Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
’Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are…
– Cat Stevens
The dignity of every human person can be described as infinite.
– Pope Leo XIV (“Magnifica Humanitas,” No. 53)
One name can suddenly lift the spirits: Jimothy.
Jimothy is an unlikely social media star: a raccoon with a rare condition called short spine syndrome. This little ball of a raccoon earned his name from a Seattle resident who first spotted the creature and simply felt that it suited him. He has since stolen many hearts, first of the people of Seattle and then of folks everywhere. He is a meme, a mascot, a tattoo, an icon, an inspiration, a hero. The videos of Jimothy scampering about his business in spite of his difference have been welcomed as a witness to the value of resilience and perseverance in the face of perceived limitations.
Admittedly, I live in the Pacific Northwest, which is prime Jimothy country. But why has Jimothy resonated so strongly with so many of us? It seems we are a nation in need of Jimothy’s ungainly but singular grace.
Yet it also seems our nation is resistant to extending these same graces to our fellow humans. It is a difficult time to be different, or to be seen as “different.” As much as we claim to celebrate the idea that every individual person is a unique, free-spirited soul and a beloved child of God, the reality of appearing to stick out from the crowd can be harsh. Just ask our L.G.B.T.Q. kids, who fear being erased by legislation or worse.
Fitting into the norm may actually reflect federal policy. Stephen Miller, President Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security, in a formal State Department speech, recently described the American political demonstrators he labeled “leftist” and “antifa” this way: “Not one looks normal. They’re all deformed in some way—in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism.” He then assured his presumably like-minded listeners, “You know what is normal.”
You know. The implication: We normal Americans know.
Mr. Miller employed this “us vs. them” screed to sow division among us. The “normal” people, in other words, are the worthy people. They matter. They know trouble when they see it. They must not allow the disruptive people they’ve deemed “not normal” any space to exist in our theoretically free country. The normal people can recognize the not-normal people by their obvious deformities, which show that they do not conform. They do not belong. They are to be rooted out, ostracized, deported if possible, made invisible by any means.
A lot of people who agree with this man call themselves Christians.
But I’m remembering the old question: What would Jesus do? Who would Jesus root out? Who would Jesus call not-normal? Me? You? I’ve been thinking about a well-loved American who died recently, who was hardly normal but who lived her life as a fearless example of individuality. We lost Dolly Parton, an icon of being true to yourself, who used her over-the-top glitzy appearance in conjunction with her many gifts to enrich our lives. She was so unafraid to be different—physically, vocally, spiritually, economically, philosophically—that her fan base is impossible to categorize. From cowboys to drag queens, everyone loved Dolly, and now everyone mourns Dolly. Her musical accomplishments and her extravagant philanthropy will live on as tributes to her honesty and grace and grit. Maybe we should also ask, in times of moral uncertainty: What would Dolly do?
Dolly was a famous person. But in our not-famous lives, many of us know what it is to lose someone who shows us great love, who gives us the strength to stand up for our beliefs and the courage to be ourselves without apology. We who have those folks in our lives are blessed. Perhaps we can be those folks for the people in our lives who count on our love and support.
Sometimes it is challenging to make room for the people we love to be their true selves. We think they can change, be less odd or unsettling. “Be you,” they hear us say, “just not that you.” I just finished reading a book called When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill. The title is apt because the women in the story actually spontaneously erupt into dragons when they can no longer bear to live the small, tight lives they have been prescribed. It is fiction, but maybe we all understand the urge to break out of our false restrictive skins and roar with the fiery delight of embodying our authentic selves.
“The smallness and the largeness of an individual life does not change the fundamental honor and value of every manifestation of our personhood,” Ms. Barnhill writes, which struck me as a deeply spiritual truth. Rather than condemning the not-normal among us, we must honor and value every member of our family of humans, every manifestation of God’s creative love, including ourselves.
Because how do we proclaim the kingdom of God is at hand, as Jesus instructs us to do, if we have not experienced the kingdom of God in our own authentic beings? The call to love God and love others is only possible to answer fully if we love the cherished child of God in us. This may sound like some new-age, self-lovey fluff, but I believe it is necessary if we wish to walk in the holy footsteps of Jesus. If we are unable to embrace our own unique and beloved self, we are unable to embrace anyone else’s unique and beloved self. If we are not striving to strip away the artifice we’ve erected around ourselves, so as to be the marvelous, quirky, gifted, real person God created us to be, we’ll be of little use to others. I myself am a work-in-progress.
As baptized and professed Christians, we are supposed to be different. “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love,” goes the old folk-guitar hymn, and at this point in our national story, that is not exactly what we are known for. We American Christians have a reputation for intolerance and prejudice and self-righteousness. But the tendency to demonize the stranger, the immigrant, the outsider, the odd ducks, the not-normal folks on the margins of society, makes a mockery of the Gospel message of love and inclusion. It is evident that the Gospel message is not what many people see when they see us Christians these days. It is up to us to change that perception. It is up to us to be the not-normal face of Christ in our own unique way, to be old-school Christians and to be known by our love, by our love.
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