Everyone is perfect until you get to know them.

In moments of sadness and sorrow we have a tendency to isolate ourselves for this very reason. Laden with grief, guilt, remorse, and an overwhelming loss of control we feel completely cut off from people. “Not a single soul knows what it’s like,” we find ourselves thinking.

Perhaps that is why Rob Bell writes that the most beautiful phrase in every language is

me too.

The fact is we all know that life is messy. And because life is messy, people are messy. And because people are messy, we are messy.

And that terrifies us.

As a result, we often only want God for the sake of social order and religion for the sake of social control*. But the grace of that type of God is only for those who abide by the social norms, enforced by a religion that protects the social law. Those on the outside remain on the outside, and the blind continue to lead the blind.

We don’t know what to do with the collision of pure Creator and messy creation, so we set boundaries.

And we protect these boundaries.

And we identify with these boundaries.

And those on the outside remain on the outside.

Read the four gospels and you will find that Jesus makes a habit of finding wrecked, messy people. He doesn’t fear the collision because he doesn’t work in black-and-whites. With an overwhelming, gentle power he walks through our fortified boundaries to remind us that he touches dead things and makes them alive.

We avoid dead things.

We avoid messy people.

Jesus seeks them out.

When we learn to embrace the messiness, to trash the dichotomy of saint and sinner, and say with Rohr that “the only true perfection available to us is the honest acceptance of our imperfection,” we can come down from our safeguards against the messy and come alongside Jesus as he finds the wrecked, the broken, and the filthy.

There is something soulful about flowers in cement. The image reaches into our hearts and reminds us of our sainthood and our sin. Removed from the concrete, the plant is just another plant; but imbedded in the dead-grey of the sidewalk, its radiance is magnified tenfold.

When we come to realize we are all flowers in cement, perhaps we can take the scales from our eyes and see as Jesus sees, and join the chorus of saint-sinners that whisper to a broken world,

me too.

*Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs (30)

Whether you want to admit it or not, this statement has been driven into your skull since you were born. It began simply: good children get rewards; those who study hard get good grades; the pretty girls get the cute guys. But at some point the logic of the statement became distorted, and this distortion goes dangerously undetected in most of us.

You’ll never say it aloud, but it’s there.

The poor beggar is irresponsible with money, or lazy, or a drug-addict and deserves his miserable state, thus I can justly refuse to acknowledge his existence.

The way she dresses opens her up to mistreatment. She deserves the crap-bags she is always dating.

Of course he has AIDS. He’s gay.

Scripture tells a story about Jesus’ encounter with a woman whom everyone in the community avoided because it was believed that she was an incredible sinner. She had been sick for twelve years. Isolated for twelve years. Despised for twelve years. Friendless for twelve years.

Jesus heals her. Nothing flashy…just heals her.

He hands the poor beggar a blank check.

He protects the scantily clad girl.

He heals the homosexual.

Why? Because his entire message and the hope for the world, is this:

“People don’t get what they deserve in my world.”

“A boy wanted to play Wii; the cow-racing game to be specific. He loved playing his game and his father loved watching the boy play and be happy. One day while playing Wii, the boy was unknowingly playing with the remote upside down. Every time he tried to make the cow turn right, the animal would turn left and crash into a wall. Every time the boy tried to turn his cow to the left, the animal would slam into the wall on his right. The boy cried out in anguish as he lost game after game. The father, always watching, walked towards his child to show him that his remote was upside down; but thinking his father was about to take away the remote, the boy cried even louder and shielded the remote from his father.

‘No, daddy, it’s mine!’ the boy screamed, liquid streaming from his eyes and nose.

The child continued to lose game after game. Each time the father tried to correct his son, the son would scream and cry out,

‘No, daddy, it’s mine!’

At last the teary eyed boy, exhausted from shielding the remote from his father, allowed him to draw near. The father smiled gently as he lifted the remote from his son’s tiny hands and turned it right-side up.

‘You had it upside down, son.’ The father said.

‘You had it upside down.’

–thanks to @aslaten

standing on each other’s backs.

O your love for deprivation,

hungry for your next attack.

Reputation, wealth, golden calves

ruined lives for diamond rings.

Innocent deaths line our paths;

o what we exchange for the King.

Did you miss it?

when he fell to his knees.

Did you see it?

when he washed your feet.

Did you forget?

he was clothed in your hell.

You seek praise,

but for you he fell.

And of course they were only dead for as long as it took to revive them with a Senzu bean

My friends and I even created an entire civilization. Once nomads, we settled down in two areas: my yard and my friends’ up in the cul-de-sac. We constructed small scale villages by creating a collection of forts out of logs, sticks, and lots and lots of duct tape. Each house had a purpose: blacksmith, bank, potion maker, and armory. The villages even had their own currency system (specially shaped and colored pebbles).

And because we were humans…we waged war against each other.

I say all this, because I still want to build forts. I find myself wishing I could go outside with a stick and create once again a new world all around me. The fire hydrants, sewers, trees, and cars would all give way to a foreign terrain inhabited by strange creatures with menacing powers. My own frail frame would transform once again before my eyes to become the hero with unmatched bravery and courage.

Then I remind myself that my imagination is not gone; but changed. Instead of creating the fantasy world that can never be I can help create the fantasy world that can and should be. What if we adults could dream like children to fix what is broken in our world and not be limited by what we see. Too often we are limited to what we see before our eyes.

There once was a time when we had no limit.

I pray that our imagination would be awakened and set to work on the world around us.

If Christ was never resurrected than it makes perfect sense to repay evil with evil, to revile when reviled, to slander, to lash out when an injustice happens to you. You’d have to protect your own reputation, your livelihood, your dignity. There’s no one but you who can do it. You can’t let them get away with that.

If Christ never rose again, we’d have to defend ourselves from the corruption, the unfaithfulness, the wrong of the world. Our only defense is to fight back, to fight fire with fire.

If Christ never rose from the grave, we’d have no reason to hold our tongue.

Thankfully

He

Did.

There’s something appealing about living simply. Something within the idea of simplicity engenders a longing to forsake the city and find our ownWalden Pond, our own Alaskan frontier – whether literally or metaphorically. We want life to be simple.

The happiest people I know are simple people. Notice I did not say they live simply. Their lives are just as complicated and complex as mine. They live in the same tension riddled world as you and I, faced with just as many obstacles and conflicts. Their happiness does not come from living a simple life but from being simple people.

Simplicity comes when we become people who are not afraid to be in wonder. It happens when we can transcend our situation long enough to notice the dandelion growing out of a crack in the cement; when we acknowledge the cloud-sculptures along the horizon; when the laughter of a child ignites our souls.

In fact, we can share in the joy of simple people when we realize that all around us are tiny glimpses of Heaven.

Open your eyes; it’s all around you.