Blackberry God

I think most of us would rather the god we serve conform to us rather than us to them- our own "personal Jesus" as Johnny Cash sings.  Picking what we can jive with and tossing out what we can't is just what we do.  In a way it helps us find a connection because, just like with people, we want to have something in common in order to like that person.  Essentially, we are probably all self centered and want it to be about us most of the time.  Or maybe that's just me.

These thoughts have stemmed from a recent conversation with a new coworker, Ms. Lillian.  Sometimes I think we are kindred spirits and our paths have so many similarities and that's why we were supposed to meet.  Maybe she's my future. I don't know.  She has so much class and is one of the most dignified women I've come across (one distinguishing difference between us).  She told me a story about when she was a little girl and her brothers and sisters (17 of them!) threw her in a pond to teach her how to swim.  She started sinking, got all choked up on the water and they fished her out, left her by the pond, and ran to their house.  Ms. Lillian says she remembers coming to beside a blackberry bush.  She said,"I don't know how I got there but I woke up and coughed the water out.  That's how you know God is moving.  I be he was up there saying, 'I know they didn't leave my baby in those blackberry bushes!'"

I love that.  Everytime I think about her saying that last part, it warms me up.  The idea that God would call his people "baby" is delightful.  It humanizes him and makes me feel adored.  When God talks to me, I imagine him speaking that way.  Like he's been sitting on a front porch watching everything go on and commenting on it under his breath.  Shaking his head when we do something michevious and think that we can get away with it.  Miranda Lambert has a line in one of her songs that goes, "I heard Jesus he drank wine and I bet we'd get along just fine.  He could calm a storm and heal the blind and I bet he'd understand a heart like mine."  That resonates, doesn't it?  Makes him like us but a little more forgiving and understanding.  And a little less gravitas on his part, someone we could kick it with.  What movie was it that the character said they imagined Jesus wore a tuxedo tshirt? 

I'm not saying that scripture is a salad bar where you choose what you want to put on top of lettuce and leave the other toppings aside.  I think it's more important to be human, to be what were created for.  Mistakes, imperfections, ugly inside-out crying faces and all.  And maybe along the way we sneak some unexpected goodness in there, some decency toward each other.  And that's how you know that God is moving. 

I've probably said these things before.  But sometimes, when my mind is a tangled ball of rubber bands, it helps to remind myself.