Oh My, My Prince Harry!

"Hurrah! Hurrah" said Corin. "I shan't have to be King! 

I shan't have to be King! I'll always be a prince.

It's princes that have all the fun."

C.S. Lewis   The Horse and his Boy

This is not about Harry as much as it is about you and me.  Maybe C.S. Lewis hits the point of conformity for the prince not born to be king.  Let’s leave him to his grandmother—and good luck lad!  

The point is contrast.  Do you want to be English Royal blood, really?  You have a role to play and expectations to meet. Forget who you really are—the fundamentally human who can screw up and heaven help you!  So with that pressure, why not just go out and “uncover” who you really are?”  

Or, contrast that with St. John’s declaration—you are “children of God.”  John 1  Heaven will help you when you screw up.  You start life with the riches of God’s grace and your only purpose is to give them away—and by so doing, discover your soul’s true worth.  

Conformity versus Grace?  What do you want flowing in your veins? 

Have you watched that movie The Cider House Rules?  It stars Michael Caine and Tobey Maguire.  Michael Caine plays a doctor in an orphanage. Every night, he puts the orphans to bed by saying,  “Good night you kings and queens of Maine!”   He has also “adopted” an older orphan, played by Tobey Maguire, as a self-trained medical tech.  He raises him so that knows medicine so well, he does not have to conform to med school standards—he’s learned them, been given them as a gift. You guessed it.  Maguire eventually takes Caine’s place as the doctor at the orphanage…and he says goodnight every night—“You kings and queens of Maine!” 

I am not blaming Harry.  The guy is trapped in royalty that is tough to wear.  But what about us, our pure nakedness before God, in which he says “you are mine, yes really mine, my children.”