Dangerous.

A while ago, oh I suppose it was a year ago, my dear friend Eliza—you know her, and you can read about some of our adventures here and here--

Eliza and I in the blessed summer.

She said to me “You know, I woke up the other morning and was lying in bed and the first thought that came to my mind was ‘B is probably my fanciest friend.’ And it’s true: you are my fanciest friend.”

Ha. What a doll. I don’t know what exactly it is that she thinks about me is fancy, but I take it as a compliment.

Then, a few months later, I was having a wee dinner party and she said to another friend, “There is a fine line between fancy and dangerous; and B chooses to walk it.”

We all laughed. I still laugh.

But just recently it made me think a new thought. I hadn’t quite understood what she meant at the time but I think I do now.

A few months back I was flying from the desert to Texas (be still my beating heart), and I had an experience that must have been God-ordained, because now I know the meaning of “there is a fine line between fancy and dangerous.”

The story goes that I was sitting at my gate when in walks this woman.

If I say she was 6’1’’ when she was barefoot I don’t think that would be an exaggeration.
And then she had 4 inch heels on.
Along with a leopard print shirt, the most beautiful long blond hair, a big wedding ring, two cute, blond sons…and the most fabulous magenta pants.
Not yoga pants….goodness sakes no. Those will never be described as fabulous. But these really great, capri-type, magenta pants.

And I don’t think it was just her height or outfit or the fact that she was more model-esque than anyone else I had ever seen in person, but if I walked in wearing the following stunning outfit it could not have possibly turned more heads:

 

Not a chance.

And some of you won’t believe this, I know, but the ENTIRE mood of the terminal changed. All of the men didn’t know what to do with themselves, all of the women pursed their lips and straightened their backs and got theses really nasty looks on their faces. People pointed and started whispering to the people next to them, others turned around to look at her again.

And she, well, she just walked in and found three empty seats and sat down and waited with her sons for the airplane to start boarding. Like the rest of us.

I was in the last group to be boarded. I was actually the last person to get on the airplane, if we want to be technical. As I am approaching what I assume to be my seat—seeing that it is the only empty seat on the plane—there is a flight attendant standing right next to it. And who is sitting in the seat next to me?

You guessed it: Mrs. Magenta Pants.
“I think that’s mine,” I said to the attendant.
“Oh good. We have been waiting for you,” she replied in not the friendliest of tones.

The deal was that MMP (Mrs. Magenta Pants) was sitting next to me, but her sons were across the aisle…with a strange woman. They were waiting for me to see if we could all do a little scramble.

Of course we could.
I am not one of those to put up a fight at the airport.
So, alas, MMP sat ACROSS the aisle from me, not next to me.

Shucks.

I was hoping to chat with her.

But I noticed something.

The women who were sitting in the seats around us, especially the other woman who had to scramble her seat, seemed annoyed.
Not an annoyed like, “Oh my gosh this is going to keep me from my connecting flight,” but like an “I can’t believe you are accommodating this woman. This woman who has the audacity to be over 6 feet tall AND wear heels AND have long blond hair AND wear animal print AND magenta pants.”
My face had a contorted look, no doubt. Why all the annoyance? I wondered.
She hadn’t done anything. The airline had separated her from her young sons. Of course she wanted to sit by them. Yeah….hello.

But then I knew. I knew why they all were annoyed or angry or defensive or whatever they were:

Because they thought she was dangerous. She had offended them.
No, not dangerous like she was going to commit some crime on board and not offended like she had said anything nasty, but dangerous like she possessed some power over the other women and would offend them at any minute. A power to make them feel LESS simply by her being there. Being there on vacation. With her sons. In her magenta pants.

The nerve…

Yet, throughout the flight I got to watch her quite a bit (since she was just across the row from me), and by the time we had our drink service I knew beyond speculation that there was nothing dangerous about her at all. I was not offended.

Yes. She was tall. Yes she was beautiful and blond and had magenta pants on. But that was all. She sat there reading a book, being what appeared to be a really good mom, she had really well behaved kids. Her sons seemed to adore her, too, for as we were waiting to get off the plane they started giving her lots of kisses. And they were just giggling and laughing, she was trying to quiet them down so as not to make a scene.

No. She was not dangerous, I decided. She was, in fact, just fancy.

But as I was thinking about this over the last few months I thought, “What a shame. All of those other people didn’t get to see her be a mom on vacation. They just saw this gorgeous woman walk in who intimidated them and they wrote her off. She was dangerous to them….or so they thought.”

Have you ever had a situation like this happen?

Maybe not with a model on an airplane, but what about someone who is in your occupation field and they are better at whatever skill than you—and they walk into the same room you are in and your spine just bristles? Or maybe someone who plays some sport better than you, sings some song better than you, cooks better than you, teaches better than you,  is smarter than you?
Or someone at least that you PERCEIVE to be better….?

Before we even know it we set our chins and straighten our backs and start pointing and whispering to our neighbors.
We have decided in our minds that they are….dangerous.

Not fancy, smart, talented, skilled, well-educated….but dangerous.
Dangerous because they intimidate us. Because we feel they possess a power over us. They make us feel LESS. Like we don’t quite measure up.
I think that is what was happening in the airport that day.
The silliest thing, though, is that she didn’t DO anything that should have made all of us women think she was dangerous.
She just walked in and sat down. Like the rest of us.

Here is the catch, I think, after praying about this for a time:
We all EXPECTED her to make us feel less. We all were waiting for HER to straighten her back, purse her lips, and look down her nose that height-induced distance at US. We were waiting for her to do something, say something, or make some show that clearly said to the rest of us, “None of you are as pretty as me and therefore not as important as me. You know it, I know it, and I therefore am better than you are.”

I’m not joking.

That’s what it is. Plain and simple.
We all thought that she thought she is better than us. And therefore the terminal decided that they didn’t like her.
Why? Because we all assumed she was like that woman in Ezekiel 16:15 who “trusted in {her} beauty.”

See, that’s where the dangerous comes from. From where the TRUST is. Throughout our lives, and this is why we thought this about her, we have all come across people who are good at something, or who are attractive, or fancy, or rich or whatever, and they have misplaced their trust in that thing. And then they go ahead and LORD it over us; look down on us for not being up at their level. We know this, we feel this whenever they are around: they want us to know that they have won, leaving us to feel like failures. In turn, they have become dangerous to us, because they have wounded us with their pride. For whatever you put your trust in your pride will also be found in, I am convinced. Why else would Paul say, and thus set for us the example: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” What was he boasting about? Surely not a pride of salvation! No! He was boasting about the only thing we should: that we are in the Lord, and that being not a work of our own hands or abilities or talents…or fanciness.

So I have to ask you—because I have to ask myself—are there things in your life that you have put your trust in, resulting in a pride of possession which you lord over others? Are you dangerous to others?

Listen, possessing those things is not the problem. You being talented, smart, successful, fancy, whatever is not the problem. It goes back to that gift thing I talked about: if you possess it, you have probably been given it TO USE FOR THE KINGDOM, but how easily we slip from trusting in the Giver to the gift, and lording the gift over someone as if we had anything to do with possessing it in the first place. How easily we cross the line from fancy…to dangerous.

Anyway, it’s something to think about.