The Emperor is nekkid again and this time he has plenty of company

Greetings, friend, and thank you for being a part of this deeply appreciated community! I’m fresh off my last speaking engagement of the season. Serving the women of The Crossing Church in Kernersville, NC was a pure delight but Monday has come with a ton of mountain of responsibilities and tasks that need addressing. I’ll get to them, but first, I wanted to share something with you that’s been on my heart for a while now. It’s very different than anything I normally correspond with you about, but too important not to share. Let’s chat…

The Emperor is nekkid again, and this time he has plenty of company. If I felt confident everyone reading would recognize that reference to Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale, I would move straight to my reasons for writing, but I have my doubts. Besides, being succinct has never been my strength. I lay that at the feet of my people, on both sides of the tree. Getting the floor is nigh impossible in our family. Keeping it is harder. To make sure we’re on the same page, I’ll attempt a summary.  

Mr. Anderson penned “The Emperor’s New Clothes” almost two hundred years ago. The classic story introduced us to a vain emperor who fell into a trap set for him by two thieves visiting his city. The thieves promised the emperor they could create for him a one-of-a-kind suit with the most beautiful colors and fantastic patterns anyone had ever seen. Now, everyone knew the emperor loved new clothes, so this made him an easy mark, but the thieves sweetened the deal. They promised the emperor his special suit would be woven from magic cloth that would be invisible to anyone who was unwise or otherwise unfit for their position.  The emperor was sold! He agreed to pay the thieves and ordered them to get to work. And they did, kind of.

The two imposters set up their looms and began weaving the king’s magical suit. In the ensuring days, as the emperor became increasingly curious about his new clothes, he sent one subordinate after another to check on the weavers’ progress. These people always found the thieves very busy appearing to weave but, to a person, no one could ever see anything at all in the weaver’s hands or materializing on their looms. As distressing as it was for each person to realize they were unwise and unfit for their current positions, no one could afford for anyone else to find out, so each person pretended to see the suit the others were raving over that wasn’t really there.

The thieves continued with this charade until the day of the emperor’s parade arrived, and the emperor came to be fitted in his new suit. Alas! To the emperor’s horror, he discovered he couldn’t see the his magic garments! Devastated by the realization that he was clearly unwise and unfit to lead his city, but far too proud to admit his inadequacies, the emperor praised his new clothes in the presence of his court who couldn’t see anything either.

The thieves were allowed to undress the emperor and redress him in his spectacular new garments that weren’t there. Afterwards, his attendants lifted his imaginary train and followed the emperor out of the castle so he could lead a royal procession through the city.

The emperors’ subjects were lined up along the route to see his new clothes. Word had gotten around about the suit’s magic, and everyone was hoping to learn who was unwise and unfit among their friends and neighbors. But, of course, no one wanted to be identified as such a backward person, so once they personally witnessed their nekkid emperor they joined everyone around them in raving over his new clothes. Until, finally, a small boy announced in a loud voice the way little children will do, “But— the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes!”

Shocked out of his silence, the child’s father repeated his son’s words to the person beside him, who repeated them to his neighbor, who told his neighbor, and on it traveled until the entire crowd heard what they already knew.

Their cries eventually reached the emperor’s ears and confirmed his suspicions. He was indeed nekkid before the whole city! The emperor, however, could see no option left other than continuing the procession as it had already begun so he had his attendants “lift their heads higher than ever and take greater trouble to pretend to hold up the train which wasn’t there at all.”

That’s where Hans left his story, and it’s where my thoughts begin. It’s hard to consider that sad account of the societal pressure to conform and the power of self-deception without seeing the state of our own town square.

We’re being told it’s possible for men to menstruate, get pregnant, and bear children.

We’re being told it’s more compassionate to provide litter boxes in school bathrooms for children who think they’re cats than it is to get them psychological help.

We’re being told it’s loving to perform body-altering irreversible surgeries on children that will necessitate a lifetime of prescribed drugs and inhumane to deny them such procedures.   

That’s a very incomplete list of the unscientifically supported deception being dressed up as enlightenment in our day and the emperor is far from the only nekkid person committed to the pretense.

I believe the majority know better but we’re allowing ourselves to be silent because pushing back on the narrative is a good way to get marked as uneducated, unsophisticated, and unfit to air our opinions in the public square.  Like the emperor in Han’s story, the show has begun, and people feel like there’s no option left other than to let it play, regardless of how dire the consequences.

But there is another option.

We can be the small boy. We can say what we see. We can care more about the damage this is inflicting on our kids and their futures than we do about being silenced for speaking.

What if the first person the emperor had sent to “see” his new clothes had found the courage to come back with the truth? Think about it. What if he had swallowed hard and said, “Sir, there’s nothing there! I’m afraid you’ve been had. We all have.”  

It really is okay to speak the truth. We each have a choice in how we will react to what is being fostered upon us. Writing this piece has been one of mine. What will you do with what you know?

Hugs, Shellie