If Statues Could Speak

Some folks are unhappy with the large new statue erected on the grounds of our local university.

It is a likeness of Captain Christopher Newport, after whom that school and our city were named. He commanded that first English expedition to Virginia in 1606-07 and subsequently made several other journeys from England to our shores when the colony was young.

It bothers some of our citizens that this monument portrays the captain as virile and robust, with both arms fully in place, when history clearly documents that he lost his right arm in a tough fight with 2 Mexican treasure ships at the beginning of his career as a privateer. What riles a lot of people is the inaccuracy of it. Others are probably offended by what they perceive as an attempt to hide a handicap, to tidy up the image of someone who, in his natural state, is at less than his best. Thus, a slap in the face to anyone who is physically challenged in some way.

I’m not taking sides in this controversy. I like the impressive look of this iron representation as I drive by it on a daily basis. At the same time, I suppose that those who are disappointed at this production do have some valid arguments.

This whole business has gotten me to think, though, about life and faith. There’s a powerful metaphor here. Some lessons emerge.

For starters, we are indeed strange creatures.

Sometimes we actually like to see someone else fall or stumble or get hurt. It might be a celebrity or a high-profile person or just a next-door neighbor. We inwardly smile at their misfortune or mistake because we’re envious of them. Or because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Proverbs 24: 17-18 issues a pretty sobering warning about that kind of attitude.
At other times we tend to put well-known personalities or ordinary acquaintances on a pedestal, thinking they could do no wrong. Assuming that they’ve got all the answers and have found the secret to success. Believing that they don’t grapple with the problems we face. That’s a fantasy, though, that sets us up for disappointment or disillusionment. Nobody is perfect or free from heartache. The occasional, surreal glimpse of a tow truck pulling a disabled ambulance pictures that for us.

None of us will make it through our earthly pilgrimage without getting wounded. In various ways we’ll get beat up and tossed around and torn by the myriad stresses and struggles that come with being human. In both body and soul we’ll be hurt and scarred and perhaps even disfigured. We’ll lose stuff along the way that meant a lot to us. I’m curious if mariner Newport thought his best days were over when he lost that arm.

Our pain and our losses and our battle injuries become part of our story, our biography. They are just as significant and as formative as the happy, whole, positive portrait we usually try to present to those around us in the hope that they will think that we have it all together. We don’t like defeats. We don’t enjoy vulnerability. But our weakness and failures and illnesses and deprivations are some of the tools that God uses to shape us and make us richer, stronger individuals. He sometimes applies trials and afflictions to work bad things out of us and at other times to develop good qualities into us. That’s why Paul was able to say in 2 Corinthians 12 that he would boast of the weaknesses in his life because they demonstrated that God was active in his experience.

One day, in Heaven, our wounds and handicaps and sicknesses and sorrows will be gone. We’ll possess wonderful new resurrection bodies with unimaginable abilities and powers. We’ll look so good! And we’ll feel so good, too, with energy that never dissipates.

I just wonder if even there, though, traces of our scars and blows might not be evident. Jesus, in his glorified body, still possessed the nail prints (John 20). The hymn-writer speaks of “those wounds yet visible above, in beauty glorified”. It may be that tracks of our troubles will still be dimly seen in our changed physiques as trophies of God’s grace and as reminders that it was our adversities that really molded our godly character. Perhaps there, for the first time, we’ll realize that we all wrestled with something. In the same boat after all.

Stand tall in your wholeness, Captain Newport. You show us our future. We’d be just as proud of you, though, if your right limb was missing.