Salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

So I’m having fun.  I’m in a sea of  United Methodists and we who are present in this place (Florida in January.  No fools we!) are celebrated as maladjusted creative  subversive spirit-filled hope.  I like that.  The conference is called “Living the United Methodist Way:  Turning Worlds Upside Down” and it is so clear from speakers and preachers and the knowings of our own hearts that church as usual is killing us.  By that I mean church more concerned about boundaries and protocols and safety than the unleashing of the Spirit in this day and this world and this people.

This stuff gets me buzzing.  There are so many places and ways I could use the juice of my vocational life.  I just can’t shake church as the place I am called to be:  church as alive, church as movement and proclamation of hope, church as witness, church as binder of wounds and teller of stories and church as midwife of promise.  So I am in a sea of people who are groaning to bring this promise to life and I want to roll up my sleeves and jump into action and I am on leave.  All this energy has to be bottled and learned from and distilled into life practice. 

So I have time to digest.  And pray.  And tend the fire in my belly that gives thanks for a God who would call me and millions to creative maladjustment.  And together?  Oh, together there is a world sore in need of spiritual kooks – the people who celebrate being upside down.

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