We Are All Weird!
“I will not let the flames consume you! Hosea 11:9”
Yesterday afternoon sitting in a restaurant on Van Ness, an unhoused gentleman was lying on the corner, halfway out into the street, and I thought he might be ill. He was lying there and angry when told I would call 911 feeling he was in danger. As he moved on a lady passing by yelled, “You are weird to help someone like that.”
Boise Herrington wrote:
Many of us have tried to tone down our weirdness for friends, partners, and business associates only to later learn that we were suppressing the best things about ourselves. There’s no joy like the joy of being your strange self and finding that there are people who love you for it.”
All my life I have sought to fit in, to be the “homie”, the straight-arrow pastor, and in failing, to be depressed. Coming out in my “weirdness” has been a liberating experience. And in being who I am, Brendon Brown’s definition of grace has become real:
“Grace means that all of your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of being afraid and ashamed.”
Three fellow monks came seeking instruction from St. Sistoes, a desert monk. One said: “Father, what shall I do to avoid hell fire. . .Sistoes answered: “I confess that these are subjects of which I never think about, and as I know that God is merciful, I trust He will have compassion on me.”
We are all flawed, we are all weird. In our day, nothing has changed from day one of creation: we are loved, we are chosen, and in this wild freedom of divine mercy lies the mystery of our healing.
In the wildness of God, as illustrated in the Wild Goose, we find the commonality of her love and meeting each other in the middle, we find a way to agree and disagree in peace. Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min., D.S.T.
P.O. Box 642656
San Francisco, CA 94164
415-305-2124
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