Outsider...

I've always been an outsider - a wandering, itinerant, nomadic, migrant midwesterner. I went to 10 different schools between Kindergarten and High School graduation. I never played organized sports, was never in band or orchestra, and never got past the rank of First Class in Boy Scouts. I don't have BFFs, and have never attended my high school reunion. In fact, I've only been back to that small town in Arkansas twice since 1989. (Yup - I'm from Arkansas)

So... I've never been through enough therapy to help me deal with this sordid, yet wonderfully diverse past. I've got enough emotional baggage from my moving experiences to last me a lifetime. I don't know what to say when folks tell me they still know their childhood friends. I don't currently know any of mine. I'm not even sure if I can remember them. I can't conceive of growing up in the same house all of one's life, and living in the same town. I just can't relate.

The folks I relate to are Army brats, preacher's kids (PKs), and missionary kids (MKs). There's a comraderie in those who don't have an identity tied to a specific geography. We know how to unpack an entire house in less than a week. We know that you can't have a piano, grandma's antique china cabinet, or any other large or heavy items deemed unnecessary due to their bulk. We know how to live in generic, blandly decorated homes because the effort to "undo" any customizations outweigh the benefits of having something other than beige walls.

So I've got issues-a-plenty. But in spite of the whining about my past, there is at least one positive aspect. Because of my own experience, I understand the pain of being an outsider. I know how it feels to come into a new place with no friends, and to show up at school, not knowing anyone, and attempt to somehow make it through the first days and weeks without doing anything spectaclularly idiotic that would forever brand me as nerd, wierdo, slacker, whatever... Since I know how it feels, it pains me to see it happen to someone else. I'm motivated to DO something.

I'm also made keenly aware of grace - the grace of a group of people who have and continue to embrace me, not because I deserve it, but because they too have experienced this kind of grace. And because they have embraced and loved me, I know the grace of God. I'm no longer an outsider - I'm a part of the "in" crowd. Funny thing is - I haven't changed one bit - I simply relaxed, stopped trying to get everyone to like me, and realized that they already did. Kind of like what we hear in church, but never seem to live into - God loves us, even when we don't love back. The part I didn't catch was that if this were true, that no one could really lay claim to special status with God, that we're all pretty messed up and in need of grace. "Ragamuffins" was the word used in the passage that served as a transformational nexus for a new understanding of how much God really loves me.

And because I've experienced grace, I'm motivated to "be" grace for some outsider, some underdog. Because I know how it feels to have experienced grace, I'm motivated to DO something.

It boils down to this for me: Because I know the pain of being an outsider, and the joy of grace, I've been changed. I think that's a big part of what being Christian is about.