for the sake of rejecting something.<\/p>\n I\u2019m just remembering that being myself is serving another purpose, a \u201ccause,\u201d even if I don\u2019t know what that is.<\/p>\n Trusting that everything that happens serves LIFE is no small thing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It might have been there for months, but I started to notice it around Thanksgiving,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[632],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-blog","grateful-dozen-self-appreciation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n