Somewhere on The Spectrum

I know and you know. I can be found on so many spectrums. Honestly, I think we all are. Everyone I meet struggles with OCD at some levels in some things at some moments on some days. Everyone I know has different levels of anxiety and depression. Neuroses and psychoses are shared by most that I know in varying degrees.

But there's another more important spectrum in which I speak. It's the spectrum of who I was, and who I'm becoming. Hang with me here. I mean, you've been with me this long, so what's a few more minutes.

Once upon a time, we all learned the same very non-scientific analogy. It went like this. Coal and diamonds are the exact same material. "Diamonds are just coal under extreme pressure and stress." Turns out that is not, at least currently, how we now believe that diamonds are made. I say currently, because I'm a scientific skeptic, and I believe that what we know now may be radically wrong or may be different as time passes.

Consider, for a moment, though, if that was the case. Where does coal come from? Organic material. Dinosaur feces. Get that as a possibility: dinosaur poo turned into coal turned into diamond." Just think for a minute if that was ever proved to be true. The De Beers family would absolutely lose their shit. Literally. But still what if? And what if, instead describing the process of the making of an over-priced ornament, it describes the process of sanctification-- the process of a Power outside ourselves that is remaking us into something we can't imagine?

If it's true, and here I believe the evidence points to a conclusion that it is, then each of us is somewhere on the spectrum between dinosaur dung and a diamond. I know. We agree. I'm a lot closer to one end than the other. But the point, my friend, is that I'm in process. So hang with me, OK? I know I can't change you. I can't even change me in a way that is real and lasting. But I believe in a God Who can, Who is, and Who will continue to do so. The God named I AM.

Just forgive me, please, when the stench is really rank. And recognize, with me, as I recognize about me, that even though I've got a long ways to go, once upon a time it was so much worse. Hang in there. We'll both be shiny some day.

thus spake,

me