weird that it isn't wierd

"I" before "e" except after "c".

"Weird": where form and function meet.

Can you tell that I just noticed that about the word?  I probably was all over the factoid when I was in third grade, then, gratefully, I moved on to other things.  But, all things, including style and ideas, are cyclical.

Yesterday was one weird day.

The weather was a moist, monochrome grey that crescendoed into this glorious, horrific thunderstorm that lasted an hour.  The thunder could have inspired Beethoven when deaf.  I just lay on the sofa and pulled down the blinds and enjoyed.

Then I drove to the big city, and it hadn't even rained.  That's the kind of detail that tests your sanity.  I was talking about the weather, because I'm polite and weird like that. Nobody knew about the thunderstorm; I might as well been talking about "the voices".

Before the thunderstorm, I visited some ladies at a nursing home.  It was not what I was expecting.  I was hoping that I'd be a ray of sunshine for these little ladies.  I didn't rely on my looks and charm alone: I brought them candy.  It ended up that I crashed two parties; they already had visitors.  I stayed over an hour with the first lady and her visitor.  They'd been missionaries in Haiti together.  They were fascinating women... and beautiful in the true, real sense.

My interaction with these women created or uncovered some form of discomfort.  It wasn't that I felt judged; they were gentle, kind, and keen women.  Maybe, it was because they were so solid, completely lacking in pretense and guile.  It made me think of the grass in Lewis' The Great Divorce.  This grass cut the visitors' feet who were ghost-like.  It's the weight of holiness.  Being in their presence reminded me of being around my favorite prof in Vancouver.  There's a qualitative difference in spending time with these people.  They're tuned into eternity.  I felt completely seen and heard in their presence.  The "completely" part is the terrifying part.  I'm sure they could sense my anxiety and shame, which is my lack of trust in Jesus.

After the thunderstorm, I had more conversations about identity.  I called one of my friends and midway through the conversation, she said, "I've been crying."  Come to find out, she'd gotten a spray-on tan that was much darker than she'd expected, which caused this identity crisis.  She felt this was a manifestation of trying to be somebody other than God created her to be.  And, I had another conversation about addiction in Christians.

It was a weird, heavy, wonderful day that I'll be carrying around for a while.  I feel like yesterday, Friday the 13th, was a lesson that I'm not quite ready for.  But, maybe I'll understand it somewhere down the road.  It was the kind of day that could turn you into a Calvinist.  It was the kind of day that reminds me of the meaning and shape of life. It was the kind of day that God was really there.

Weird: maybe my life is where form and function meet in my own journey.  Maybe similar to the English language, the exceptions prove the rule.  Expectations, like phonics, have a 70% success rate; the other 30% is where the magic, mystery and miracles exist.