Normalcy

I had a conversation recently and, actually, it’s been a number of conversations and they each shifted at some point to normalcy. They shifted to that because that’s the point of society’s conversation now, right? The point is not acceptance. The point isn’t love. It’s normalcy. The reason my conversations shifted to normalcy is because that’s my road to acceptance of anyone. It’s that each one of us is normal.
As a pastoring counselor I have had a variety of moments where I’ve shared with people that they should have the anguish, pain, frustration, anger, sadness, despair that they are feeling. They should because that’s what human beings feel in moments like the one they’re in. It’s normal. Normal is an enormous word at times like that. I’ve seen waves of rest settle into someone’s physic as that word hit their souls. They are normal. It brings that relaxing because they are part of the community, they’re of a kind.
But there’s another meaning to “normal” that is even larger than just sharing similar appropriate reactions to circumstances, and I find that when I talk about “normal” this way it is different from others’ expectations. It is part of my personal acceptance of others, but in some cases it makes others uncomfortable.
What I find around me now is that people want to be or want others to be seen as “normal” and what they mean is “good.” And what makes them uncomfortable is that what I see as “normal” means “messed up.”
That’s not new with me, but it is what I believe church is all about. Church is all about being a group of sincerely, deeply and utterly messed up people. And what we offer as the way we get “better” is that we help each other grow ever more aware of how messed up we actually are. It’s as we confess, admit the truth of that, to each other, that we actually get more in contact with God because it is through confession that we find grace. We discover how well God knows us.
There’s a moment in Paul’s letter to the Philippians where he encourages them to “continue to work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling,” and he goes on to explain that “it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” I think that the fear and trembling part comes into play when we confess we are messed up to each other. How scary is that? We’d like it to be demonstrating that we’re strong, able, mature, but it’s not our will that moves us ahead and it is not our power to act. Paul tells us that God is the one who does that. Our work, sincerely, deeply and utterly is being humble before each other and with God.
Humility is the road in.
Normalcy that leads to acceptance of anyone by the church is admitting that what I am at the heart of things is messed up. If you’re there before God… you’re already in.
Blessings,
Geoff