Seeing the Outrageous Life
“We have lost, I think, our proper sense of outrage, and what God does is often outrageous for no matter how much we think we know how God will act, God frequently acts in other incomprehensible and outrageous ways.”—Br. James Koester, SSJE, from “Brother, Give Us a Word,” a daily email sent to friends and followers of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, a religious order for men in the Episcopal/Anglican Church. www.ssje.org,
ann’s garden
What is outrageous! The flowers and flowering plants, bushes, and trees that will soon appear in sequence in spring, the crocuses, camellias, redbuds, forsythia, daffodils, tulips, Bradford pears, climbing wisteria, azaleas, roses, lilies, irises, magnolias, hydrangeas, geraniums, and finally the crape myrtle that last the summer. Is there more? What about the yellow, red, and orange autumn leaves on a crisp fall day? What about the secret waterfall that only you and a few friends and family know about? What about floating the Buffalo River? What about the view from Petit Jean Mountain or Mount Magazine? What about Two Rivers Trail along the Arkansas River?
Even the recent ice storm, which disrupted our lives, left a winter wonderland on our bare trees whenever we could stop to look out our windows. The trees appeared covered entirely in shiny diamond crystals.
I am just starting and talking about a small part of Arkansas, but I know each of you has many more outrageous spectacles to share, like the outrageous sunsets at the beach.
I don’t know about you, but Outrageous meets me at every turn. When we look for her, we only have words of gratitude. Outrageous are our family members and friends, who still love us even after getting to know us better. Even more is the outrageous love of God. This is love that God gives us in so many more ways than we cannot understand, knowledge too deep for words. As we try to stay connected to God and listen, we get little nudges, “not right, yes, this is right.” Whenever I go against those gut feelings, I end up in a dangerous place.
I look back on my life and see that I have been cared for even when I went down the wrong path. This is outrageous. This is the outrageous love of God, to stick with us in our one step forward and two steps back. We cannot comprehend it. We can only try in our feeble way to model it.
joanna campbell
Joanna joannaseibert.com