My Idea for a Book

    Sarah has a crazy sister.  Who doesn't have a weird sibling? you may ask.  I was talking to her and was commiserating, and agreeing, and thinking, does every family have some member who is strange, or difficult to deal with, or at least a little off?
    The old joke is that one in four people is a little crazy, so if you look at three of your friends and they're normal, then it's you!
    Of course most people can think they're perspective is right, and other people are not normal, and I don't doubt that some may think I'm the one who's crazy.  I'll let you decide that momentarily.
    But here is what I was thinking: if Jesus really was "touched with the feelings of our infirmities," then he must be able to relate, right?  (See Hebrews 4:15.  I know the passage is talking about feeling tempted like we are, yet without sin -- the entire context is 4:14-16)  Truthfully, I was thinking of all the other weird people in the Bible.
    I owe this idea to Tim Hansel, from a book I read, I think, in high school.  There are two problems that Christians have with the Bible: one is that they are unfamiliar with what it says; the other is that they are too familiar with it.  And I started listing off characters: Cain killed Abel -- the original sibling rivalry, remember King David, mourning for Absalom, to the point that Joab had to come to him and tell him, "get your head out of the sand, and look at what effect you're having on your men!"  (See 2 Samuel 19:5-7); Abraham and Lot -- he says to his brother, "we shouldn't fight, you pick one place, I'll go to the other."  So Lot says, "fine, I pick the best plot of land for myself."  Before that, even, there was Sarah sending Hagar to Abraham.  And it's not just the Old Testament, the apostle Paul doesn't want John-Mark along, then later sends for him -- maybe not disordered, but a little odd, isn't it?
And the strangeness isn't absent even in the gospels: Jesus' own disciples are constantly fighting, and being very human -- the "sons of thunder" want to call down fire on the unreceptive towns, John calls himself "the disciple that Jesus loved."  Peter swears never to forsake Jesus and denies Him three times, cursing as he goes...
    But who am I that I should "accuse" the saints?  And am I even close to the truth?
And who in my family is the crazy one?  Sorry, I'm not going to write that here -- though both my wife and I agree, both of us about the other's in-laws, too.
    Don't read the following, I'll write my own chapter next.
    I am a forty year old, oldest son.  I have a brother two years younger than me, and a sister two years younger than that.  Then I have a brother seventeen years younger than me, and a sister nineteen years younger than me.  Do I sound self-centered, describing everyone in terms of me?  I can do one more: my dad died when I was fifteen.  That means that my brother was thirteen and my sister was eleven.  One is a half-brother and one a half-sister, but I've only ever thought of them as my youngest brother and sister, though at times it has felt more like an nephew and niece, but they've always only been siblings, in this together when our mother finally divorced their dad, and he basically disowned them, unfortunately....
   I am a graduate of Bethel College and Seminary -- now Bethel University -- but I have no degree in theology.  I'm a software engineer, but I've studied the Scripture, and try to be careful with the Word of God.  I'm a Christ-follower, but I'll stop short of labeling myself denominationally.
    So that is my basic introduction, boring though it may be, and my thesis is essentially this: crazy is not a new thing, and even the Bible shows characters unvarnished, and today you and I can take some comfort in the fact that God is not shocked by our human situation -- strange though it may be.


Expect this to be re-written over and over again; I welcome and encourage comments -- and criticism is okay, too, even snide remarks are acceptable.  Fire away, just let me know you've read this.