ON FITTING OTHERS TO OUR SIZE

Procrustes was a nickname, meaning Stretcher, given to Polypemon, a robber in Greek legend. As a highwayman he would tie wayfarers to his iron bed. He had a compulsion to make everyone fit his bed. If they were too short he stretched their limbs; if they were too long he cut them down to his size. Procrustes lives on as a model for those who would distend or diminish people so that they will conform to their own image. As the Stretcher, he was the “cookie cutter” of the ancient world, expanding and contracting people so they would all be alike, just like him.

Modem society as well as ancient Greece has its Procrustes’. Forced conformity is endemic to modem institutions. Whether a soldier in the army, a professor in a college, a preacher in the pulpit, or a politician in an elective office, it is almost impossible to be different, to be one’s own person. There is always a Procrustes around. He may not force his way by the sword as did the ancient Grecian robber, but he has other ways of conforming people to his iron bed, sometimes money, sometimes social pressure. It is the nature of this world, which might be called “the System,” to try to squeeze us into its mold.

There is probably something of Procrustes in all of us. We don’t want people to be different from ourselves, and we tend to avoid people who are. We have our values that we want others to conform to, even when we have not critically examined those values. We are not all that different from chickens in a barnyard who will peck the “ugly duckling” to death. We don’t want others to become either too smart or too dumb, but “just right” like ourselves. Mediocrity is often one of our iron beds. It is the Procrustes in us that causes us to resent excellence, and so we cut people down to our size.

The Procrustean attitude is a disease of the heart, a form of evil. If evil can be defined as forcing others to conform to our mold as an escape from our own failures and insecurities, or our narcissism (inordinate self love), then the Procrustes in us is evil. We become what Dr. M. Scott Peck calls “people of the lie.” These are people who will destroy others, in spirit if not in body, in order to avoid self-scrutiny. In his book by that title Dr. Peck shows how parents sometimes kill the spirit of their own children in an effort to force conformity.

People of the lie, Dr. Peck says, are those who think only of themselves and never consider the feelings of others, even when they are their own children. Peck notes that people of the lie never sit down and talk with their children about their feelings, their desires, their hurts, their fears. This is because they are too concerned with protecting their own feelings, he says. Self-deception is the essence of narcissism and Procrusteanism.

Procrustes also lives on in the churches of today. He has moved his operation from the highways of ancient Greece to the corridors of ecclesiastical institutions.

Every sect and faction in Christendom has its own iron bed to which it would force all others to conform. Each one is indulging in self-deception, arrogating to itself some such claim as “the only true church,” and it forces those within its power to “size up” or “size down” to its own bed. The lie that it goes on telling is that we have to be alike, cookies made from the same cutter. This is what ailed Procrustes, who was deceived into supposing that everyone had to be just his size. Like the ancient robber, we are slow to see that there are beds beside our own.

The lie that assails us cannot be overcome until we accept the fact that we can no more see everything alike than we can look alike. Even those who demand conformity disagree among themselves. We overcome the lie by accepting the liberating principle of unity in diversity, which is the only kind of unity there is. It is the unity of the Bible. We must learn to settle the less crucial issues (the non-essentials) the way the earliest Christians settled them, by disagreeing agreeably. When the apostle Paul urged upon the young churches, “Forbearing one another in love,” he was implying that there would be divergent views, otherwise there would be no need to forbear.

Loving forbearance and forced conformity are mutually exclusive. When the Holy Spirit bears the fruit of longsuffering in us as Gal. 5:22 promises that he will, we will not care to expand and constrict people to our way of thinking. We show evidence of being filled with the Spirit when we allow others to be themselves in the Lord, different from ourselves. We can all be Christlike, but each in his or her own way. The principle of “gifts differing” must not be overlooked.

Another Greek legend was Theseus, Athens’ greatest hero, who was born and reared in secret. When he was grown he was sent forth to combat evil, like Hercules before him, who was his hero. Among those he destroyed was Procrustes. By overcoming such evil Theseus saved Athens and laid the foundation for her greatness.

We have our blessings to count, for there are many in the church these days who stand up to the Procrustes’ of our day and refuse to be measured on their sectarian beds. They are our heroes. They will save us and lay the foundation for our greatness.—the Editor

I have never been hurt by anything I didn’t say.—Calvin Coolidge

It is characteristic of those who are evil to judge others as evil. Unable to acknowledge their own imperfection, they must explain away their flaws by blaming others.—M. Scott Peck

The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.—Charles Buxton