Keep God Weird

"The genius of the Gospel was that it included the problem inside the solution

The falling became standing

The stumbling became the finding

The dying because the rising.

The raft became the shore."

                                                                Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

______________________________

I read a poem the other day put together by a friend

(Andrew William Smith)

And through the words was repeated a refrain

“Keep God Weird”

Which I thought was a little weird

Until

I thought about

God is always doing weird things

(if we can blame them on God)

But the weirdest thing God does is take the messes we make

of life

of ourselves

of even love

and transform them

Why?

a “normal” God would judge

and punish

would reject and exclude

but this God takes the worst we can do

and transforms them.

Why?

Because God is love!

The love of God (who is love)

is always about transformation

It is about reversing things,

Even the darkest most difficult things, such as hurt, and failure, even death

There are times when life seems defined by words like

falling

stumbling

dying

failing

sinning

And yet the promise of God is this

that with God’s love those words are not the totality

of experience.  There is always

standing

finding

living

succeeding

There is always hope

and the grace of God

which goes beyond all understanding