Becoming A New Creation

Becoming a New Creation

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

2 Corinthians 5:17

The musical, or play within a play, called Man of La Mancha tells the story of the character Miguel de Cervantes, a writer, among other things. Cervantes is imprisoned and forced by his fellow inmates to mount a mock defense, and he does so in the form of a play based on his unfinished manuscript, Don Quixote de la Mancha. He transforms himself into Alonso Quijana, an old gentleman who has lost his mind. Quijana renames himself Don Quixote and sets out to find adventures.

Among the people he meets is a part-time prostitute at an inn. Don Quixote believes she is the lady Dulcinea, to whom he has sworn eternal loyalty. Everyone is surprised and annoyed by his strangely kind treatment of a woman no one else respects.

In his own romantic, twisted way, Don Quixote sees in her what no one else does—beauty and virtue. “I see heaven when I see thee,” he says to her. “Thy name is like a prayer an angel whispers.” He creates an affirmation of her that essentially says, “I see you speaking gently and tenderly and behaving as a grand lady in spite of the derision and vulgarity around you.”

Then, in his ultimate attempt to change her paradigm, he bestows upon her a new name: “Now I’ve found thee and the world shall know thy glory, Dulcinea, my lady!”

At first Dulcinea rejects Don Quixote’s attempts to change her. “I’m not your lady,” she retorts. “I’m not any kind of a lady.”

But Don Quixote persists. “Never deny that you are Dulcinea,” he tells her. “Now and forever, you are my lady, Dulcinea.”

Eventually, Dulcinea wants to believe the beautiful tale Quixote is telling her, but her old scripts almost overpower her. She cries out in anguish, “You have shown me the sky. But what good is the sky to a creature who’ll never do better than crawl?”

Quixote patiently persists until his affirmations gradually begin to convince Dulcinea to believe in herself. Eventually she comes to believe in her soul and see in her mind what Don Quixote has told her about herself. She begins to live from a new script, a new self-identity. At Don Quixote’s deathbed, she thanks him.

As far-fetched as the plot of this play (or the novel that inspired it) may be, it nevertheless has something important to say to you in regard to your marriage. Don’t underestimate the power you hold to gently shape the way your spouse views himself or herself. Harness that power as you affirm your spouse, and be careful to do so in a way that brings a God-honoring new script into your lives.

Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.

—Heath L. Buckmaster