We have this odd tendency to think that being normal is a good thing, and being weird is a bad thing. If you think about it, deep down we’re all pretty weird, and it’s impossible to define normal anyway.

Being weird or unusual isn’t a sin. It’s not even a flaw. If God had intended for men to be boring copies, he would have made them that way. He could have created us as cookie-cutter clones that all look the same, act the same, talk the same, and so on. But he didn’t. God created us in innumerable shapes and sizes and colors. He gave us all sorts of ways of thinking.

Look at a lot of our advancements in science, philosophy, or the arts. People with new, abnormal ways of looking at the world are the ones that come up with the great new ideas. Look at Benjamin Franklin. How many other respectable men of his time would have been caught dead running around in the rain with a kite? And yet, that’s what he was doing for the sake of studying electricity.

I find it amusing and sad when I see these religious movements where the adherents seemingly go out of their way to look alike and sound alike. Same clothes, same haircuts, etc. It seems like such a waste.

I’m reminded of Mark 7:5-10 where Jesus takes some religious zealots to task about their obsessions with rituals and traditions; for elevating arbitrary behaviors to moral imperatives.

God didn’t make us like we came out of a mold. Maybe we should stop trying to fit ourselves into molds?

The only normal I care about is the kind in geometry, which you can actually define. The kind of normal that, ironically, is perpendicular to some plane or surface. The normals in geometry don’t lie flat. They stand proud and stick out!