My Strange Existence

Lately, I’ve been coming to a conclusion that I need to reverse my paradigm of the world. People aren’t weird. I am.

Of course, over dinner recently with Paul, he couldn’t help but emphasize how he’s been feeling that way for the longest time. After all, how else can we explain why we find so many people out there who are strange to us? If I find myself belonging to a very very exclusive minority, doesn’t the statistic suggest that I’m actually the one that is weird and abnormal?

Maybe that’ll help me overcome a lot of the hurts that I went through, from being disappointed in some people, to feeling victimized by others. At least, it would help explain why everyone seems to be perfectly fine with people who do things I find unacceptable. (Yes, I must confess that an adulterous couple comes to mind. Grins.)

Right at the TOP of the list would be my fellow church-goers. Yes, I don’t call them Christians. They probably don’t deserve that title.

These church-goers fall into a few main categories:

Firstly, those that have been in church since young, and who have an over-rated impression of themselves as being mature believers who are” simply not as passionate for God as they used to be”. These people will still faithfully sit in at service, and fulfill their obligations to sit-stand-sing-pray as required. However, they’re doing ABSOLUTELY nothing else in church. They live in a world where their pseudo-Christianity allows them to disdain “the sins of the world” (except the few they love to secretly indulge in), thus feeling morally superior, whilst at the same time deceiving themselves that they’re just going through a bad patch with God. They’ll be more active when things between them and God gets better.

Then there’re those who used to be pretty active in church. In fact, if you see them now, they’ll spout the same rhetoric as they did, with sincerity shining through their liquid eyes as they speak of God’s love. … … The only catch being IF you see them… … You see, they’re too busy nowadays with career and also other things to even be in church regularly. Travel, hobbies, various activities such as marathons, church-visiting and even over-sleeping has taken priority over God. Approach them about it and they’ll assure you with such passion about their abiding commitment to God. They’ll thank you profusely for caring and reminding them, promising they’ll stay accountable to you over the issue. After that, you’ll see them once a month in church, strangely always on the opposite end of where you are.

Another breed are the ones whom I can never fathom why they bother being in church at all. They look disinterested, aren’t paying attention, and evidently couldn’t care less whatever is being taught on the pupit. I mean, honestly, WHY WASTE TIME COMING AT ALL??? If I were them, the LAST place I’d want to be in at 0930 on a Sunday morning would be in church (Of course, that being said, quite a few only saunter in at 10am).

And of course, all of us also have the habit picking and choosing what we want to listen to in church. The difference obviously being in the degree to which we do so. With so many weird doctrines and beliefs that people are championing and fixating on, its hard to not sometimes feel that WE’RE the extremists, not Al Qaeda. Success theology, Prosperity Gospel, or the recent attention-grabbing “Verbal Plenary Preservation” that made it to the Singapore High Courts – whichever form it takes, it really leaves me wondering how people could ever let something like that be a source of division. Yet in the name of loving our God, we happily tear down His fellow children and feel justified in doing so.

By merely describing these few types, of people, I’ve already managed to sum up so many of those I know, that I’m really quite convinced now that I’m plain weird.

Sigh.