I grew up watching the greatest cartoon, Animaniacs. Wakko, Yakko, and Dot were hilarious, but I also liked the segment called "Mime Time." They would have this weird-looking mime that would act like he was reaching up pulling on a rope, adn all of a sudden a piano would fall down and crush him. Everytime he tried to act like he was doing something real, something bad would happen to him. Little did I ever think that Mime Time would actually display some spiritual truth. The truth that I have found is that when we don't like something, we tend to become a mime and fake it.
Granted, school is not the most fun and exciting place, but really it is what you make of it. So what are you going to make of it this year? Don't think about next year or last year; concentrate on this year. Are you going to apply yourself and do your best, or just blend in and get by?
A mime is a simply a person who is trying to act like someone else. Another word could be: model, mimic, impersonator, imitate. Basically, the Mime Time comes about when we see a bunch of cool people at school, and we decide that we want to be like them. Maybe you choose to imitate celebrities, family members, or the popular kids at school.
You also mime others not just by the way you look but by the way you act. It has become cool to disrespect teachers, act up in class, not do you homework, and pick on "non-cool" kids. And because that is now thought to be cool, everyone wants to do that. Schools have become a breeding ground for Mimes. I watch as students show up at our school everyday. There is a common look on their faces. It is stale and petrified. It kind of looks like they half-way woke up and then plastered their face in that shape. It is extremely disturbing and quite nasty. School becomes so routine that we learn to just zone out.
Here is the problem! Teenagers today are trying to mime, mimic, imitate a wide variety of people. Understand this, it is not people that we should be imitating no matter how good or godly they are. We are called to imitate Christ (Phil 2:5). What a revolutionary thought. If we would focus our time on Miming our lives after Christ rather than people, we would all be better off.
So this year, don't fall prey to the routine of school life. Make this year an unforgetable challenge of becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. If you are going to mime someone, I would recommend miming the one who no matter how hard he pulls on a rope, no piano will ever crush Him.
