[n., adj. reb-uhl; v. ri-bel]  Show IPA noun,adjective, verb, re·belled, re·bel·ling.


1. a person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in armsagainst the government or ruler of his or her country.

2. a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition.

A term synonymous with trouble, chaos, and stubbornness. The idea to rebel makes older generations cringe and newer generations exceedingly look for ways to challenge authority.

It is our nature to rebel.

As sinful, nasty humans we do it on a daily basis. God told Adam and Eve, “Don’t eat the fruit from ONE tree.” What did they do? They ate the fruit, and then tried to lie about it. The rest is history, we are a creature that is bent on the idea of rebellion. We patronize and glorify ‘just’ actions in the multiple wars, we romanticize it in the Civil War, and we accept it as just a part of our genetic code. Without rebels there wouldn’t be electricity, the United States, and possibly television.

Heaven have mercy if that happened.

While the term may be ran in line with all things considered ‘negative’ within ones culture and domain, in the sense of my past year of life; rebel as become one of my favorite words. Not necessarily because I have enjoyed being the Christian with ‘the deadly flaw to my permanent record’, but more so in the fact that I was given every reason to conform to the standard policy of reaction to a divorce.

I chose to rebel.

Without pointing fingers, and without cursing the world around you, I’ve come to conclusion that one of the requirements for divorce acceptance and growth from it, is being able to rebel. As mentioned several times through, my parents [all of them] demonstrated to me the standard, American divorce: argue over who gets what property [including the child…aka…property], fight tooth and nail about every dime, just to ‘stick it to them’, use your ‘property’ as a carrier pigeon to do recon work for you between visits at your house and the ‘enemies’, and finally and most importantly; talk as poorly about the other individual as much as possible in order to feel better about yourself, and pray your ‘property’ will manifest into a human and despise the ‘enemy’ as much as you do. And like yourself; will never let it go.

That’s the standard, and while I’ll openly admit that my dad and I do not see eye-to-eye still to this day, I still made the opportunity to not follow suit of my parents. I was given every reason to despise the pastor that ‘mediated’ for my ex-wife and I, my ex-wife’s family, and of course; her. I was, and like Job, I can’t tell you how many people…how many ‘Godly’ people, explained to me that I had the rational right to hate my ex-wife. For a change, I was given a get out of jail free card, no one would think less of me if I chose the road most commonly travel.

Praise God I enjoy Robert Frost way too much to let that happen.

While the world, my family and friends may have accepted my request to hate those around me, myself…and more importantly; God, Himself would be heartbroken at my choice. Now, I’ve made my mistakes and do not have a perfect track record, but as explained to Darco several times through. She is a new Christian, what kind of image would I portray by explaining to her that not only am I ‘justified’ to hate, but I’m justified to hate another Christian? Tell me, in sound logic, how we can explain this process? We can’t? So why do we continue to the same process on a daily basis, at an epidemic rate?

With so many thoughts along these lines, the hardest, but quickest move I made, while the dust was still fading from the fallout of the divorce, was to rebel, be different, take a different road [not always the higher one], and shock the world.

Being a rebel means going against the grain, and sometimes; the grain is spoiled and a little rebellion is needed.

Realization number one: rebel from standard expectations and try something different. I think after one year we’ve got quite a bit to show for what the mindset tends to demonstrate.



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