Personal Blog of Dr. Doug Varnado

               Returning home last night I spotted a dog attempting to cross a busy street.  It was already late as I drove down Gallatin Road but the traffic was still heavy.  Glancing in my rear view mirror I began to mentally coax the animal to wait until there was a safe opportunity to make its move.  It was then at the sound of horns I realized my fixation for the safety of the dog had slowed my car to about fifteen miles an hour.  Not only was the animal likely to get hit, I was now a probable candidate for causing a wreck.  Long story; I pulled off, turned around and went back to where I first saw the dog.  Getting out of my car, I observed that the animal had crossed the street safely on its own and was making its way across an empty parking lot. 

               You and I are motivated by many things.  It might be fear or pain; joy or reward.  Social pressures factor in to much of our decision-making.  On the other hand, motivation and preferences are based on more noble or lofty ideals.  Maybe it’s a sense of love that dominates.  We move out of protective instincts that surface when faced with justice or fairness issues.  Our preferences are ignited by many different emotions, feelings or beliefs.  In this Christmas season I’ve thought again and again about God coming into our world.  What an unsettling event that disturbs our preferences.  What a surging power that touches every aspect of our life.  It’s something so big we can’t get our mind around it.  It’s a newness that has been witnessed, a newness that ushers in full humanity into a world filled with disability.  It’s newness though that annoys us.  It’s unsettling.  It shatters all our structure.  It declares that our control and understanding of reality is no longer adequate or functional and it asserts that newness is entirely possible.  Even more disturbing, it’s a newness that we can’t predict or manage according to our cherished interest.  No wonder it’s an undesirable choice.  It insists that the world won’t be ordered according to our preferences or become the service provider for our advantages.  It’s really annoying. 

               The incarnation isn’t just about baby Jesus being born into this world.  It’s about a power and reality at play that we can’t begin to control or manipulate.  It’s a power to make human life possible in every failed place.  Your preference?  If it’s the declaration of this power from God that the world can’t overcome, know that you embrace a minority opinion.  It’s a very dangerous opinion in the arena of the status quo.  However, it is also a very powerful possibility in the world in which we live—the world in which He came.  And, the world continues to be astonished and annoyed.  Yet this dangerous power shatters our complacency and overrides our despair.  It makes life possible in our deadness.  It makes healing possible even in the midst of our hurt and anger and fear.  This power, this God, places us in the crisis of his coming and we are never again the same. 

               Your preference?

Doug Varnado

~ by Doug Varnado on December 30, 2010.

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