Sanity or Insanity?

A per­son is run­ning down the street scream­ing. You think the per­son is crazy, until you see he is being chased by a Dober­man. A per­son sit­ting per­fectly still on a park bench and star­ing may appear to be the vil­lage idiot, but when you look the same direc­tion of her gaze, you notice that she is watch­ing an amaz­ing sun­set. Each morn­ing a lady walks down the street in front of the church talk­ing loudly to her­self. Given the con­text of her life, she is mak­ing per­fectly good sense. When she arrives at the Waf­fle House, she is greeted by employee-friends that not only under­stand her but appre­ci­ate her. I am the crazy per­son for star­ing and being critical.

When it comes to men­tal health, it is a topsy-turvy world. Some of the cra­zi­est peo­ple on earth are actu­ally the san­est. They may live in small homes or even on the street, but they are not killing them­selves work­ing three jobs for the next car pay­ment. They walk a lit­tle slower than the rest of us, and they do not seem to be headed any­where in par­tic­u­lar. That is a good choice on their part. Does every human action have to have a purpose?

The crazy peo­ple in the days of Jesus sought him out for heal­ing. They met God, due to their insan­i­ties. Nor­mal peo­ple went about their work — too busy to go Messiah-chasing. They had bills to pay and social events to attend. Their days were full of “pro­duc­tive” activ­i­ties. There was not time to check out the lat­est holy per­son in the town square or at the Temple.

So Jesus came and went. Who is crazy now? Lep­ers and demo­ni­acs that sought him out came face to face with God. Pretty good for being out­cast or crazy! The sane and the insane trade places every so often. To this day, it is hard to dis­cern their ulti­mate realities.

Me?

It is a toss-up. To know I am a lit­tle bit crazy is the high­est mea­sure of san­ity. Some­times I do things I do not under­stand that turn out well. Some­times I do things I under­stand that blow up in my face. The jury is still out on san­ity and insan­ity. They thought Jesus was demon pos­sessed. So far he is the only one that has made it out of the grave.