**basically in the jewish faith they believe that there are at all times 36 righteous people inhabiting the earth who maintain the balance of good and evil and keep a connection between the people and God. don't ask me anything more, cause that's actually all i know.
...the novels focuses heavily on the fine line between normal + abnormal behavior. obviously Bird, the supposed lamed vovnik, typically falls into the abnormal category, and as a result the main character, Alma is constantly pleading with him to PLEASE ACT NORMAL. thus taking Bird through a journey that all of us have gone through, deciding if we are going to be ourselves, or be "normal". [Bird narrates a couple chapters of the story + in said chapters he frequently asks himself the question "would a NORMAL person do this", if yes, he acts, if no he modifies.]
let's face it, with or without thinking that you are one of the 36 righteous people on earth chosen by God to keep the world spinning, middle school is hard. being 12 is hard. navigating puberty and figuring out who you are is just hard. so we look at the most normal person we can find + we decide that we'll modify our behavior, hide our "worst" attributes and become like that person. we shift and mold and squeeze ourselves into a social construct that we call normalcy and decide to try and forget everything that we don't think people would like about us...all the things that make us different. all the things that make us individuals.
normalcy is a wolf in sheep's clothing. it tells us that it's good and safe and what's best and will help us fit in and have friends and not be a pariah. here's what i think. i think that another word for "normal" is "shame". when we decide to be "normal" we bury who we are, the qualities that we perceive as negative, under a thick layer of shame and mask ourselves in qualities that we have begged and borrowed from other "normal" people [which lets be honest, no one is normal. we're all acting] [also if you have read Scary Close he touches on shame on a pretty deep level in my favorite chapter].
and here's the thing. i think we are missing out on something really important. we are not understanding and believing and accepting that we were fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of an infinite, all knowing, all powerful, all loving God. it's a tale as old as time. thinking we can fill ourselves with something greater than what God has filled us with because we value His opinion less than we value the opinions of our peers. it happens. he knows. he forgives and loves us anyway. but we break his heart because where we see "abnormal" or "different" or "weird" or "unacceptable" he sees purpose and design and opportunity and His plan.
through a series of unfortunate and ill-managed events in my past i built my base layers of shame and for the next 15 years of my life they grew and developed until i was 6 feet under without any clue who i really was and who i wanted to be [which is a pretty terrifying place to find yourself as a new college graduate] and the funny thing is that being "normal" comes relatively easy to me + acting "normal" is even easier. i'm a pretty normal person, i'm not that weird, in some ways i guess you could say that according to social norms i'm pretty lucky. because for the most part i naturally fit. fitting in has never really been a stretch for me. and yet. i say all of this to show that even the most normal people find things to hide and bury and be painfully ashamed of. hiding is safe.
then yesterday i was reading isaiah 54, which is all about God's covenant of peace with His people, so basically it's beautiful and hopeful and something for us fickle, frightened people to cling to.
isaiah 54:4 says:
"fear not for you will not be ashamed;
be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced;
for you will forget the shame of your youth..."
cue the water works. i mean not really, but kinda. it's basically saying that the promise of the Lord is that the shame of our youth will be forgotten. that things that made us hide and disappear will be like chaff in the wind. how great is that? he created us and loves us and knows that much like me, people have "unfortunate and ill-managed events" that led to shame, and all of those things are void in light of HIM. because He is the one who makes us who we are. we weren't created to be "normal".
"normal" doesn't even really exist. it is fluid; subject to change at any time.
so i say reject "normal". we need to stop asking ourselves "would NORMAL people do this/say this?"
and start being vulnerable. shame is fear + Christ promises that perfect love casts out fear [1 john 4:18]. love, real love, is scary and uncomfortable and foreign and hard to accept, but in the same way that you have to lay into the cold and accept it in order for it to no longer feel cold, i think that we have to breath deeply and let ourselves relax into the love that tells us we are complete as we are, that we are loved and known and whole, without hiding and burying.
that's what i need. that's what we all need. and how much more will the world see love if we stop trying to be "normal" and start being human. broken and flawed and weird and embarrassing and different, but true and honest and vulnerable?
go forth and be not normal.
xoxo,
ab.
