God thinks I'm funny.

I often find myself making uncanny comments, or partaking in some random offbeat activity on account of my overconfident sense of my own hilarity. Simply said, I think I'm funny. However, others generally think I'm a bit off to put it sweetly.

For instance--I will write mass emails for sorority business or just to my friends and end up by myself giggling at my desk as I come up with what to type. Or, the other day, my friend Meredith sent me a text simply asking if our copy machine worked at our sorority house. Being that I live there, I responded with an obvious, "I'll make a copy of my butt and check." Apparently, my message was sent too late. I snuck in the copy room, shut the door, pulled down my wind shorts, propped my leg up on the counter and sat down right on the glass scanner of the copy machine. Little did I know that 5 seconds later, Meredith and her friend Bren would walk into the copy machine and catch me. She screamed and humiliated, I mumbled an ashamed, "Oh No!" and the door slammed shut. There I was, caught in my own mortification, just trying to be funny... and funny it was, but at my expense.

Needless to say, my "funniness" seems to be fairly conditional.

That night at Bible Study we happened to be talking about Galatians 1:10 " Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men?"

I thought about that, and I just could not help at that moment caring what they thought of me. I had my pants down in a copy room with my butt on the machine. As much as we often do not want to care about the approval of others, we are still human. We care. We live in a world that is conditioned to survival by the validation of others, whether it is our parents, our professors, or our bosses. We get somewhere by being "good" in the sight of someone.

I've rarely had a boy think I was funny. I used to care too--I would be upset that boys just think I'm some oddball. They liked hanging out with me okay, but I think it is because I generally had cute friends (or maybe because I rapped the whole "Gangsta's Paradise" in my 5th grade talent show.) But when I heard that verse about gaining the approval of God, (maybe not right when I heard it, but at least by the tenth time) I realized that it does not matter what those boys think. Who am I trying to gain the approval of? Some silly 9th grade boys? There only has to be one boy who ever thinks I'm funny, and that is my husband (I already know God thinks I'm funny.)

Why are we so concerned with what others think of us? I fall into this lie that we have to be acceptable to others all the time. When God says... you don't need the approval of man, you need my approval, and you have it the minute you believe in me. And that means I'm not going to fail you, and I'm not going to think you're funny sometimes, but all the time. Alright lame example, but God loves us no matter what. He likes us all the time. Even when we screw up. Our friends will fail us, our parents will fail us, our jobs will fail us. One thing that won't is God.

So maybe people don't think I'm hilarious and probably even think I'm weird. But God thinks I'm funny and he even likes me for it.

Maybe God is in the small, seemingly irrelevant happenings of our mundane days. I'd like to think so anyways.

Everything has some sort of spiritual essence in my life from the song on my ipod, to getting the last cup of coffee--it seems to me that God is with me throughout my very important life. I was listening to a John Mayer song Vultures and it hit me how spiritual it was.

Down to the wire
I wanted water but
I'll walk through the fire
If this is what it takes
To take me even higher
Then I'll come through, Like I do,
When the world keeps
Testing me, testing me,testing me

I hear the spiritual in everything. Majority of us are somewhat spiritual, whether its reading horoscopes or trusting Jesus... if we have this so called "spirit" my painting professor was talking about, it's going to come out in our lyrics, movies, and talk with others.

I must have gotten this spiritual detector from my mom. Her favorite CD is Nine Inch Nails. (She's a very beautiful eclectic woman.) She looked at me one day and told me that Nine Inch Nails gets it. That they get spiritual warfare and that they are very spiritual. Not only does she look to hard rock for the ghostly, but also in children's movies. Her latest encounter with the media and God showed up in The Little Princess, a movie from my childhood. I'm watching it when I go home for Easter, so I suppose I'll be the judge of that.

I smile at these almost absurd allegories simply because I know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I was in the car the other day, making my friend Jillian re-listen to a song claiming its spiritual significance. I am at times my mother.

I am also very different from my mother. I love sports, she hates them (and if you bring up sports with her, she will tell you she hates them, that is how deep it goes.) Even though I grew up in a Christian home, I didn't find Jesus in my mom's spiritual clauses. Don't get me wrong, seeds were definitely planted by my parents, but I found my personal need for Jesus at summer camp. People there were like me, they liked to dress up in goofy outfits and make people laugh, they liked to be outside and climb on things--and they knew Jesus. I knew then that I could know him like my mom and dad did, that I could have a real friendship and relationship with this mystical creature I was always hearing about.

It's funny how God seeks us all differently, how His timing is impeccable, and how He brings us to Him in a beautiful sequence that is perfectly personal. He brings everyone to Him differently, through different people, at different times. Not one person's story is the same. God knows our hearts, He seeks us out.

Thomas Merton puts it perfectly: We know Him because He knows us. We know Him when we discover He knows us... We could not seek God unless He were seeking us.

How beautiful. How personal. That this great God of the Universe seeks us out, and is in our everyday lives. How perfect.

Everything is Spiritual

I'm in a painting class where my at least seventy year-old Greek professor always has something profound to say. Whether it is about the depths of life, or asking if the old man in a speedo I was painting is my boyfriend, from my professor's lips fell words of enlightenment. (Why was I painting an old man in a speedo? I'm not sure either, I had some idea about painting portraits of strangers and he showed up.)

"You know everything is spiritual. If you have the spirit. Some people have it, and some people don't. Some people see that in everything, there is something spiritual, other people who don't get it think you're stupid. And you just think you're deep and spiritual." Replied my all-knowing professor in regard to a "religious" painting.

This thought got me going and I think he's right. I think everything in life is spiritual. And I am one of those people who has it. I've got that weird knack for thinking things are a "sign" and I see God in even the smallest details, perhaps at times I'm crazy for it, and those who do not have it would definitely think so. But I cannot help myself. I think I've always had it, this capacity for the spirit. Since I was a young girl, God has been imprinted in my daily life. My mom instilled in me her spiritual cliches, such as "It's a God thing" and "Everything happens for a reason," and I always bought into it. I never doubted there being a God. Don't get me wrong, I have moments of questioning, but I always go running straight back to this unknown mystery I find hard to renounce. (Thankfully, however I'm very aware that this is different for many people.)

My mom once told me that if I was ever afraid or having a bad dream or felt attacked, I should just say "Satan Be Gone!" I had to say it out loud though because Satan could not read my mind. So there I was, a seven-year-old tom-boy going to sleep, frightened of my porcelain dolls that enclaved my yellow canopy bed, whispering "Satan Be Gone, Satan Be Gone."

So maybe I was introduced to everything spiritual at an early age, for better or worse, let's be honest, not many kids talk to Satan.

These cliches I was raised on linger in my thoughts, and I realize that not only does my mother say these cheesy sayings, but I do as well. For a moment, I'm astounded that I have become as high camp as church marquees.

I confess, if I get a good parking spot, I thank God for it. Maybe everything in life is not that spiritual, but then again, maybe it is...