As I sat at home alone last night I decided to pour myself a glass of iced tea and watch (what was in my opinion one of the greatest movies of all time ever produced in this solar system) the movie Gladiator. I guess reading this new book on Ancient Roman history had me craving it. As I watched this movie I couldn't shake a nagging question in my mind. "Where have all the gladiators gone?" I mean, seriously! How come men don't live like this anymore?
Now before you get the wrong idea I'm not writing a blog about how men should slaughter others with swords more often, hold more simulated wars inside sports arenas, and be on a mission to kill Caesar and avenge his mentor's death.
What I am saying is it seems like young men don't live noble lives anymore. They don't stand for anything anymore. They don't passionately believe in anything anymore. Most men today wouldn't die for anything. Most men don't look at one another in the eyes and say in unison, "Strength and Honor!".
Strength and Honor. What if my life could be summed up in those two words? Instead of falling into this hollow worlds pit of lies and beinf a foolish man with only women, sex and money on my mind, what if I lived a life characterized by strength and honor?
There is a scene in Gladiator when Maximus has been marched out into the middle of the Roman Colisseum along with at least a dozen other slave-gladiators. It is announced that these men will fight whatever comes out of the gates. They will fight to the bloody death. Maximus stares ahead with passion as he asks the men who stand behind him, "Anyone here been in the army?". "Aye, sir", most respond back. Then in a moment of intense and firey leadership Maximus says, "You can help me. Whatever comes out of these gates..... we've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand? If we stay together we survive."
After the chillbumps left my arms I couldn't help but to ask myself why most men don't act like this anymore. How come men don't unite in battles against the evils of this world? Most men are living and working for the weekend instead of something much larger than themselves. Most men today are defined by heros like Borat and the fellas from Jackass instead of being defined by something that is worthy of honor and yes, even worthy of dying for. Most men would rather sit around and tap on their MySpace pages and Youtube instead of learning about the great men of history and what it was that made them great. Most men would rather be the empty-headed people in the stands of the Colisseum screaming for blood and entertainment instead of actually being Maximus and his small army, staring ahead and waiting patiently for the enemy to burst forth from its iron gate.
So what are we going to live for? For Maximus it was Rome. For us it's Jesus Christ. Where have all the gladiators gone? The world treats us like fools and expects us to be hypnotized and have our senses and passions numbed by the media it vomits out each day. GOD calls us to be the men he designed us to be. Gladiators ready and willing to fight and die for that which is true, noble, and eternal. Who stands up and fights for GOD anymore? It's time to be a Gladiator, boys. And one more thing:
"We've got a better chance of survival if we work together."
2 comments:
What you have identified is a lack of virtue among us Christians, today. You say that we are to live for Jesus. Great! But what does that mean?
The Early Church Fathers understood the Christian life, and life in the Church, as a return to the order of creation. By sinning, we become less than what we were created to be, but through repentence, we become human again.
But what do we do once we have repented? It is impossible to say, "I will never commit that sin again" unless one is able to replace that sin with virtue. Virtue, we must understand, is not simply a character trait. It is a strength, an ability, a faculty. We have lost this shade of meaning in English, but it is important that we get it back because there is very little talk of virtue among Christians today. Maximus shows great courage, but why does he also seem like a strong man? It is because that courage - this incredible virtue of his - is a strength.
The way we discuss our virtues has to do merely with what we are abstaining from. Being chaste, today, means not having sex, but in days gone by, chastity meant "whole-mindedness." It was not merely abstention, but the knowledge of what was truly important. This knowledge gave people the strength to resist sexual temptation, as well as temptation from other externals, such as food.
Thomas A Kempis, in his "Imitation of Christ," and St. John Climacus, in his "Ladder of Divine Ascent," agree that the Christian life is a life of repentence, and that we live in repentence by practicing and developing virtue. We cannot simply take something away (i.e. sin) without putting something in its place, and our wise men and women in the Church, of old, know that we have to replace sin with virtue.
Virtue is strength.
I like this comment. Very insightful!
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