The other day my friend sent me a link to an article about a study about how swearing makes pain more tolerable. If true, this explains so much of who I am.
What is normalcy? Per dictionary.com, it is the quality or condition of being normal, as the general economic, political, and social conditions of a nation. What would me, living a normal life right now, look like? I have girlfriends who have blinding power on their left ring finger, some of whom have given birth to 8 pounds of human, some who own their own home, others who have traveled and seen the world through their own eyes. Me? I have spent the last two years of my life living in what I unofficially deem the armpit of Washington. If nothing else, it definitely has its own..odor. I haven’t really been making any sort of visible investments…at least its not very visibly seen in my bank account balance nor is it in my fb relationship status. Its hard to move from a place that is surrounded by graffiti, to a ‘might as well tack on a white picket fence on it’ neighborhood. And even though I just spent two years of my life investing in what to most looks like a pit of despair, I did it because I loved it.
Living among the poor forces any Jesus believer’s human eyes to look beyond what they see. Because so much of what my eyes saw was a dead end. Mile high hurdles climbing Mt. Everest. Abnormality. But the goal isn’t the above-defined normalcy, is it? I know its not, because it was in all that abnormality that I white-knuckle gripped onto Hope. So, why, now that I am I sitting here in my “normal” life, am I just wishing for more of it? America, you are beautiful, but you and your American dream screw with my head sometimes.
1 Comment
September 27, 2009 at 12:08 am
steeni, don’t settle for normal. listen to the bizarre stuff that God tells us. there is always more than meets the eye.