stuff i think

called to a ministry of misunderstanding....

Acts 2:12, 13 / the message
Their heads were spinning; they couldn't make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: "What's going on here?" Others joked, "They're drunk on cheap wine."

I've been feeling a fair amount of misunderstood in recent days. Sort of how I imagine the disciples felt when they prattled off in unknown tounges, understandable to the international visitors and completely incomprehensible to the locals. It seems most of my attempts to explain myself (and I will admit, they have been few and feeble) have not germinated in the soil of others.

To be fair to the rest of the characters in this play, to say that I have been misunderstood is a gross overstatement - it conjures up the idea that I've expressed things that others have erroneously disputed. That is not the case. Let me try again. I've been feeling a fair amount of unknown. I've expressed little and then been frustrated by the feeling of being unknown that my own behavior brings. Must be the curse of the introvert with a slight visionary bend....I can see things that others can't, but feel no impetus to tell them about it...then wonder why people don't understand. I need a pack of intuitives to follow me around and translate for the rest of the world.

So, for those wondering what I'm going to be if I grow up...and for me, who is searching that out...allow me to revisit a couple of times in the last few years when I knew I was standing in the right place at the right time.

A while back, I was speaking somewhere and the majority of the audience thought I was off my rocker. By the end, I think I'd won over 2/3 of them. Maybe so, maybe not. I do know there was life in the trying.

During the Shiavo debacle, taking our stand in prayer in front of the District Courthouse in Atlanta in the pouring rain...I was cold, tired and satisfied. I was also a little unnerved by the press, but that's a different blog entirely.

Pulling onto the playa with an enormous semitruck full of gear and water. We were surrounded by 36,000 people whose world view swept the spectrum. It was exciting to rediscover that I could speak in that tongue.

These were the times I have felt most alive. If I'm confusing you now, have grace on me and take solace in this - you're in the majority.