When I was growing up, my Aunt Marie had a parrot. He was the quintessential parrot. He had a green body, red and yellow on his head, and just a touch of the prettiest violet color I’d ever seen.
His name was Pretty Boy.
During the summer months, Aunt Marie would travel, and my grandmother would parrot sit when she did.
I always loved it when she did. Grandmother, though, wasn’t the biggest fan of Pretty Boy. When he didn’t get enough attention, he would squawk loudly. If there was ever a siren on the television that Pretty Boy could hear, he would mimic the police, ambulance, or fire truck siren. His siren always lasted much longer and was always much louder than what was on the television.
My grandmother appreciated quiet. She even wrote a song about quiet… some of the words were…
“I love the quiet, beautiful quiet; that’s when my Lord speaks to me… in the still of the night, or the early morning light, whenever my quiet time will be, that’s when my Lord speaks to me.”
You can hear her love for quiet in those lyrics, and Pretty Boy didn’t fit the quiet she enjoyed so much.
As we got older, we began asking Grandmother if Pretty Boy could stay at our house instead of hers, and she quickly agreed.
So, from then on, Pretty Boy would come to stay with us whenever Aunt Marie went on vacation.
We learned many of his idiosyncrasies… he loved Bryan Brand Garlic Bologna. He didn’t want the plain or the thick cut, only the garlic. If you couldn’t find the garlic bologna, he wouldn’t eat it. He ate a small piece of apple every day, but if he dropped it on the bottom of his cage, he wouldn’t eat the rest of it. He ate sunflower seeds, and watching him take off the shell and eat the inside was comical.
He loved to give himself a bath in his water.
He had several phrases that he repeated many times a day. His favorite thing to say was, “Hello, Pretty Boy.” He also said, “Do ya’ll live in Little Rock.” He would holler “Momma, momma” until you came to see him. But his favorite game was this… he would say, “Scratch your head,” and then lean his head against the cage. We would reach in and scratch his head, and he would almost purr. His pupils would get small and large again as he enjoyed his head scratch… until… he was done. And then, without warning, he would quickly raise his head and bite you, and then he would giggle.
He did this every single day.
My Aunt Marie was a very polite lady. She spoke kindly, and she didn’t use crass words.
But.. when Pretty Boy would snap and bite my finger, I would say, “You old fart.”
We played this game every day, many times each day…him saying “Scratch your head”, me scratching is head, him biting me and then me saying “You old fart”…
And guess what Pretty Boy did. Yep, he learned that phrase, “you old fart,” and he began using it in his word collection. So now, when you scratched his head, he would purr, bite, giggle, and then say… “you old fart”.
One year, he stayed at our house the entire summer. So, he spent a considerable amount of time with my family. He listened and learned from the things we said.
When he went home, we were all sad because we missed him.
But he took a small part of us home with him… the next time my Aunt Marie scratched his head, much to her polite surprise, he said, “You old fart.”
And she asked my grandmother where he learned it, and grandmother told her that it was me and my brother who most likely taught him to say the new phrase. I don’t know if my Aunt Marie thought it was quite as funny as we did. She never told us. But she definitely heard a new phrase from her parrot after his time with us.
Why would I tell a story about a parrot named Pretty Boy?
First of all, I like sharing stories, but today I was thinking about Pretty Boy and how much I miss him. And I was thinking about how Parrots work, how they can’t develop words and phrases independently; they just repeat what they’ve heard from humans.
Pretty Boy never voiced an original word… he just repeated the things we said to him over and over.
For many years, my Christian walk was nothing more than a parroting of everything I heard from the pulpit, read from books, or heard people I love and trust.
I knew all the right things, all the correct words… I could put Christianity in a nice little box and tie it with a bow.
I liked it that way.
I had an answer for everything, but those answers were ones that I parroted. They were things I had been taught through the years.
But, when we left Tree Town and my whole world had been turned upside down, yet again, I didn’t know what to think, what to believe, or even who to believe.
My one constant was Jesus. I never once doubted His existence, sacrifice, or love for me.
But everything else was on the table for discussion. All the things I had “parroted” were up for debate and clarification through scripture.
Here’s what I decided… I decided that I wanted to parrot what Jesus says. I wanted the validity of what I believe to come through scripture, not man.
There are people who will speak into our lives. Some will be loud, some will be quiet, some will say things repeatedly, as a good teacher does. But still, it’s ok to question those things for ourselves.
The Christian walk is personal. It’s me and Jesus… and Jesus doesn’t mind me asking questions along that walk.
I think we’ve been taught that questioning is wrong. I disagree. I think questioning is healthy.
God is strong enough to handle our questions. And I think growth comes through questions.
It’s the same as learning from your parents as a child. I know I’ve been around kids who seem to ask a million questions. And even when those questions can be annoying, we, as parents, realize this is how children learn.
And we definitely parrot what our parents say for some years of our lives. For a period of time, it’s all we know to do.
But at some point, we have to decide who we are and what we believe aside from them.
We have to grow up.
And suppose after asking those questions and seeking those answers we realize that what we always thought was true actually wasn’t based on scripture at all. And now what if those beliefs don’t align with what we’ve been taught by our pastor, parents, or others who have influenced our lives.
In that case, we need to know why we disagree or believe differently, not just parrot someone else’s words.
It’s good to listen to pastors we trust, authors we trust, and even our parents, but their voice isn’t the final authority.
God’s voice is.
At my husband’s childhood church, the red-headed pastor told us that we could not study Calvinism for ourselves. He said he had studied it in detail and because he was the pastor he would tell us what to believe. It was too dangerous of a topic for a regular believer.
