Fables may challenge the truth, but the truth will ultimately reveal all forms of false fable perceptions.
Enter the Big Bad Wolf. The main character of certain fables – Little Red Riding Hood and the The Three Little Pigs. He is the epitome of self-affirmed Importance. No matter his outer appearance, his nature is a mixture of greediness, pomposity, dominance over others, self-affirmed intelligence, false comprehension of power and an insatiable desire to be feared by, and to control the actions and behavior of others – all to his self-focused satisfaction.
The “Big Bad Wolf syndrome” transcends fairy tales and expresses itself daily in the lives of human beings! But now, the “Big Bad Wolf syndrome” is being realized in real time on the American stage.
The curtains have opened, and Act 1 has begun. The scene reveals the Big Bad Wolf “huffing and puffing” at a “straw house.” Inside that “straw house” is a “little pig,” who actually represents a large segment of society who have built their lifestyles on the basic necessities and chosen luxuries of life. They are the regular 8 to 4, 9 to 5 workers. They cover a vast range of occupations: medical services, social service, educators, factory workers, contractors, office workers, legal workers, common laborers, home care workers … the list goes on and on.
There he stands, the Big Bad Wolf “huffing and puffing” at their basic sources of life. Their jobs, their basic job securities, their homes, their personal savings and investments, their family needs, their personal and group dreams and plans for the future. The walls of all of those concerns are being shaken by the forceful, indiscriminate and destructive forces and impact of the Big Bad Wolf’s “huffing and puffing.” His revised stipulations, regulations and criteria for their continuation in living and even existing in the arena of the Big Bad Wolf’s perceived “domain.”
For far too many, those walls have already fallen. For many others, their personal and family futures are clinging to weakened systems of support and hope. Many will not survive the insurmountable impact of the Big Bad Wolf’s “huffing and puffing” upon their once developing and evolving efforts to achieve the “American Dream.” Certain ones have even been forbidden to even have a house to be “blown down.”
For too many others, the Big Bad Wolf has already “fattened” himself on them and what little they had left behind.
Then begins Act 2 of the “Big Bad Wolf syndrome.” Fortunately, some of those “little piggies” have been able to “escape” to the houses of relatives and friends who have transitioned from “straw houses” to “stick homes.” In those new “stick homes,” these “little piggies” have been able strengthen their living conditions. Employment opportunity enhancements, financial investments, educational advancements, social group expansions, vacations, cruises and travel increases – all some of the benefits of “stick homes” living.
But even to this group, the Big Bad Wolf comes “huffing and puffing” upon their “stick homes.” Bogarting and bluffing his will and his way on those less able to resist. Mortgage increases, income tax increases, property tax increases, personal employee/staff salaries and benefits. “Stick houses” have their own built-in obligations.
But the Big Bad Wolf’s “huffing and puffing” at the “stick houses” doesn’t end there. The “Big Bad Wolf syndrome” feeds on itself! The more I get, the more I want. The “bigger, the more powerful, the more important I feel and/or perceive myself to be, the more I want others to “perceive” me to be.
So, I “huff and puff” more. I “huff and puff” more at all of the other “stick houses” and the contributing factors on which they stand. The commerce! The trade costs! The transportation expenses! The resources for their existence! Whatever helps those “stick houses” to exist and stand, the Big Bad Wolf “huffs and puffs” at them until they fall down, too. And whatever doesn’t “escape,” he devours. He fattens himself all the more.
Averice/greed and a disdain for other persons and principles which are “not like you and yours” are some of the motivating contributors to the “Big Bad Wolf syndrome.” I am better than you. You are less than me. Therefore, you either “serve, cater to, submit to” me and my wishes for life. Otherwise, I will “huff and puff and blow your house down.”
As if all of this were not enough, Act 3 of the “Big Bad Wolf syndrome” begins. In the face of “Big Bad Wolves” and the “Big Bad Wolf syndrome,” what become the solution for the “little piggies” of life?
Well, like the devastated “little piggies” in that old fable, there is a house to which to run. That third “little piggy” saw fit to build his house of “stone.” This “stone house” was not built on convenience, not of necessity. It was not built on monetary, nor ego-tripping principles, nor values. It was built on and for long-lasting purposes. The blueprints for this house are eternal and not temporal.
The “Big Bad Wolf syndrome” is personal and temporal. It feeds off of itself, yet it is dependent upon others who avail themselves to its false principles. But there is a substance against which no Big Bad Wolf’s “huffing and puffing” can overcome.
That substance is the Word of God. Like Daniel’s “stone hewn out of the mountain,” and the “stone which the builders rejected,” and the “foundational stone” for the church, the word of God shall stand forever.
God’s Word shall withstand every effort of spiritually misguided Men and Beast (Satan – the Big Bad Wolf) who walks the face of this earth.
Thank God for the wise “Little Piggies” who faithfully stand on God’s word, and build their daily life principles, and their dwelling places on God’s Word.
“Huff and Puff” all you want, Big Bad Wolf/”wolfeites,” whomever you are and may be, but none of your “huffing and puffing” can overcome the temporal and eternal stone-hard truth of God’s holy word.
Epilogue: This fable ends with the Big Bad Wolf being killed trying to sneak down the chimney of that stone house, only to land into a big pot of boiling water. Oh, the irony. Biblically, the satanic “Big Bad Wolf” is doomed to eternal destruction in the lake of fire. Beware, all you Big Bad Wolves. You will reap what you sow!
This article appears in Home and Garden.
