The story begins like this… a very eligible young man was searching for a suitable wife.
He came from a noble family, was both handsome and wealthy, and possessed character without reproach. He could have his pick of any maiden in the land. When he had found the young lady that he wished to marry he approached her father, a man of high character but meager means, to ask permission.
“Your daughter is sharp of mind, big of heart, solid of character and it would be an honor to spend my life with her and have her bear my children. I would like to offer you 100 camels for her hand in marriage.”
To which the father said, “I accept your offer but do not understand it. She is – shall we say – common looking. You are a man who could choose the most beautiful woman in the land, and offer her father only 10 camels and that would be suitable. Why do you overpay for my daughter?”
“I want her to spend the rest of her life thinking of herself as a 100 camel wife.”
The groom was giving his wife a gift of self esteem. When people whispered, they’d whisper at her value…what is it, they’d wonder, that rated so many camels? More beautiful women would address her with curious awe, that this plain woman was worth so much more than they. First time I read that story I was in my 20’s and took it as wisdom, as That Me would’ve.
But that me ain’t this me, and neither is my thinking.
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What Happens When Everybody Is Worth A Hundred Camels?
In the decades of my life I’ve seen us transform from tough people (maybe too tough), into this jello of feel-goodiness that has no foundation to support it. It’s the everybody-gets-a-trophy thinking. It’s a graduation ceremony from Pre-K…I mean c’mon, is that worthy of a ceremony? They can’t even color between the lines yet.
Parents are dropping $500 on baseball bats as if their little boys will be less likely to pop up to short with the bases loaded as their poorer friends, who only swing $250 bats…meanwhile in the Dominican Republic little boys do as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb did, swing broom handles at rocks…
Getting braces used to be a big improvement. Now girls are getting boob jobs as high school graduation gifts!
It’s Jones Keeping Up With, American style, circa now. Everywhere I look I see 100 camels.
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To Hold Up It Has To Be True
How we see ourselves only rates if it’s true. As much as the 100 Camel story touches my sentimental button, it falls short of the Deep Stuff.
The clearest thinking place I’ve ever been was when rock bottom proved not bottom enough, and down I went and kept on wenting. There’s an honesty available when you get down low that is easier to use when you have little to lose.
With no audience for airs, with no point in keeping up appearances I thought I’d give cold blooded honesty a try. I prayed honest. I’ve made a mess! I am a mess! Thanks for my life, but I don’t blame You if You landfill me and give my spot to somebody new!
It was there, in my surrendered mind, for the first time in my life, that I understood the concept of grace. All that 2000-years-ago-in-Jerusalem stuff, it’s just words, until you’re ripe. Even as I was, a bunch of life lived, and nothing to show but Humpty Dumpty, even then I had value, by God Himself, and there’d have been a Good Friday and the first Easter, even for just-me.
That place right there…there ain’t enough camels for that.
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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we think any esteem not based on a cross and an empty tomb is junk esteem.
Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com. Look for other Uncle P Bedtime Stories on Eighty-one’s Facebook page.
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