The same pastor told us that we should only read and study the King James Version of the Bible. Some pastors tell the congregants that they should only wear long sleeves and that women should only wear dresses. Some pastors teach that taking a sip of alcohol is a sin. Others say you should attend church a minimum of 3 times each week. Still, others say that if you give an extreme amount of money to their ministry, you will, in return, receive health, wealth, and happiness.
There are all kinds of beliefs out there. David Koresh confidently spoke and convinced his followers that he was the Messiah. Jim Jones convinced his followers to commit mass suicide. Scientologists believe in everything that L. Ron Hubbard wrote. Mormons believe in the writings of Joseph Smith.
People believe what they hear repeatedly, and they, in turn, repeat what they hear.
I heard someone teach one time on personal conviction. After studying the topic on my own, I realized that beliefs and convictions can easily differ from one person to the next. Maybe what is okay for one person isn’t okay for the next. Perhaps God gives specific convictions to specific people.
I’m not talking about the things that can be defined in black and white and the things that are clearly and completely right or wrong. There are many absolutes.
But there are nuances and slight differences that can be personal convictions.
So there’s some room for personal interpretation.
Here’s a very elementary example:
Maybe to one person saying the word crap is not something they feel is okay for them to do. Maybe the crude talking the Bible speaks about to them means anything that resembles a perceived cuss word.
But for me, I’ve studied it for myself, and after reading, I think that “cuss” words are man-made and have nothing to do with the crude talk that is mentioned in scripture. Instead, I believe that crude talk pertains to speaking grossly about sexual things or even making fun of someone or belittling someone… but I think the use of the word shit is just another word. Of course, many don’t agree, and that’s okay.
Alcohol is another example. Some people think even a sip of alcohol might send them to hell or cause another believer to stumble. I don’t believe that way. The ideas about alcohol and how alcohol should exist in the life of a Christian that are prevalent in my area of the world are much more influenced by the Evangelical Bible Belt, the part of the country we live in, and the way we were raised more than scripture.
In many people’s minds, not drinking any form of alcohol is a way to abstain from the appearance of evil. And they will sometimes even take it to another level… If drunkenness is a sin, then maybe it’s best to not touch alcohol at all, they would say. So then in turn they would say we should stay out of places that serve alcohol or not hang with others who drink alcohol.
And if that’s how someone interprets scripture, that’s fine… that is their personal conviction. Those people will get no judgment from me. If they want to completely abstain from alcohol, that’s their choice.
I don’t feel that way, though. I think the Bible teaches that alcohol, when it is respected and understood, can be a good part of your life. I read that Jesus attended a wedding where alcohol was served. He stayed until they ran out of wine and then made them some more. So, if we live by the What Would Jesus Do method, then… well, He enjoyed a good wedding that served alcohol. And I have no reason to believe that He would have abstained from drinking some wine Himself.
These are just two examples. But these two things are so prevalent in the area I live. Remember the quote I used early on in the blog when I described how some people would jokingly say… “I don’t smoke, and I don’t chew, and I don’t go with boys who do.” Another unspoken one would sound more like, “I don’t cuss, and I don’t drink, and I don’t care what you think.”
There is little to no opportunity or want to think outside the box or ask the questions. It’s easier to parrot things. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
There are so many more things that I’ve had to deconstruct. Things that I always thought were scriptural but were actually just things I was repeating that I heard others preach and teach.
That’s why it’s so important to not just parrot the things we’ve been taught, but to dig deep and study for ourselves. And not be afraid to do so.
I would still fear the rapture if I only believed what I had been taught in church as a small child. I would think I needed to remember every word of my salvation prayer to be assured a home in heaven. I would feel like I had to confess every sin to avoid punishment after taking communion. I would still be living in fear.
If I only believed what I learned in my husband’s childhood church, I would be a tee-totalling, King James version-only reading, judgmental, legalistic, box-checking Christian. And I would still be living in rebellion to those teachings.
If I only believed what I learned in Tree Town, I would be a club-attending, box-checking, busy, pastor-pleasing Christian. And I would still be exhausted and empty.
Christianity should be a growing part of your life. There’s room for changing your ideas and thoughts. As you grow and learn, changing your mind about some things is okay. It really is. We don’t stay the same when we grow.
I don’t want to be a parrot anymore. I don’t want to believe anything based only on what man, culture, or a church teaches.
I want to question all the additives and be left only with the necessary ingredients.
And maybe my grandmother was right about the quiet.
Perhaps we can hear from God more clearly when we remove all the squawking.
Maybe stepping away from all the noise is the best way to hear from God.
Pretty Boy was one of my favorite animals. I loved him dearly, and when he passed away, I was very sad.
I missed his talking and his shenanigans.
Suppose I were to get a parrot for myself (which will never happen because Jeremy says we absolutely cannot have parrot). In that case, I’m sure the new parrot would learn a different set of phrases than Pretty Boy knew. Our parrot would probably know to say something like “Shut up, Todd,” or “Daddy’s home,” or maybe even “You old fart.” He would probably know some choice cuss words, but his phrases would be limited to the things he heard in our house.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a parrot… I don’t want to sit in a room, in a cage, eat whatever I’m fed, only learn the words repeated to me, and I certainly don’t want to eat the same slice of garlic bologna every single day… I want to fly, I want to soar, I want to be free… Free in Christ.
Pretty Boy lived a full life but never knew the life outside his cage. He didn’t even know what he was missing.
So many thoughts… can a church be a proverbial cage… is a cage of “protection” sometimes an excuse to keep someone from having their own thoughts and ideas…
Those are ideas to flesh out in another post, but today… well today I’ll just say,
Until Next Time,
Whitney