Okay so I have to admit two things. 1) I publicly disliked Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" from the beginning for sounding too much like Madonna. 2) I am now obsessed with the song. I'm not sure which one of these confessions is more offensive. But here we are. With me in love with the song.
Yesterday was Transfiguration Sunday. A pretty tough Sunday School lesson...especially in light of (did you see what I just did there? oh biblical humor....) the fact that it was our highest attended Sunday School to date with two kids who have never been before showing up! But...my obsession with all things sparkly and glittery came in handy yesterday. For our craft...I asked the kids to use black construction paper and using only gold, silver, and two varying degrees of "clear" glitter glue...transform the paper into a piece of light. They did amazingly. Here's mine.
I tend to go pretty abstract when working with glitter. And the green looking one...is not at all green. Stupid drying ugly like.
Anyway. So I went home in the afternoon and set out about doing nothing. I watched a ton of WE's wedding programming since I was around cable for once. Feeling super girly and indulgent I cracked open the latest Vogue...and actually READ the article on Lady Gaga as I have a new obsession with her current single. Just as I was getting ready to give up on the crazy that is Lady Gaga...she says the most...AWESOME thing that just...made perfect sense on Transfiguration Sunday. I mean...Jesus himself could just as easily have said this. Which I know sounds weird...but it's true:
The truth is, the mystery and the magic is my art. That is what I am good at. You are fascinated by precisely the thing that you are trying to analyze and undo.
Honestly...I was just...I kind of sat there holding the freaking book that is this month's issue open...staring at the wedding mayhem taking place on WE...and all of a sudden...I got it. As I'm typing this...I don't know exactly what it is I understood...but the entire day just...made sense. Everything made sense. My life in Iowa. My career...leaving school...there was nothing to question anymore.
Then I woke up this morning...and I'm homesick and tired of snow (which it is doing in Iowa today) and I was all pissy again. Plus I have a meeting tonight and I hate few things more than church meetings. Good thing I work in a church, no?
But Lady Gaga taught me something yesterday: things don't ALWAYS have to make sense. And the reason it was soooooooooo easy for me to say that Jesus could have said the same thing that Lady Gaga did...is that I don't have to make sense of faith. I never have. Sure I'm curious and I try to work out questions...but at the end of the day...I just believe. I can easily take the Bible at face value but still believe in God and the mystery that is the life of Jesus. And THAT is the hardest part of religion for so many people. But not me. Which is one of the reasons I work well with kids...that and I still laugh at the word "balls" every single time I hear it. But seriously. Communion? I never worry about where Jesus is. He doesn't have to BE the bread...or be under it or on top of it or smeared on it...it is what it is. And I'm okay with that.
It's the rest of my life that I constantly try to make sense. The non-existent love life. The career. The leaving school. The entire state of Iowa. I mean...I pick apart every single thing I do and say and feel until I have no room for mystery left. And that gets tiring and old and boring. Which are three adjectives that are simply not me. I've probably written this exact nice thing about 10 times since I started this blog in August...but until I finally can release the need to control everything...I'm going to keep having this crazy "AHA" moment.
What can I say? I'm a work in progress...I was born this way. Starting iTunes now....
