Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

• Matthew 10:10-14

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

• Romans 3:22-26

When they were but few in number,
    few indeed, and strangers in it,
they wandered from nation to nation,
    from one kingdom to another.

• 1 Chronicles 16:19-20

Pardon me for another remembrance of my wife.  We had been married over forty years and she said, out of the blue, with no prompts for a confession…

Her: I married you because you were funny.
Me: I tell good jokes and my timing isn’t too bad.
Her: No, that’s not it.
Me: It’s not me being from the backwoods of Mississippi, is it?
Her: No, that nearly ruined it.
Me: I wasn’t funny looking, was I?
Her: No.
Me: I didn’t remind you of a character in the Funny Pages, did I?
Her: No
Me: I’m running out of funnies.  What was it?
Her: You would trip or stumble, almost fall down, wreck a few things while you got your balance, and then you would bow, like you had meant to do it.  I fell in love with you because you were a klutz who was comfortable in his own skin.

To illustrate, she mentioned the date when I tried to start a fire in a pit on the beach and the gust of wind would time itself perfectly to blow the flame out each time I had successfully got it lit, and I was running out of matches.

She mentioned the embarrassing time when I was doing one hundred sit-ups, preparing for my Army fitness test, even though I would not take the test for a couple of years.  She had fed me beans prior to my exercises.  I dare not say anything more.

My wife loved me for being weird.

But people who are weird are one of the most disadvantaged groups in the world.  There are no organizations for weird people.  There are no special interest groups.  There are no lobbyists in congress speaking out on our behalf.

And what would an advocate of weirdness do when in a large crowd?

Advocate: Come, weird people, gather around.
The weird Guy at the cool table: I’m not weird.
The Cool Guys:  Yeah, you’re weird.
The weird guy: No, I’m not.
The Cool Guys: You are weird alright.  We only have you at our table for comic relief.  You need to go up there.
The weird guy: No, then I’d lose my place at the cool table.

See, even if anyone tried, no one would listen.  You cannot “organize” weirdness.  In fact, that is part of the definition, I suppose.

I talked to my son earlier tonight.  He still is pressuring me to move to Tennessee and I keep saying I need time to figure things out, not throw everything away so that what that is left will fit in a truck.  While we tried to have a conversation, the two dogs were barking, the three children were running in ten directions.  If you are weird, it is possible!  And the wife was yelling for everyone to get to the dinner table except for the dogs.  And what I think that I heard next was what happens when the dogs were the only ones to get to the dinner table.

Then my son said, “Welcome to my weird family.”

My wife, who wandered the world and then found me, loved noise, craziness, and most of all weirdness.

Well, now you know that weirdness is either contagious or an inherited trait.

Let’s just face it.  We will never have a dull moment.

And Jesus is probably laughing.  There will never be a dull moment when we get to Heaven either.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.