WEIRD LOVE [T, 8-4-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

WEIRD LOVE             [T, 8-4-20]

 

I had a colleague who was weird. He had good values, was on the right side of every issue, was willing to act his faith as well as preach it. But he was weird. His mind worked differently. He would speak, and we understood the words, but we didn’t know what they meant. You didn’t know if you were supposed to laugh or cry. And, speaking of laughing, he always did it as the wrong time. His body language never matched his word language. He was the sort of person you liked, but hoped wouldn’t come to the meetings. If he did, they were sure to run long.

 

I liked him. Almost everyone liked him. Even his wife, most of the time.

But he was weird enough that she enrolled them in a marital therapy group. One session, after they’d been meeting for a while, they were deciding what made marriages work. Someone questioned what made the marriage of Alvin and Alice [not their real names] work. The therapist shook his head, and said, “All I can figure is, she must love the sonuvabitch.”

 

Alvin told this story himself, in a clergy meeting, because… he was weird. He thought it was a compliment.

 

Well, it was. There’s nothing quite as nice as being loved even though you’re weird, even though no one else would, even though you’re not worth loving, even though everyone else thinks you’re a sonuvabitch.

 

I’m not sure if that’s mercy or grace, but it’s definitely love.

 

And if you think you’re not weird, well, Alvin is not your real name, either. We all need weird love.

 

John Robert McFarland