Avoiding us.

What would have been if Frederick had been left to passionately pursue literature, music, and culture? It brought him life, and inner freedom. It identified him to himself. Within the magic of the arts the heart felt growth and passion. Somberness could be dazzled into wonder, and common interests formed among members of the royal court. It’s potential to shape the minds and hearts of important people could not be understated – especially among the young elite.

The cruelty of fate instead placed him firmly in the most military minded family and nation of 18^th century Europe, where structure, discipline, war, tactics, and Machiavellian logic were forced into his daily routine, education, and relationships. The bright light of the arts suffered the cold, dry, butchering blows of “necessity” and obligation – and as he grew older, his attempts to desperately escape this brutally forced perspective and life took hold of him.

He tried to flee the country with his friends, but they were caught and charged as deserters (since they were all in the military)

Then he was forced to watch his best friend and confidant (of perhaps scandalous proportion) be beheaded at his father’s order. Fate had won, as his resolution to escape this darkness had now been annihilated.

It sounds a little like fiction, and yet a version of this seems to be the pattern in many people’s lives. The cruelty of the same type of fate as Fredrick also reaches with a hand of doom into the childhoods of many people. The opposite of all that we aspire and desire to be violently presents itself to oppose all that we identify ourselves by – and raises itself as a powerful counter to all that we desire.

Because it seems so, our virtues align with our positive ideals. Maybe a person passionate about education must suffer an upbringing in coal mines. Maybe no one understands the deep desire for a vocation of carpentry in a family of intellectuals. Maybe, even, it is simply the desire for the relevant things we do and say to be heard and seen in the midst of abusively neglectful friends and family.

Who in their right mind says “my name is Jim, and I am a man who is ignored. It is a part of who I am.” Here’s another: “A huge part of me is being a person diminished by others in important ways.” Even Alcoholics Anonymous introductions are lightyears better on the ears: “My name is Earl, and I am an alcoholic”

Instead we attempt to create relevance in those who meet us. It ensures that we are esteemed well, that we are not abused or mishandled, and worst of all, that we are not treated in the same way that Cruel Fate had done in our upbringing/difficulties. “Hi, I’m Jessica, and I write books for a living”. “I’m Sam, and I’m passionate about woodworking”.

We do this to hide our insecurities and pain that Cruel Fate had thrust upon us. We are not respectable if we are weak, even if that concept doesn’t always appear in crystalized thought. No one -not even ourselves- will take us seriously if we are a picture of frailty. We might even be tempted to destroy the parts of ourselves which appear so, in order to prioritize the good-feeling versions of ourselves. We, in essence, avoid ourselves, to our inside world, and then to the outside world. We avoid us.

Yet Frederick, whom I introduced at the beginning, was not just celebrated for becoming an enlightened ruler, but as a military genius, who won important wars. “Hi, I’m Frederick, and I love art, but I learned to love its opposite, even if it happened by way of brutality”. Enlightenment is of great use but has no purpose if it cannot be defended. You don’t quote lofty philosophical ideals to a sword threatening to behead you. Because Frederick had the two legs of fulfilled passion of the arts, and acceptance of Cruel Fate of militancy, he was dubbed “Frederick The Great”, for his exploits in both areas, which, maybe unbeknownst to him in his youth, existed as necessary opposites in his life. He stopped avoiding the child beaten by militarism, and embraced it, and grew in literacy of it, and consequently won wars.

You are maybe a divorcee, who must embrace separation, grow in literacy of independence, and powerfully walk in individuality, to also keep your uniqueness alive in a future relationship. Maybe you are an only child, who must embrace solitude, in order to fend off destructive forms of inclusivity. Maybe you were abused, and must embrace the hurt child inside, in order to learn to find the inner gumption to throw a fist (so to speak), when abusive people come into power – especially due to your obsessive quest for an abuse-free life.

An immortal took the form of mortality, lived encapsulated in human flesh and bone, suffered the pains it gave him, and the desires it attempted to dictate to him. He was mistaken for “just” human. Diminished, outlawed, rejected, hated, beaten, gored, suffocated, buried – and accepted all of it by choice, and in its midst healed, encouraged, rebuked (that which is evil), bequeathed purpose, belonging, adoption. He bound up broken hearts, freed the oppressed, and saved the rejected – including the parts of us we have alienated to ourselves. Jesus embraced Cruel Fate in His life, and it led to the salvation of everyone who believed in Him.

Embrace the version of you that is hurt from diminishment, abuse, neglect, rejection. Become a student of the pain, so you can find healthy versions of strength in its midst. Let it mold you and then let it exist as an equal to the desires and feel-good versions of yourself you prefer. It’ll make you great. (but do it with the Lord). Accept the pain as a friend, and see whatever passion or fantasy you use to self-medicate as a force that threatens your self-control. Frederick the Great wasn’t Jesus, and neither are we, but we are still His children, growing and aspiring to be of like mind, heart, and action, so we can also win wars.

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