Finding God in My Freak Flag
Once upon a time I moved into my house and took my first shower in my very own bathroom. Everything about my house had been a giant battle up to that point, so I wasn’t really surprised when I turned the water off, but still heard water running. I wrapped a towel around myself and ran down the stairs to find water spewing out of my sewer line into an already established puddle that was becoming more lake-like by the second. I ran upstairs and grabbed my phone; not to call for help, but to record a video of the way the light was reflecting off the puddle onto my wall. As I stood there admiring the dancing waves of light, I started laughing at myself because what the hell was I doing?!
Another night I was woken up for the 800th time by Mischa to let her out, at about 3am. I was tired, I was pissed, it was freezing cold out. As I stood shivering in my robe and slippers on my porch waiting for Mischa to do her thing, I bent over my glass on my patio table to stare at the millions of little light crystals reflecting glittery images of my Christmas lights, and I smiled.
On New Year’s Eve, unprepared for another year looming large, I got an email about a David Guetta livestream at 2pm. I went out in my shed, blared the music, and danced my heart out while making a vision board. I laughed, I cried, I cut and pasted, and I danced myself to sobs, hands held high as I heard the words, “God is a dj,” and felt them deep in my soul.
A couple years ago a friend introduced me to the Enneagram. I usually hate personality tests and classifications, but as I heard myself described so clearly on a podcast discussing all the Enneagram types, something clicked. I am a 4, through and through. As such, I feel ALL the feels, have a great need to find meaning in everything, be super unique and creative, and see the world through a lens of romance and melancholy. Basically I’m wired to be super emotional and weird, and it’s totally ok.
I’ve never felt I fit in anywhere. Outwardly I was too preppy to fit in with the goth/emo kids, but inwardly felt that’s where I belonged. I was on all the sports teams, but did not feel like a jock. I was in the gifted group in elementary school, but wasn’t actually gifted. I was too Christian to drink, or go to parties, or have sex, but I wasn’t Christian enough to make myself read my Bible everyday, or pray as much as I was supposed to, or keep my thoughts under control. I felt too American when I lived in Spain, but I feel too Spanish when I’m in the States. The Enneagram told me that was not only ok, but that my 4ness was the reason that I never fit. It wasn’t because I was doing anything wrong, it was just how I was made.
Once I realized I was a 4, it was like I had permission to not fit in - I could stop trying, and just embrace my quirks. I don’t know anyone else who would watch water pouring from their sewer line into their basement and think, “Wow, that’s beautiful, I’d like a video of that,” and as they’re videoing think about how many tiny glimmers of beauty they’re allowed a glimpse of everyday, but that’s what I did. And I’ve come to realize that’s how I see God.
In church I was always told that I need to pray with my head bowed and eyes closed, but also hold a continual conversation with God throughout the day - pray without ceasing. I was told that I needed to ask God’s guidance before any big decision, but I didn’t know how to hear a response, and if I didn’t it was because I didn’t have enough faith or wasn’t trying hard enough, or my heart wasn’t in line enough with His to be able to discern. If I wanted to worship God I’d sing Christian music, with my hands held high to underscore my obedience to Him.
No matter how hard I tried - in fact, the harder I tried - the further I felt from God. It was never enough. He was insatiable, and I was imperfect, and well, Christian music just plain sucks. But once I stopped trying so hard - quit forcing myself to sit through sermons as I seethed with anger, sing songs I felt no connection with, or try to follow ALL. THE. RULES. - God showed up.
All of a sudden He was with me as I admired the flower buds poking their heads through the death and decay of the prior two seasons; He was with me as I stomped my feet and shook my hips to EDM in my shed; He was with me when I grabbed my camera and decided to take a trip to photograph some bison and stay the night with a cousin in rural Kansas. The more I clung to my creativity - an essential part of my being - instead of trying to replicate someone else’s idea of Christianity, the more He was there.
My need to travel, and move, and live in foreign lands has almost been a point of shame. My family doesn’t understand it, and I’m constantly asked what I’m running away from. It’s always touted as the “responsible” thing to put down roots, and the desire to travel is “just a phase.” But I recently read the book The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, and this passage struck me straight in the heart:
Every bit of evidence would suggest that the will to be moving is as old as mankind. Take the people in the Old testament. They were always on the move. First, it’s Adam and Eve moving out of Eden. Then it’s Cain condemned to be a restless wanderer, Noah drifting in the waters of the Flood, and Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt towards the Promised Land. Some of these figures were out of the Lord’s favor and some of them were in it, but all of them were on the move. And as far as the New Testament goes, Our Lord Jesus Christ was what they call a peripatetic - someone who’s always going from place to place - whether on foot, on the back of a donkey, or on the wings of angels.
But the proof of the will to move is hardly limited to the pages of the Good Book. Any child of ten can tell you that getting-up-and-going is topic number one in the record of man’s endeavors…Napoleon heading off on his conquests, or King Arthur in search of the Holy Grail. Some of the men are figures from history and some from fancy, but whether real or imagined, almost every one of them is on his way someplace different from where he started.
So if the will to move is as old as mankind and every child can tell you so, what happens to a man like my father? What switch is flicked in the hallway of his mind that takes the God-given will for motion and transforms it into the will for staying put?
It isn’t due to a loss of vigor. For the transformation doesn’t come when men like my father are growing old and infirm. It comes when they are hale, hearty, and at the peak of their vitality. If you asked them what brought about the change, they will cloak it in the language of virtue. They will tell you that the American Dream is to settle down, raise a family, and make an honest living. They’ll speak with pride of their ties to the community through the church and the Rotary and the chamber of commerce, and all other manner of stay-puttery.
But maybe…just maybe the will to stay put stems not from a man’s virtues but from his vices. After all, aren’t gluttony, sloth, and greed all about staying put? Don’t they amount to sitting deep in a chair where you can eat more, idle more, and want more? In a way, pride and envy are about staying put too. For just as pride is founded on what you’ve built up around you, envy is founded on what your neighbor has built across the street. A man’s home may be his castle, but the moat, it seems to me, is just as good at keeping people in as it is at keeping people out.
I do believe that the Good Lord has a mission for each and every one of us - a mission that is forgiving of our weaknesses, tailored to our strengths, and designed with only us in mind. But maybe he doesn’t come knocking on our door and present it to us all frosted like a cake. Maybe, just maybe what He requires of us, what He expects of us, what He hopes for us is that—like His only-begotten Son—we will go out into the world and find it for ourselves.
Literally and figuratively that’s my goal. I am not built like some people I know who see God by reading their Bible every morning, or going to church every Sunday. I am not built like my family, who is perfectly content staying put here in Wichita, with no desire whatsoever to move to another country. But that’s ok. They are them, and I am Kelsey, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
God is infinite. He is all things, and is in all things, and as such, doesn’t it make more sense that we would all have different ways of seeing and acknowledging that? In the movie “The Family Stone” Luke Wilson’s character says to Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, “You have a freak flag. You just don’t fly it.” I hope that we can all start flying our freak flags more freely, instead of hiding them away because they look different from someone else’s.