Everyone but Jesus is Insane...

When I was a kid I don't hink I ever could have imagined the world that has been given to me now that I am in my middle 40's.

Just today there was a picture of two men holding hands on the front page of the St. Paul Pioneer Press with the usual gushing comments on the annual Gay Pride Parade. Further along in the paper there were the usual bits of rage and darkness and exploitation and fluff. In my weaker moments I can see why some folks are all worked up about the end of the world. It has been the end of the world I expected for some time now.

And just when you think it can't get any lower someone take's out a shovel and begins to dig. Why is Paris Hilton a celebrity and why is it important that I watch her every move on TV?
And I think that if I see one more ad for a medicine to cure erectile dysfunction I'll vomit.

Some mornings I wake up and think that aliens have come and stolen by body and placed me in a weird world where nothing makes sense as some sort of sick experiment. Other times I pray that this is all a dream and I wake up back in Wausau and I'm still 12 years old. I'd almost be willing to redo adolescence just for that to be true.

But sadly none of it is. I'm here, this is real, and there's no way to go around it, above it, or below it; only through it. And because of this I have come to the conclusion that on some level the world is insane and always has been and it seems worse now because the insanity has 24 hour television networks and PR guys, and marketing folks, and a desire to out its every nuance into everyone's face all the time.

And I grown more convinced that Jesus was the only sane person who ever lived, the only one who could see through the BS, read between the lines, get the big picture, and not be touched by it all except once and then only because it was necessary to bring the whole thing crashing to the ground for the sake of love.

If I'm going to be even anywhere near sane I'm going to need to find a way to hold tight, stick close, become like, and hang around Christ. Period. End of sentence. Otherwise its just a matter of going from hell to hell and that's a fate worse than death.