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Blog from Oct 17: I am strange, so is Jimmy Kimmel.
I had a crazy schedule back in seminary. I was granted a merit scholarship as a full-time student, but received only half my tuition based on the assessment of my financial need. That was because my tuition reimbursement from work was counted to cover the other half. But, it required full-time employment. So, to pay for school, I had to work full-time while in full-time classes for my M.Div. Crazy.
I had worked my way through community college and my B.A. Then, I had organized a community church with a related daycare for kids with special needs, logging 70 hr work-weeks. This was nothing new. Besides, seminary would just be for a season.
I certainly felt the exhaustion of those 3 years. I heard lots of folks telling me to slow down, but I had no folks listening to me about the circumstances that made the crazy season necessary. I had one professor of worship who was sure that I was all cerebral and could not connect my heart with my head. She was seeing the blank stares on my face, fighting off sleep.
The comment that I most remember was from a classmate in one of those encounter-type classes, where you get really personal. He said that our relationship had been ‘strange,’ but that he was getting to know me better through that class. I thought over our relationship and we had been in a few classes together and even lived on the same floor for 16 months. That particular class had been the first time I felt like he actually slowed down to notice me and hear what I had to say.
I am realizing that it must have been strange for my classmates to relate to an undiagnosed narcoleptic with full-blown symptoms. It would be strange to talk to someone who seems to have a pleasant blank stare, but can’t carry their part of the conversation or remember what you said. I take heart that I am not alone in being strange. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel has narcolepsy very similar to mine and he seems to have dealt with it through humor. Here’s a short interview with him: http://www.jimmykimmel.net/articles/esquire0803.htm
Now that I have proper treatment, I have time to look back and grieve all the opportunities and socialization that I lost while my brain was asleep (though my eyes may have been open.) I feel very much attuned to people on the fringe, the outcast, the misunderstood, those who are different. Through the gift of being strange, my ministry has been shaped into one of empowering and social justice for those who are not like the rest. I have God to thank for this lesson in Christian humility relating to people who are strange. Who of us is perfect? Let them cast the first stone.
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