Out of step

Wednesday seemed like Monday. It was the day after the 4th of July. The day everyone is tired. I was.

Work was stressful. I arrived at my usual 4:45am, and by 5:30 I was arguing with some jerk delivering a crane on the street out front. Things accelerated when construction guys blocked off the entrance/exit to my workplace. To top it off, my "boss" finally shows up at his usual 10-10:30, and he didn't give a shit. Which is not unusual. So I spent the rest of the day wondering why I do. About anything.

Enter my 7-mile slog at 3:30 in the afternoon heat of 89 degrees. Ugh. I ran the same path, saw the same people, swore the same curses, and sweat the same insecurities. It was brutally hot and I was not feeling great. Why do I do this to myself again? I didn't answer... and may not have even really asked it. I could have been hallucinating for all I know.

But this isn't about yesterday. It's about yesterday and today. Living, reading, and... the atonement.

One of the best things about reading (to me) is how it slows me down. I am required to stop all else. I can't read while the TV is on, or if I'm having a conversation, or in the middle of anything. I absolutely cannot LISTEN to audio books either (I do not get that. At. All). When I read I need to have paper pages I turn, I need to be seated, and I need to be in the moment of what I'm doing.

So, on this day I'm reading Shane Claiborne's 'Rethinking Life,' and he's talking about capital punishment and the atonement. He prefers the at-one-ment theory, which goes like this (p.65):

When Jesus died on the cross, he made it possible for us to be made one with him. Some use the shape of the cross to describe this. The vertical beam reminds us that our relationship with God is being restored; the horizontal beam reminds us that our relationship with each other is being restored. And the cross's being anchored in the ground reminds us that our relationship with the earth and all of creation is being restored. This is how Jesus reconciled, and continues to reconcile, all things.

He goes on that...

God did not need blood. God was willing to bleed.

Jesus was not obligated to die. Jesus was willing to die.

Jesus did not sin. He exposed our sin.

Jesus did not succumb to violence. He absorbed our violence.

In Jesus, God did not kill. God died -- and rose again.

And those distinctions make all the difference in the world.

For me... I have to really slow down to even begin to wrestle with those things. Most of the time I need to just stop. I can't be in tune with "the world." I can't be wondering about tik-tok vernacular, or vacation plans, organizational charts, workplace chatter, or even my mind-ramblings in the midst of a horrible jog. None of that can be present.

But... 

I know that you know that I am 'different.' I am. I'm selfish, self-centered, stupid, the silliest things stress me out, and my sense of achievement is strange.

Sometimes I forget I am a stranger in this land.

And this is a really broad ramble today... But I say all of THAT... to say this:

I need to be out of step with the world

to be okay.

I'm not sure I can survive

any other way.